Part 1: Patch Notes
When I reviewed the original Diablo III, I gave it a glowing appraisal that spoke of niggling concerns that the game’s systems would not hold up to extended play in the way its legendary predecessor’s did. In hindsight, I was right to voice those concerns, as problems with the way items were awarded, the auction house, and the wildly oscillating level of difficulty killed replayability after reaching the maximum level. Much drama has unfolded in the wake of vanilla Diablo‘s unpopular mechanics, and for a while, it seemed like a legend had fallen. Even I said, in no uncertain terms, to fellow RPGFan editor/Diablo aficionado Rob Steinman, “I don’t think Reaper of Souls and Loot 2.0 can fix the problems in this game.”
Fortunately, I was mistaken.
First of all, my return to Sanctuary began a few weeks ago with the release of a major patch that revamped the difficulty, loot, paragon leveling, and skill systems in Diablo III. This patch is available to anyone with a copy of the game, and it forms the foundation of what has refreshed the game so well.
For starters, each class has had their skillsets vastly modified, providing a greater deal of variety and a much more interesting degree of synergy in your choices. I tend to favor wizarding around the land, and the patch has allowed me to try out all kinds of new and, more importantly, viable builds than the original ever did. Part of this is a great new variety in skills, but some credit also must go to how items are distributed post-patch.
The loot system has been entirely revamped, featuring a generally lower number of drops with a generally higher amount of interest. Special abilities are more frequently tailored to your specific class and skillset, and the vaunted legendary items now inspire the kind of awe their name implies. You’ll still find stuff for other classes and builds, but the days of procuring only a single near-useless legendary after hours and hours of play are essentially over. Along with the abolishment of the contentious auction houses, running around finding goodies is better than ever, even without the expansion.
The new difficulty system rips out the nostalgic but sadly unbalanced Normal/Nightmare/Hell/Inferno progression and replaces it with a new setup which offers a much more balanced and intuitive difficulty curve. Monsters now scale to your level — a change that I initially was hesitant to embrace in light of the damage that scaling can cause to the sense of progression vital to so many RPGs. Thankfully, this was a change for the better.
The difficulty level now relates more to your equipment than your player level: as you notch up the challenge, your foes gain newer and deadlier skills that would slay an under-equipped adventurer in moments, along with a bump in stats. This means that you’re free to set the difficulty to hard mode right from level one if you’re looking for a challenge, and as you make things tougher, loot drops become better and experience/gold multiply. What’s more, subsequent playthroughs are paced and balanced better than ever, since you can take your excellent gear and gems from your level 60-70 titan and put them on a lower-level character, while bumping the difficulty up so that you’re gaining appropriate rewards and not snoozing through the battles thanks to your legendary weapons and armor. You’re also able to adjust difficulty mid-game, which lets you make things tougher or easier on the fly, so you can find a sweet spot in terms of challenge and reward.
Finally, the Paragon leveling system has been changed to allow players to gain levels beyond the character cap of 60 (70 in Reaper of Souls). Each level allots you one stat point to place in a variety of categories, and this in turn gives you a degree of customization beyond your skill and gear choices. These aren’t sweeping changes in the way Diablo II‘s stat points were, but include things like life regeneration, movement speed, defense, core damage stats, and more. They’re a nice incentive to keep you gaining in strength after the level cap, and since they’re now account-wide (much like Borderlands 2‘s badass ranks), you’re free to play any character you like and reap the benefits of your burgeoning strength.
The patch has summarily made Diablo III a better game, and since it’s available to everyone with a copy — no expansion required — you can hop back in and see for yourself. It’s important to know about these changes, since Reaper of Souls builds upon them in meaningful ways and makes the game better than it has ever been.
Part 2: First Impressions
As mentioned in part one of the review, the new and revamped systems drew me back to Diablo III, but it was the expansion set’s new features that truly sealed the deal. A new villain, class, and artisan accompany the game’s gorgeous new fifth act, and the all-new Adventure Mode rounds out the package with incredible replayability.
Let’s start with the bad stuff: Reaper of Souls‘ plot is a let-down, and the weakest part of the experience. The new big bad, terrifying Angel of Death Malthael, is one of the coolest-looking denizens of evil Blizzard has ever cooked up. It’s a shame, then, that the plot of the game doesn’t do much to back up his formidable presence. Malthael himself is absent for much of the storyline, only showing up in the final moments of the quest to deliver brief exposition as to his motives. The plot is paced awkwardly and feels like little more than an excuse to get your hero involved as quickly as possible rather than the logical conclusion that Diablo II‘s Lord of Destruction offered. The ending is brief and introduces what appears to be a new plot thread with barely even a mention of the humanity-annihilating evil you’ve just thwarted. However, while the main scenario disappoints in terms of plot, the various lore books you’ll pick up are as fascinating as ever, and the numerous randomized events feature interesting stories that play out before your eyes. These things hint at an expansive universe whose surface is frustratingly barely scratched by the core narrative.
Also in the “negatives” column, with the slashing of the auction houses also comes the removal of the majority of trading in-game. Legendaries, high-quality crafted items, gold, and gems are now account-bound. This means no Diablo II-style trading whatsoever — no lending your pal some extra gold to help him afford the mystic’s fee, and no trading away your old legendaries once they’ve outlived their usefulness to you. I understand the logic behind this choice: by locking gold and powerful items to an account, gold-farming and item-selling will be hamstrung. However, this change seriously harms the community aspect in Reaper of Souls. With a game this focused on cooperation between players, not being able to share in the game’s biggest feature — its items — is a true let-down.
Fortunately, that’s where the rough spots end. The battle with Malthael and those with the other two new bosses in the campaign are tense and exciting, and easily the most interesting Blizzard has ever cooked up, thanks to a much better understanding of what kinds of challenges work best in the context of the systems at play in Diablo III. Act V itself is also by far the most fascinating place in all of the game, a morbid jaunt through the battle-scarred region of Westmarch. There’s a huge amount of variety to the variously blue-hued spans of landscape you’ll traverse, and lots of small side-dungeons make it feel more cohesive and create a greater sense of place than the series has ever had. The randomized events, sorely underutilized in the original game, are brilliantly implemented throughout the Act, and offer something fresh and exciting on subsequent trips through the land.
The new artisan, the mystic, fills in a really great gap in the already-improved Loot 2.0 system. Using various reagents (and some cash), you can reroll the stats on any item you find on your journeys, meaning that almost-perfect sword you found can be turned into a personalized implement of death-dealing with a little luck and some planning. The mystic also allows you to cast the appearance of any piece of gear you’ve found onto another, letting you customize your hero as much as you like. Saving up components and hanging on to items that are just about useful to you is a blast, and helps round out the constant cycle of rewards in both the long and short term.
Fans of divinely-endowed heroes will also find plenty to love in Reaper of Souls‘ new class, the Crusader. This heavily-armored knight can wield even the heaviest of weapons in one hand, leaving room for the iconic shield in the other. My time with this particular hero showed off a variety of possible builds both short and long-ranged, and the skills at his/her disposal are some of the coolest in the game. Whipping your shield at foes Captain America-style is as viscerally satisfying as riding an ethereal steed through enemy ranks, dragging a few of them behind you on holy chains as you do. The return of classic Paladin attacks like Blessed Hammer and Charge (Shield Bash in DIII parlance) ensure you’ll have as least as much fun with the new class as you did with any of the originals.
All of these things round out the game systems and core gameplay quite nicely, but it’s the new Adventure Mode that truly completes the experience. Since its launch, players have decried Diablo III‘s insistence on locking you into one act at a time, with no room for exploration or returning to previous areas for fun’s sake. Adventure Mode demolishes all of that. After conquering Malthael at any level, the new mode is unlocked account-wide for any character in your stable. When you first start a game, you’ll find the complete map of the world at your disposal. Various characters return to offer new dialogue and background stories to frame your continued adventures as well, which was an unexpected but pleasant surprise that really helped the mode from feeling tacked-on.
Peeking at any place in the world will reveal various bounties, which range from “go here and kill this special enemy” to “activate this cursed chest and complete the challenge.” Completing a set number of bounties in one region will net you huge experience and gold rewards, along with rare items. Gather enough of one new kind of item, the Rift Keystone, and you can spawn a gateway to a Nephalem Rift. These completely randomized dungeons draw from every enemy and area in the game to create planes of utter chaos, with bosses spawning from chests and certain bovine tyrants from the past reportedly making a return appearance. As you plumb the depths of these bizarre places, you’ll collect new currency to gamble with (thanks to a new NPC called Kadala, descendant of the slippery merchant Gheed from Diablo II), and find unique, rift-only items.
It’s hard to overstate the fun that can be had with Adventure Mode. It focuses on the strengths of Diablo III and gives you the entire world to play in, and even gives a little context tying it into the overarching story. The mode can be endlessly entertaining, and saving up keystones to go rift-diving hearkens back to the golden days of Mephisto magic-finding runs. Since unlocking it, I’ve barely touched the main campaign with any of my characters, and I’ve had a blast hopping from one location to the other. This is easily the expansion’s greatest success.
As I mentioned before, Act V is a visual treat, and thanks to the new skill effects and the variety of nightmarish creatures you’ll face, the screen is ever alive with all manner of gorgeous activity. The boss battles and one cinematic event near the end of the campaign are more creative visually than anything Blizzard has ever done with this series. Even more delightfully, the soundtrack is outstanding, with the boss battles again featuring some of the best moments. I’ll have more detailed thoughts to share in my upcoming review of the soundtrack, but suffice it to say that in terms of presentation, Reaper of Souls knocks it out of the park.
So, all in all, in the short-term, Reaper of Souls is a win for Blizzard and a win for players. The amount of content being offered for the price is staggering, and if you’ve even the slightest bit of love for the third entry in the venerable franchise, you’ll find this to be the shot in the arm it sorely needed. It’s not all sunshine and rainbows: the plot disappoints, and the removal of nearly any form of trading cripples the spirit of cooperation that was cited as the basis behind removing open-world PvP, and can make the game seem a much more solitary affair than its predecessor. However, the fact remains that Diablo III is better than it has ever been, and Reaper of Souls is, for now, the total package.
I’ll be continuing to hack away at the forces of Hell and Heaven for the foreseeable future, and will be sure to report just how the experience fares over an extended playtime in the coming weeks, so be sure to check back for part three of the review!
Editor’s Note: Some text in this review was edited after publication at the request of the author. These edits did not affect the scores in any way.
