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I consider the first two Diablo games to be classics. Diablo paved the way for loot-focused ARPGs as we know them today and Diablo II shaped the genre even further. In today’s world, they definitely show their age but are still fun and I feel they hold up really well. Personally, I wasn’t into the genre when they were in their prime. It was Diablo III that got me into it. It’s funny, too, because when Diablo III launched, it sucked and I was really bummed because I bought the Collector’s Edition. You might be wondering why I got the Collector’s Edition if I wasn’t even into the genre. I don’t have a great answer. It looked cool and I guess I was hoping to get into it. That is what ended up happening but not right away. It was the Loot 2.0 patch that reeled me in. I kept hearing how it made the game significantly better and I figured since I spent all that money on the Collector’s Edition, I might was well give it another shot. I’m glad I did because I got hooked.
Developed by Blizzard Team 3 and published by Blizzard Entertainment, Diablo III was released for PC in May, 2012, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in September, 2013, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in August, 2014, and Switch in November, 2018. An expansion called Reaper of Souls was released in 2014 and added a bunch of new features to the game including a new act, character class, and the Adventure Mode among other things. For this review, I played the PC version. I think it’s interesting that Diablo III is the game that got me into the genre because it features some significant changes to mechanics established in its predecessors, the games that basically defined the genre.
The story is set in the dark fantasy world of Sanctuary, years after the events of Diablo II. After a mysterious star falls from the sky, the protagonist, the Nephalem, arrives to investigate and discovers it’s not a star but a stranger and learns of the arrival of demon lords. The story plays out in four acts and the Reaper of Souls expansion adds a fifth act. The story here goes that the former Archangel of Wisdom known as Malthael steals the Black Soulstone, an extremely powerful artifact capable of holding many souls including the souls of the Great Evils, and plans to wipe out humanity and put and end to the Eternal Conflict. Obviously, eradicating the human race is not cool so the Nephalem sets out to stop him.
Ultimately, I think the plotlines are okay and I like how they flesh out some returning characters. But I do think the tone and atmosphere are not on the same level as those of the previous games. Diablo III does not retain the grittiness. It’s colorful and bold and even though I do like the art style and presentation, I admit the dark and sinister atmosphere of its predecessors is lost here. At least I think it is. The story and presentation are also accompanied by some really hammy dialogue. In my opinion, the Diablo games have always been a little hammy but Diablo III seems to fully embrace this style, resulting in a much more campy experience.
First I want to briefly talk about the loot system before Loot 2.0. I want to state again that Diablo III sucked at launch but that is just my opinion, of course. I think it sucked because the loot sucked. Loot is a big part of the game. Finding new shiny toys to play with. The thing is, the toys or loot need to be worthwhile every now and again. Meaning the items you find need to be better than what you currently have. Not every single item that drops needs to be amazing or Legendary but I feel good loot should drop frequently enough to keep you engaged and hunting for more. There is an addictive quality to it and I think this is even more important in Diablo III than its predecessors, mainly because of the changes made to character building and I’ll get into that in a bit. The drops were terrible and I blame the Auction House for the abysmal loot system. For those that don’t know, the Auction House was where players could auction off items for in-game gold or real money and I believe the developers balanced the loot drops around it. All I know is that everything that dropped for me was shit. It wasn’t fun and that’s why I gave up on the game before reaching Act II. Evidently, there was a lot of complaints and Blizzard rectified the problem by implementing Loot 2.0 and eliminating the Auction House.
Diablo III features a Campaign and Adventure mode. The campaign is structured similarly to that of Diablo II. The Adventure mode was introduced in Reaper of Souls and allows you to visit any of the acts or areas and complete Bounties and Rifts which are like random dungeons. Several things from the previous games have been carried over. Each act takes you to a different location and features a town or hub area where you can interact with vendors or artisans and access your stash. Outside of towns are multiple areas and dungeons to explore. In typical Diablo fashion, the environment layouts are randomly generated and there are plenty of monsters to kill and quests to complete.
Before jumping into the gameplay, you must select your character class and name your character. The classes include Barbarian, Crusader, Demon Hunter, Monk, Necromancer, Witch Doctor, and Wizard. For my playthrough, I chose the Wizard. You can once again create a Hardcore character which means permadeath and opt to participate in whatever the current Season is. Seasons are basically the successor to the Ladder seasons in Diablo II and come with exclusive rewards. Diablo III can be played solo or with others and the game features numerous difficulty levels, some of which need to be unlocked, and higher difficulties mean tougher monsters but better rewards. Diablo III is easily the most accessible game in the series up to this point and one reason why is the difficulty. On Normal, the game is extremely easy. So easy that dying would actually be difficult. At least in my experience. I’ve played through this game with different classes over the years and breezed through it every time on Normal. I would say you have to not be looking at the screen for a significant period of time to die. On the plus side, you can raise the difficulty at any time.
Another reason Diablo III is more accessible than the previous entries is because the developers streamlined some things and made some things more convenient, you might even call them quality of life changes. For example, identify and town portal scrolls and potions have been cut. Loot now includes crafting materials which don’t take up inventory space. Legendary and Set items are the only items that need to be identified which can be done in towns. A town portal can be opened at the press of a button or from the action bar. A health potion can be consumed at the press of a button and has a cooldown. Each character class has their own consumable resource for skills and that resource will regenerate.
What really separates Diablo III from its predecessor is how character progression is handled. Building a character is now radically different. It’s basically a different style or system entirely. Almost everything you learned about character building in Diablo II is thrown out the window here. For one thing, you no longer pump points into attributes and skills. At least not before reaching Paragon levels. Skills and Runes (which are skill modifiers) are automatically unlocked at certain levels. This new system means every character will slowly gain access to all their skills as they level up. Furthermore, you can switch between different skills and runes at any time outside of battle. But wait, there’s more. After reaching the level cap, your character will start earning Paragon levels and can spend points on different attributes across multiple Paragon trees.
The changes made to character progression may sound terrible. In some ways, the concept of “building” a character, which is a big part of Diablo II, has been eliminated. Diablo III eliminates the need to commit to anything. That’s the big difference. Another way to look at it is you can switch between builds or playstyles on the fly for any character class. No need to worry about pumping points into the wrong skills or stats and hitting a wall in that regard. No need to reset anything. So you might be wondering where the fun comes from? The answer is simple. Loot. Gear. Character “builds”, if you want to call them that, are now reliant on gear. What you have equipped. Unlike Diablo II, you don’t have to worry about how stats, skills, and gear all relate to each other. Instead, you just have to be mindful of gear and how it affects your character. All the focus is placed on gear. This is why loot is extremely important here and since Loot 2.0, the drops are great and good stuff seems to drop frequently. I’ve heard some argue that good loot isn’t as rewarding as that of Diablo II simply because of how frequently good stuff drops. I can understand that argument and I don’t have a solid counter. But I do enjoy this system. I find that the frequency of good loot drops make the hunt for more very addictive.
Items come in different quality levels and the better the quality, the better the bonus properties they offer and some properties will benefit skills. That could mean it might be best to change your skills to match what the items benefit for maximum potential. Some items have sockets that you can insert gems into for additional bonus properties. Diablo III also allows you to create and modify items. You can craft items, remove gems from sockets, change an item’s appearance, and even change an item’s bonus properties. There are vendors or artisans in the towns that can do these things. Then there’s Kanai’s Cube which is similar to the Horadric Cube in Diablo II. Thankfully, Kanai’s Cube comes with instructions and recipes you can reference in-game. The cube allows you to extract legendary power from items, reforge legendary items, upgrade items, and augment items among other things. Needless to say, Diablo III gives you plenty of ways to customize your gear.
Each act has quests to complete and some come with bonus objectives. As you make your way through the campaign, you’ll unlock companions that you can select to follow you around to help you kill monsters. They will level up and you can choose what skills you want them to utilize and even equip them with items. Each act is set in a different location and will take you to numerous areas and dungeons. You’ll get to explore a cathedral, caves, crypts, fields, caverns, sewers, and ruins among other areas and you’ll often come across traps that you can use against enemies. Killing multiple monsters in succession will grant you an experience bonus and destroying multiple objects in succession will grant you a speed bonus. Destroyable objects and monsters are everywhere and you’ll sometimes encounter Elite monsters which are stronger than their standard counterparts. You want to be on the lookout for Treasure Goblins or their variants. They will run away from you but they drop a lot of loot if you kill them. Every act also comes with bosses and on the Normal difficulty level, they don’t pose much of a threat.
The Adventure mode is one of my favorite things about Diablo III. It’s basically the campaign opened up. You can travel to any waypoint in any act at any time and you can do whatever you want without any narrative interference. Furthermore, there are certain areas that are exclusive to Adventure mode. I think this mode is a great alternative to just running through the campaign repeatedly. It’s also easy to jump into and enjoy. You don’t have to complete quests or follow any kind of path. You’re free to do what you want whenever you want. You can in fact create a new character and level them up in the Adventure mode. Bounties are the mode’s form of objectives. It’s basically a randomized objective system and each act will have multiple bounties to complete. The objectives include things like kill a specific enemy or boss, clear a dungeon, complete an event, and rescue people. The Adventure mode is also where you can access Nephalem Rifts which are randomized dungeons designed to test your worth. Then there’s Greater Rifts which offer even more challenges. Completing a greater rift will grant you access to an NPC that can upgrade Legendary Gems.
Despite the art style and presentation being a departure from the previous games, I do like the look. For it’s time I think it was one of the best looking games in the genre. It’s colorful, the cut scenes look amazing, and there’s plenty of visual diversity. Every act has its own theme, there’s a good variety of monsters, and the environments are well detailed. Also, the visual and gore effects look amazing. Enemies can go flying, explode leaving behind blood splatter, and disintegrate. It all results in very satisfying combat and kills. It’s only a shame the presentation abandons the gritty style of its predecessors. The atmosphere just isn’t as sinister or ominous. The music also contributes to this. While the soundtrack is good, I don’t think it’s quite as good as that of the previous games. On the technical side, I did not encounter any issues.
I had a great time with Diablo III. In my opinion, it wasn’t that good out of the gate but updates have turned it into a truly great game. Diablo III is special to me mainly because it’s the first loot-focused ARPG I really got into. It was because of my experience with Diablo III that I decided to check out other games in the genre. As good as Diablo III is, it is different than the previous entries. The changes made to character progression and the bigger focus on gear make Diablo III feel more like a different type of game than a successor in some ways. In fact, the changes are so big that I don’t like comparing it to Diablo II. I view them as two different systems. Both work and have their ups and downs. However, I would say Diablo II is more involved and Diablo III is more accessible. Diablo II is about how stats, skills, and gear all relate to each other to define your character. Diablo III is all about gear and thanks to Loot 2.0, good loot drops are frequent enough to keep the experience fun and addictive.
Diablo III is so reliant on gear that a poor loot system would bring the game down as was proven by whatever the fuck was going on before Loot 2.0. Again, this is just my opinion. The new loot system really turned things around but it does kind of show that Diablo III is a one-trick pony. Without good loot, it’s boring. Almost everything else regarding character building is done automatically. You don’t have to be mindful of what stats or attributes are best for your character class since those improve automatically. Up until you reach the Paragon levels, your character simply improves automatically and skills and runes are unlocked automatically. Plus, when compared to the previous games, certain aspects have been cut or streamlined to a degree that makes Diablo III very accessible and easy to understand. There’s basically no challenge on the Normal difficulty level but, luckily, there are plenty of difficulty levels to play on. Then there’s the Adventure mode which is one of the best additions to the game. It’s a great alternative to the campaign, makes for fun end game content, and is easy to jump into.
I absolutely recommend Diablo III. Blizzard really turned it around since launch. It’s a fun and addictive ARPG with endless replayability. Furthermore, the actual combat – the hack and slash gameplay – is fun and satisfying. I can understand how Diablo II fans may not like some of the changes here but I look at Diablo III as a different type of ARPG. One thing is for sure, it’s extremely accessible. It’s also packed with content and should keep players occupied for a while. Definitely check it out.