Diablo II was released on June 29, 2000. I purchased it about a week or so after that at a Sams Club. It has been almost twelve years since I popped that bad boy in my PC and took off on an adventure that I still play to this day. For years, I've raided Uber-Tristram, killed countless Baal's, Mephisto's and Diablo's and probably a billion of their minions. I love Diablo II. Though it's not without faults, it's one of the few games that has captivated gamers like myself in such a way that Pac-Man and Mario did before it. And after 12 years of longing for a sequel, 12 long years of theory-crafting and being baited at every sequel post on forums and game sites, Diablo III is here.
Diablo III plays drastically different than its predecessor and the first notable mechanic revealed to the player is that of how smoothe and fluid the combat system is. It is not without its polish. There are countless abilities and thousands of skill/rune combinations to play around with. All of the classes feel unique and powerful in their own ways and play off of the group dynamic well. The horde of evil you set off against is vast and imposing. Diablo III's successes stem from its presentation. It's a well polished game that feels fluid straight down to every framerate (when the game isn't lagging due to server issues). So, the inevitable question is "Is Diablo III a worth successor?
No. It is not.
Could it be? Maybe.
Diablo III is not a bad game. Far from it. It is a great game. But it's not Diablo. Not really. It's a polished up action RPG in the same vein and it is a prime example of what greed does to corporations. Gamers should be used to getting screwed. Activision releases the same shooter every year, EA fucked up Mass Effect's ending so bad it's humorous, and now Blizzard has taken what made Diablo and Diablo II so fun and threw that out the window. It's a sad trend in video games lately and it will continue. Narrative is replaced with instant gratification and flashy carrots on sticks to entice the gaming populous and lead them down the dark path of consumerism.
One of the most disappointing things that hit me about the time I finished Act 2 is realizing how bad the story was. The story is shit. It is dumbed down and repetitive. Such intelligent dialogue as "The LORD OF LIES would never betray me!" and repetitive "Hey, I'm Azmodan, I am gonna kill you harder than the time I previously told you that I was going to kill you so yeah that's pretty hard!" Bad guys are forced down your throat, the twists you can see coming a mile away, and all of the villains are simple cookie cutter monsters. Belial is supposed to be "THE LORD OF LIES," yet he's so very bad at it. It's humorous how even your followers are like "Hey, you're lying!" Azmodan, the great strategist that he is portrayed as, simply uses a frontal assault to take out a well fortified castle. It's insulting to my intelligence. Diablo II had a foreboding sense of danger around every turn. Diablo III says "fuck it," and throws every cliche ever written straight in. The story doesn't completely fall flat; the three followers that you gain are a lively bunch, as well as old favorites like Tyreal, Cain, and Adria. The Scoundrel says things that literally make me laugh out loud and the Enchantress adds a lot of mystique to the lore. However, all of these characters can't make up for a half-assed story that falls flat on its face with mundane dialogue and poor antagonists.
The most glaring problem with Diablo III is it's difficulty curve. Normal, Nightmare, and Hell are all pretty easy. The Bossfights are a joke, and the only trouble anyone usually has are with elites and rare monsters with pre-fixes. Those pre-fixes are sometimes really stupid and occasionally make the game un-fun. It sucks to be farming out a random dungeon and come across a fire-chain-invulnerable-vortex-molten or something dumb like that. Named mobs are incredibly easy even though on latter difficulties they have a bajillion hitpoints. The difficulty spikes are sometimes unforgiving. Especially on Inferno. I find my character, after being able to solo an entire dungeon, being one shotted by some random rare that just happens upon me. The spikes in the curve are terrible. Inferno is hard for the sake of being hard, not for the sake of challenge and that takes away from the game quite a bit.
In Diablo II you had all of the tools you needed at your disposal to take down anything at anytime. The difficulty in Diablo III forces you in to builds and play styles that are a must to survive. It's not a game where you can play how you want. You are forced to use invincibility skills, or stuns, or buffs, you don't have the options to use them. You are limited to the spells on your action bar and that's ultimately where combat falls apart. The limiting of those strategic choices make the game boring and empty. It can be frustrating at times to know that you can't beat a certain mob without picking a certain ability. Blizzard's development team have insisted that this is the way the game is intended to be played and that is unfortunate.
Speaking of development problems, itemization is broken. It's really annoying finding a rare barbarian only belt with .07 spirit regen (monk only passive). I understand what they were going for with the extreme randomization of stats but they failed to see the point. We want loot we can use. It's as simple as that. We want to pick up a badass legendary item that owns bosses in a few shots. It's a reward for our time, it's bragging rights, it's a "LOOK AT ME!" kind of thing. There's something about being a character with a really unique sword or armor that is rewarding to me.
All in All, Diablo III is a shadow of what it should be. I know Diablo II had its problems, and it took a long time to fix those problems, but the core gameplay mechanics were sound. Diablo III doesn't have this going for it. I don't think it can survive the wait. Drastic changes need to come in order for Diablo III to stand up beside its predecessor, it just doesn't seem like Blizzard is taking that seriously. It really isn't a bad game, but I fear that it will be a wasted opportunity for Blizzard, a wasted chance in place of something wonderful.
7 out of 10.
