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Diablo III Review

On May 28, 2012 by Ash Meehan

Combat in Diablo III is quite fun because of how easy the controls are to pick up and play. The game sees you only primarily use six buttons to flight and move around in the game which might sound poor, but when you look deeper you learn that combat is more complex then it first appears.

You will be using the left mouse button probably the most in the game as this is your basic attack, but it is also the button you use to walk around on the world. Other buttons you will use are the right mouse button for a more powerful attack and keys 1,2,3,4 which correlate to skills on your hotbar and lastly the q button which is uses to quickly drink a potion when you are in trouble.

As I just mentioned there are four skills attached to your hotbar and each skill is different to the next as each skill has a different purpose. Slot 1 skills are defensive based, slot 2 skills are techniques based, slot 3 skill are focus based and slot four skill are mantra based. Now going on things get more complex.

Each slot and left and right mouse button attack have four skills which are unlocked over time and change how you play the game for example two of the monks potential defensive skills are a healing skill or a stun skill, so by picking one you are sacrificing something else. Now to add to depth of the skill you have runes which you slowly unlock and are skill specific so for example if you pick the heal spell you can attach a rune which means healing yourself damages monsters around you or you gain additional life from using the skill.

The various skills people could learn

Outside of the six attack focused moves you have passive skills which you gain as you level. The passive skills give players a buff in various areas for example increased energy regeneration etc. Each player can use up to three different passive skills at a time when you fully unlock all passive slots at level 30.

Ok we looked at combat now let’s look at the monsters we will be using the various attacks on. There are four types of monsters whose difficulty is marked by the colour of their name the weakest monsters have white names then you have those with blue/yellow/some purple names which you might come across and finally bosses which can be recognised by a demon head on the minimap.

As you can guess each one is more difficult than the next, each level of monster requiring more work for example the monster beyond white names have special ability for example Waller monsters which can wall you off, some drop poison circles which you must get out of quickly etc.

Boss battles as you would expect give the greatest challenge and you might take a few attempts to beat them. Bosses perform basic attacks and wide array of special attacks which will keep you on your toes for example the first boss does dash attacks, area of effect cone attacks and also various parts of the floor catch fire which have to be avoided.

A high level monster players could come across that can fire mortars

When you are done fighting and filled your bag with the spoils of war then it is time to head back to your local waypoint and sit back and do some crafting. There are two forms of crafting which is blacksmithing and jewel crafting. Blacksmithing let’s you craft better armour and weapons while jewel crafting allows you to make more powerful gems for sockets in armour.

As a whole crafting is rather boring because to gain materials to craft say armour you just need to salvage blue or higher level armour you have collected on your journey and use the materials you collect from that. Jewel crafting is also rather boring as you have to collect jewels which drop off most monsters and combine them together to make more powerful jewels.

Levelling crafting and learning to make new items is rather simple at lower levels as you just have to pay X amount to either crafting artisan, but at higher levels you also need to use page of blacksmithing/jewel crafting.

There is one major issue I have with crafting and that is with blacksmithing because it feels like you are rolling a dice and hoping you get the numbers you want because when you look at what you are making you will get two random bonus stats and if these stats aren’t worth anything or don’t suit your hero then you have just waster a ton of money and materials.

 

A look at how crafting is done in game

A look at how crafting is done in game

If crafting new powerful items isn’t your thing then the auction house might be your thing. Diablo III’s auction house allows you to buy items placed on it from other Diablo III players for in game money. The auction house is rather simple to use just fill in search fields and look for items you can use and buy, or if you are selling drop it in and set a starting price, length of time and a buyout price if you want. If you have played World of Warcraft or other mmorpg you will be at home with this auction house.

In a planned future update Blizzard will be adding a real money auction house which will allow you to tell items for real money. The feature was supposed to be implemented shortly after launch but was delayed which is leading to speculation that Blizzard might drop the feature.

The addition of the auction house into the game was most likely the reason why Blizzard decided to make the game online only so they could stop people cheating on the auction house.

Diablo III offers four difficulty modes which are unlocked as you complete the previous difficulty mode. The modes are called normal, nightmare, hell and inferno. Each new difficulty mode while making monster tougher offers better loot for you to wear, sell or just salvage. When you complete the game in one mode your character is sent back to the starting area to begin the new mode, but fortunately you retain your level and gear to start the adventure all over again.

There is also another mode called hardcore mode which is unlocked for all heroes you make once you get one hero past level 10. Hardcore mode offers a great challenge for players as this mode contains perma-death, so be careful going into fights.

Graphically the game is pretty similar to previous Blizzard titles, but with a darker colour pallet to bring home the demonic theme of the game.

Sound in Diablo III is well done and comes across well in areas with a lot of background action, but I did find one issue which was when I was trying to listen to lore books which are scattered throughout the game any other sound would drown out what was being read out. Also finally the voice work by characters was well done.

In the future players can expect to see PVP added to Diablo III, but there is no confirmed release date for this feature, apart from this and real money auction house there is no major content due for Diablo III according to Blizzard.

Finally players have discovered that Blizzard added two secret areas into the game for players to find and enjoy.

Conclusion:

After the shaky start I would have to say Diablo III was a pretty good game, but not perfect. As a player who has not played any of the previous Diablo titles I really enjoyed it and didn’t feel like I was missing anything apart from maybe some of the lore.

SCORE: 90%

Pro

  • Easy to play with friends
  • Combat was easy to pick up and difficult to master
  • Secret areas for players to find and enjoy

Con

  • Crafting felt boring
  • Online DRM
  • Voice audio was a little low and was sometimes difficult to hear when there was a lot of background noise.

 

Author: Ash Meehan

Hi, I’m the creator of SG Gaming Info. When I’m not working on my writing or creating content for this site’s YouTube channel, I like to relax and enjoy character driven story games.

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