Also, apologies for spoilers. They're necessary.
Story
Taking place 20 years after the events of the second game, the basic premise is that Sanctuary has been under relative peace & quiet, not knowing that everything was almost going to end all those years ago. Deckard Cain, a legendary figure in the Diablo franchise, has returned to the now ruined Tristram Cathedral to investigate a prophecy about a return of the demons. Tagging along for the journey is Leah, his niece. Not to reveal anything (major that is), but Leah has an incredible power within her, which at first manifests as vivid dreams. All is eerily calm within the ruined holy building, until the first sign of the prophecy, a falling star, appears high in the sky. Leah & Deckard Cain are leaving the building, but the star breaks through the roof, killing (at first) Cain, and awakening the dead that attack the town of New Tristram and the surrounding countryside. After a few days, the player comes to the rescue, and the story kicks into high gear.
From the beginning, we have something that sounds like a good story. A world of calm, interrupted by the rise of demonic forces: it's an interesting premise. Unfortunately, the story somewhat collapses after getting past the beginning. Once the player gets further into the story, it becomes very disjointed. To make things worse, there are certain points in the story that are far to obvious (to be fair, on your very first playthrough you won't necessarily notice these things. Hell, even I was surprised by a few of the things that happened, but only a few things). For example, once Adria (the same Adria from the original Diablo) is introduced in Act 2, you automatically get the vibe that something isn't right with her. This vibe increases over the second act, and only heightens over the course of Act 3, accumulating into her betrayal and causing Leah to transform into the Lord of Terror (More spoilage: Leah is Adria daughter, and her dad was the Dark Wanderer from Diablo 2 before he fully transformed).
That is just one example of "WTF" within the game. There are a host of other things that make no sense at all, and make you ask one question...why? For example:
- Tyrael is black (sorry for sounding racist)
- You fight the Skeleton King again (This is somewhat explained, but I'm not going into it)
- The Butcher is resurrected (he died in the original Diablo)
- The Black Soulstone already having four of the demon lords within it (Andariel, Duriel, Mephisto, Baal. Yeah, this is explained after you acquire the Black Soulstone, but it isn't explained clearly)
- Izual coming back in Act 4 (you killed him in Act 4 of Diablo 2)
There are far more "WTF" moments in the game than what I listed, but to put them all hear would take up way too much space.
Setting
One thing the Diablo franchise always did was present to the player great environments, and D3 is no different. Right away, the player is greeted by medieval visuals with the town of New Tristram, and the ruins of the old town. As you travel through Act 1, you feel familiar vibes as the gothic nature of the architecture and the surrounding countryside permeates the mood (things take a turn towards the disturbing when you enter Leoric's torture chambers, as blood, gore, and torture devices abound all over the place). After that, you are treated to the exotic deserts & Persian influences of Act 2. You travel through barren wastes, an oddly calming oasis full of lush foliage, and the ruins of a dark wizard. From there, you travel to the bleak local of Act 3. When you first appear hear, you stand on top of a snow-covered tower, below you is a battlefield covered with the bodies of both men & demons. The keep in which you reside is just as bleak as the outside, and combat against the enemy permeates the whole place. When you muster the courage, you eventually journey onto the bloodied snow, and due battle with numerous fiends. You continue your fight, reaching the gates of the demonic army, kill the gatekeeper, and storm inside. The crater that the demons inhabit is pulsating with corrupted flesh, and overgrown with demonic architecture. After killing Azmodan (and getting betrayed by Adria), you journey to Heaven for the fourth & final act of D3. All of the locales leading up to Heaven have been bleak in some ways, and the last act is no exception. However, before you discover how badly damage it is, Heaven is the most gorgeous of the four acts. Flowing structures, shining colors, and pristine palates appear everywhere, even when the demonic influence begins to take hold.
I loved each of the act environments. I loved how they looked, and I loved how they feel. My only complaint is that this game is more colorful than the previous two, but I'll talk about that later.
Characters
This is an area in Diablo 3 that succeeds & fails. Within D3, you have a return of the obvious characters (Deckard Cain, Tyrael, Asheara from D2 surprisingly enough, and of course, Diablo), and a bevy of brand new characters. The new characters add new flavors to the game, but those same flavors disappear rather quickly. Just about all of the secondary characters are barely memorable, and those few that are memorable either die right off the bat, or you move on too quickly to actually remember them.
It can get even worse for the primary characters. Perhaps the most tragic out of all the main characters, Deckard Cain, doesn't even make it through all of Act 1 (he gets killed in his own house...in a rather pathetic manner, I might add). Of all the primary characters that are important to the whole franchise, Cain is the most important, and they kill him right off the bat. Leah has potential to become a great primary character, but when she becomes Diablo, she's completely discarded (save for a few mentions of her name, and one of Diablo's minions disguised as her to distract the player). Tyrael has been an established character since Diablo 2, and he's just as established here. However, something seems missing from him. He's seems weaker, and just doesn't feel quite as powerful as he normally is (excluding the obvious). As to how Asheara fits in as a primary character, I'll leave that up to you.
Gameplay
Out of all the aspects of this game, it's the gameplay that has made Diablo 3 a controversial game. With all of the changes that were made, it would take another post to talk about was actually changed, so for the purpose of this portion of the review, I'll be focusing on these elements: classes, skills, inventory, crafting, monster affixes, and the AH & RMAH.
Classes
Just like Diablo 2, D3 gives us 5 classes to play with, each of them fitting the standard rpg roles.
Barbarian: Melee & Pure Damage
Monk: Melee mixed with Healing & Defense
Demon Hunter: Ranged & Control
Witch Doctor: Caster mixed with Damage & Control
Wizard: Caster & Pure Damage, with a hit of melee
Although these classes have their own style & appearance, they each have throwbacks to previous classes. For the Barbarian, there's no need to explain which class he comes from. The Monk is an interesting mix of the Assassin's melee attacks & the Paladin's healing & defensive skills, making a unique class. For the Demon Hunter, it's apparent that the class use the Amazon's ranged abilities, coupled with the Assassin's ability to use traps. The Witch Doctor is almost like the Necromancer in regards with his hexes, summoning spells, and ability to use poison, but he does have a hint of fire Sorceress in him. We conclude with the Wizard, who is almost a copy of the Sorceress, save for having a bit more variety due to having some illusion spells availability.
All of these classes are fun to play, but making more than one of each is rather pointless, because it'll just be the same as your first. Unfortunately you can't create an infinite amount of characters like you could in Diablo 2, as you only have 10 character slots available for you.
Skills
Both Diablo 2 & Diablo 3 have many things in common with this regard, but Diablo 3 is far different than it's predecessor. In Diablo 2, each character had 30 skills (10 for each of their 3 categories), and they were a mix of active & passive, plus you also put skill points into the active skills to make them stronger over time. In Diablo 3, each characters has 30 skills, and about half as much in terms of passives. You don't put points into your skills this time, as they level up as you level up. In one interesting move, each of the skills have 5 modifier runes that you earn over time (the passives are also earned over time). Some runes modify damage, increase %, or something else beneficial.
The skill system within this game is interesting. There's definitely a lot of variety within it, but one of the chief problems about this is that overtime, players have decided to concentrate on just a few active & passive skills, stagnating any form of class creativity. This has been one of the big problems since the game's release, and little has been done to fix it.
Inventory
This aspect of the game has changed greatly, coming some ways from D2. In that game, the various items you picked up took various amounts of space, depending on how big it actually was. The player's inventory was somewhat restrictive in D2, but there was the storage chest that would fit more items into it. This time around, items in Diablo 3 only take up 1 or 2 spaces, and your character's inventory can hold far more in the way of items. Your storage chest is also improved, as it now has 3 separate sections to it, allowing you to hold onto far more items than in D2. Granted you have to upgrade it to actually have all 3 sections (this is quite expensive), but it's a fair tradeoff.
Crafting
In Diablo 2, the only source of crafting was when you found the Horadric Cube. This allowed you to create brand new items, as well as upgrade gems. D3 has changed this aspect radically, splitting the cube's ability into the Blacksmith and the Jeweler. The Blacksmith can produce weapons & armor for you, and he can also salvage items in your inventory to procure crafting materials. The Jeweler is much more basic in his function, with his only abilities of combining lesser gems to create a greater gem, as well as removing gems from socketed items (prices in the regard depend on how powerful the item is, and how strong the gem in the item is).
This is all rather interesting, but I rarely use the Blacksmith unless I had to create an item a character was missing or I had to upgrade my follower. The Jeweler I used a little more often, since I commonly take out gems to place them in stronger items. Perhaps the biggest problem with these craftsmen is that it's very expensive to get them to the highest level, and can take a lot of time as well.
Monster Affixes
Like the unique monsters of Diablo 2, the uniques of D3 having various affixes on them, giving them an advantage over the other creatures surrounding them. They can roughly be divided into 3 groups: offensive, defensive, & utility. Some of the affixes are standard stuff (extra health), but a couple are more interesting (Jailer, for instance). On Normal difficulty, uniques have just one affix, but as the difficulty increases, so do the amount of affixes. On Nightmare, uniques have two affixes. In Hell, 3 affixes, and in Inferno, uniques have four affixes (I believe this has changed recently, but I'm not quite sure). This definitely increases the challenge, but it can also increase the difficult in a bad way. In many instance in Hell, my Wizard had to outrun many groups that had a unique in them, as the unique had a combination of affixes that just made it difficult, if not impossible, to combat against.
AH & RMAH
We finally come to perhaps the most controversial aspect of Diablo 3, and on in which most players (including myself) believe has corrupted the game. Essentially the legal versions of the 3rd party website that sold items for WoW & D2, the AH & RMAH are where you can buy & sell items for your characters, provided you have the right amount of currency (The AH takes gold, while the RMAH takes your actual money). I have no need for both of these, as I like to get my items the old fashioned way...through hard work! On top of that, there have been many bugs reported within both of these systems. So many, in fact, that both had to be closed on many occasions. Despite the shutdowns & fixing, there's still problems, and I don't want to lose money, whether real or virtual, to a broken system.
I'd get all philosophical about the AH & RMAH, and why I believe they ruined D3, but that'll have to wait for another post.
Graphics & Sound
Once again, these two aspects both succeed & fail. Let me just get off my chest: I'm right there with everybody else that says this game is far too colorful. The first two games had color to them, but they weren't so...bright. They had depth to them, and they didn't feel WoWish. Yeah, that description has been used ever since this game was first revealed, but there's some legitimacy to it. With that said however, Diablo 3 is a good looking game. The graphics engine is much more advanced that the first two games, and even comes with a limited physics engine (it's pretty cool to see a zombie's body fly into a wall after you've punched it in the face).
One thing that the Diablo franchise always seemed to do right was it's soundwork. The music is highly recognizable, and hearing that infamous guitar music in Tristram in Diablo 1 (click "***" to enjoy), and it makes a partial comeback in Diablo 2 when you go to rescue Cain. When D2 came onto the scene, the score was expanded, bringing in newer music that's still popular. It got more refined when the D2 mission pack was release, as it brought in music composed by a professional orchestra, and it sounded incredible. D3 is no different in this regard, as it used music from not 1 but 2 different orchestras, and also brought in choirs to do some vocal work. All in all, it's really great sounding stuff.
Before I conclude this portion of the review, I do want to comment on the sounds within D3. Like the graphics, the sounds of this game are much more improved and realistic that the first two games. Barrels breaking sound like barrels breaking, and the howls & screeches of the various creatures sound very believable...if said various creatures were real. Just like the music, the sounds...sound great!
Overall & Rating
Here's the thing: I know I should hate this game. I know I should hate the broken story. I know I should hate the eviscerated gameplay mechanics. I know I should hate the more colorful look. I know I should hate the shortsighted decisions that went into this. However, I just can't bring myself to actually hate Diablo 3. Despite all of the drama & bullshit, I have had an absolute blast playing this game. Whether it's blind faith in Blizzard, or an optimistic mind, I'm not quite certain. Simply put, I can't fully hate D3, but I can't fully praise it either.
Diablo 3 gets a 5 out of 10.
See you all later this week, when I take a step into the kinky side of things. Until then, stay Otaku!
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