So Diablo 3 finally came out after a decade of waiting. What would be in store for us, what awaited around the corner we wondered. Well wonder we didn't really have to. If you'd been following the development of the game over the last 5 years or so you'd know that the team handling it were the same group that made World of Warcraft. With that knowledge in mind you already know what to expect and that is a really boring ass game. But what did we actually get? A boring ass game of course!
Story:
The story in Diablo was never one to email home about, but Diablo 2 anyway had really amazing cutscenes a clear sense of dread, and a certain mystery and wonderment about the brief scenes played out between Marius and the Wanderer. In no instance do we get those moments of character intrigue for Diablo 3 sadly. We're supposed to care about Dekkard Cain's relative but she comes off as nothing more than a damsel in distress. She has no backbone to her and rolls with the punches. We don't root for or against her like every other character in the game...except Tyrael.
For me I rooted against Tyrael since he was a shadow of his awesomeness in Diablo 2. They made him mortal...and they made him a black guy for absolutely no other reason than to fill a minority quota. Seriously, go back and play Diablo 2 that was NOT a black guy voice in the slightest and this has nothing to do with race at all either this is about character consistency. Nothing annoys me more than when a character is completely wrong or changed between shows, or games or whatever. It throws me off completely and bugs the shit out of me. It's just like how Marvel made a black Spiderman and actually this annoyance has less to do with the "change" in character so to speak as much as it has to do with the fact that it totally takes away from the uniqueness of the Spiderman accident itself thus diminishing the character. Oh, so just everyone can be Spiderman now eh? To quote The Incredibles "If everyone was super, no one would be." I also hate She Hulk in the exact same way I hate the black Spiderman idea. Both are just cash grabs to get a certain minority interested in their product and aren't there for the sake of story. These characters are made to take the easy way out and that's it. These "creatives" take an established idea and insert a different gender or race instead of actually making a new character. Good examples would be Wonder Woman, or Static Shock where they are clearly characters of their own and can be liked or disliked on their own merits rather than on the comparison of their origin counterpart.
It's these types of lifeless decisions that pander on throughout the game. I could have been swayed to like the new Tyrael had he been interesting too. But no, he was all JUSTICE prevails all blargh blargh. That was nothing like the Tyrael of the first game who was there to be just a guide for the humans in their plight.
But it's more than that, there's no sense of urgency to the quest. It never feels like the evil in the game is building to anything at all. You reach the final chapter and BOOM Diablo starts fucking with the Angles taking over their realm. In Dibalo 2 you had a constant sense of urgency since you were always trying to catch up to Marius and the Wanderer. The game gives you that "just missed em'" sense while playing and it keeps you going. There is an immense build up of impending evil through the Wanderer and through Marius's depiction of the Wanderer slowly becoming Diablo and once that clock finished all hell would break loose! Diablo 3 did none of this at all. It was haphazardly thrown together and the acts don't even feel connected. I'm very scared to see how much worse the expansion can potentially be.
Gameplay:
You never know what you're missing until it's gone, and that's the case with Diablo 3. Here is where WoW seeps into the game. Here is where it stops being a Diablo game where you can spam skills and go nuts like a good action game lets you and instead bars you from that frenetic gameplay forcing upon you the dreaded COOLDOWN!! Yes...everything in this game has a cooldown factor that is so irritating and unpleasant the fun is just lost on the game. I chose to use a Barbarian who has no less than 3 skills with a TWO minute cooldown! One of them is just summoning shitty barbarian familiars that only last 15 seconds and don't do shit. This would be like in Diablo 2 if the Necromancer could only summon a golem once every 2 minutes and then it dies immediately. Hell leap attack has a friggin cooldown. Everything has a cooldown and it's NOT fun.
There's cooldown to teleport for god sakes! 90% of all the fun I had in Diablo 2 was teleporting around Act 3 to quickly get to Mephisto to kill him. Can't do that anymore. Not to mention no move was as fun to do as Frozen Orb in Diablo 2 and there is no comparable move in Diablo 3. Whirlwind thankfully doesn't have a cooldown, but it's terrible. It's downright useless.
This is exactly how WoW is played but here's the thing....Diablo is a single player game where you are allowed to travel in parties to play if need be. WoW had cooldown in skills so team synergy plays a more vital role. Putting imposing cooldown in a single player game causes hefty imbalances and very unfun situations. Take for instance the idea that since the Barb nor the Monk can spam their best abilities, if they cannot assail tough monsters in that one burst where they CAN use their shit, then they have to run away and kite monsters. This is NOT how a melee class should operate. Diablo 2 got around this by allowing the melee classes full range of their abilities and gave priority to life leech options that only the melee class could take full advantage of allowing them to stay in a fight and tank the way they're supposed to. As it stands now in Diablo 3, melee classes are completely useless.
The other major problem with the game is the item drop mechanics. Diablo 2 was addictive due to being able to spam magic find and hunt specific enemies for loot. Diablo 3 fails in this regard in every way. Firstly, legendary items are garbage. There is no reason to want a Grandfather sword or Windforce bow anymore. There's no "items" to aspire to getting. The only thing you are interested in seeing are Yellow items with high DPS. So items are no longer interesting, they are nameless and thus not any fun to treasure grind for. No longer can you get excited seeing a Soj ring, but instead you hope to see an item that has XXX # of DPS.
The final issues I take is of personal preference. First attaining the max level is too easy in this game. It was much more enjoyable in Diablo 2 to basically never get to the max level. When you're treasure hunting far too often you'd go 20 hours with nothing to show for it except maybe you got another level. So you GOT something out of it, it didn't feel like your time was wasted. In Diablo 3 you can go that same 20 hours with literally nothing to show for it.
I also dislike in Diablo 3 that you can't pick skills. There are no builds anymore, you're just a set of numbers now defined by your gear. And none of this is helped by the addition of the auction house which is another clear cash grab. Not only does it further reduce the uniqueness of items and builds it pits all items found in the game into one centralized location dashing fun experiences in Diablo 2 you'd get such as having the Cow King drop a Grandfather sword and everyone gathering around to take a look at it on the trade screen if said person who picked it up allowed a viewing (which they always did). These are memorable moments the auction house can never produce.
There is one bright shining spot in the gameplay of Diablo 3. Item drops are now specific per character so no more mad dashes after a boss dies to gather up all the items. This is really the best addition to the Diablo series ever, sadly marred by all the other poor choices.
Sound:
Overall the music is better than Diablo 2 but the sound effects aren't. My major complaint here is the utter lack of the Barbarian's "HURRR" noise during a leap. Miss that soooo much.
Graphics:
It looks like WoW and that isn't a compliment.
Conclusion:
Through patches much of these issues can be addressed and Blizzard has spoken on the issues with melee characters and the shittyness of Legendary items so there is hope for the game. As it stands now though I can't be bothered to keep playing it.
*HURR HURR HURR - Barbarian, Diablo 2 Never stops being funny.*
No comments:
Post a Comment