Game Review | Diablo 3 Reaper of Souls

I’ve now clocked in over 200 hours in this game so i feel it’s time to write the review!

Title: Diablo 3 Reaper of Souls
ASIN: B00E4LGTTW (PC) (Amazon Referral Link)
Language: English
Publisher: Blizzard
Format: PC
Type: Game, Single Player, Multiplayer, Local CO-OP
Genre: Adventure, Action, A-RPG

Synopsis:

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“Death, at last, shall spread its wings over all . . .”

The defeat of Diablo, Lord of Terror, should have given rise to an age of hope. Instead, it has drawn out a shadowy being of immense power, whose malevolent purpose is yet to be revealed.Diablo III: Reaper of Souls, the upcoming expansion to Diablo III, opens a dark and terrifying new chapter in the ongoing conflict over the mortal realm of Sanctuary.

Malthael, the fallen Archangel of Wisdom, vanished after the events depicted at the end of Diablo II: Lord of Destruction. In Reaper of Souls, he returns as the Angel of Death and seizes the Black Soulstone, which contains the essence of the Prime Evil. It now falls to the players to track down Malthael and stop him before he unleashes irreversible havoc on the world.

Fortunately, a new hero is ready to join the cause and bring Malthael to justice—the Crusader. Driven by a centuries-long quest to cleanse the corruption blighting their beloved Zakarum faith, Crusaders are warriors of righteousness who have been hardened through relentless, brutal combat with the foul evils plaguing eastern Sanctuary. In addition to wearing immensely heavy armor and wielding a wide range of cruel and punishing weapons, this new playable class in Reaper of Souls uses battle magic to strengthen allies and weaken foes. A natural walking tank, the Crusader adds power and versatility to any party of adventurers.

In addition to taking the story of Diablo III from the legendary city of Westmarch to the unhallowed halls of the Pandemonium Fortress in Act V and introducing the incorruptible Crusader class, Diablo III: Reaper of Souls increases the game’s level cap to 70. Players continuing on with their existing Barbarian, Witch Doctor, Demon Hunter, Wizard, and Monk characters will benefit from an array of fearsome new spells and abilities as they advance in level.

The expansion also accentuates the key features of the Diablo franchise, with a greater emphasis on randomised environments to explore; epic new quests; horrific new monsters to defeat; and substantial updates to the loot experience, enabling players to further customize their characters with new and improved multilevel Legendary items, new Blacksmith and Jeweler item-crafting options, and more.

Diablo III’s Paragon progression system is also being majorly upgraded for the expansion, adding even more end-game character advancement and replayability. Two new game modes—Loot Runs and Nephalem Trials— are being added as well, providing fun and rewarding challenges for players to tackle when they’re not busy saving the world.

Game Features

• Charge forth as the Crusader – Impenetrable armor, gleaming weapons, and heavy, heavy damage–wield the power of the Crusader, unbreakable new hero of the mortal realms.
• Take Act V by storm – From the sprawling streets of Westmarch to the ancient walls of the Pandemonium Fortress, battle with a host of deadly new enemies throughout the all-new Act V of the Diablo III storyline.
• Rise to new heights of power – Advance your hero of choice through additional levels of supremacy, mastering bold new powers of raw, demon-slaying potential along the way.
• Conquer new gameplay modes – The new Adventure Mode opens up all of Sanctuary – you can travel to any waypoint in any Act. It also introduces Bounties and Nephalem Rifts, two new game features with boundless replay value.
• Discover powerful new treasures – A redesigned loot system improves your Diablo III experience with targeted “smart drops”, new and improved Legendary items, and the item-augmenting powers of the Mystic.

So it’s taken me near 200 hours to do this for several reasons, i didn’t want the glitz of the new expansion to cloud my review, and honestly, i just wanted to play the game

Blizzard had to do a lot to win back fans of the franchise to the series, and they got off to a bad start by alienating the console users. When the original Diablo 3 was announced for PS3 they made this big thing out of it, hyped it to the nines and won a lot of people over. However when it came time to announce the expansion for PS3 Blizzard pretty much gave everyone the finger. Only the PS4 and XBone will be getting the expansion, which has angered a lot of fans. Yes, i do include myself in that. While i enjoy playing on the PC i do also like chilling on my couch with the controller playing on the PS3. So instead of getting 2 sales out of me, they got none, since i was given this expansion as a birthday present, and i doubt i would have gotten it myself till it went on sale.

However, that would have been a mistake, as this expansion adds a lot of awesomeness to the game, but sadly a lot of junk as well!

Right from the outset you get the good and the bad thrown in your face. The Crusader class is awesome! It’s now my favourite class of them all and while I’ve gotten 1 of each class to 70 now the Crusader is the only one I’m playing. The armour sets early on are gorgeous, and the class is probably the most balanced I’ve played to date. The only thing i hate is how the crusader is hit by a double limitation on it’s skills. It has the usual resource cost, but also a cooldown cost as well. The cooldown is on all of the main skills and early on really hinders the gameplay, not to mention the DPS. Treasure Goblins are a great way of testing your DPS early game, since these are a DPS race. Crusaders struggle badly with them, to the point that it’s a 1in3 chance of them escaping. Later on it does get better, but the way the skills work mean it’s still a hard DPS race as they’re immune to pretty much all of the Crusaders skills. Yet in the late game the crusader is the most rewarding class I’ve played.

The changes to the game such as the removal of the RMAH and the new loot system are both good and bad. Removing the RMAH was good in a way, though i have to admit i never used it. But i do wish they’d left the normal ingame auction house in. The biggest problem however is that we now have a two tier class in the game. Those that used the RMAH as well as the buying gold from Blizzard, and those that didn’t. I never did and find the game rather crippling in a lot of ways now. At the end of it’s life you could buy billions in gold direct from Blizzard and it wouldn’t cost you much. That boost has now meant that after it’s removal those who did buy it have a significant boost over those that didn’t, because of the costs involved with crafting.

My guess is because Blizzard were aware of this, they decided to increase the costs of crafting in the 60+ stuff, but the problem here is for those that haven’t bought the gold are now being crippled by the costs. But I’ll get into this later on, lets get back to what’s good.

The new loot system is again a double edged sword, on the one hand it means the items you find are now more relevant to you, which is great. I found it frustrating to get a legendary drop only to find it strength based when i was a wizard. These days the drops are more tailored to you, which makes getting an upgrade relatively easy. However the flip side is that getting items for your followers are a lot harder. For example on my Crusader i use the Enchantress, but getting items with intelligence on them for her is very rare. Which means she’s not doing as much damage as she should be, for her level. With the crusader this isn’t such a big issue, but if you’re say a Demon Hunter or a Wizard where you follower is your shield, then it does become a problem.

One of the other good things with the new loot system is that legendary items drop a lot more often now. While there’s still a lot of probability involved, i generally seem to find 3 or 4 an hour on Master difficulty. Though yes, i have had some runs when I’ve gone hours without any, and others where I’ve had 7 or 8 drop in 15 minutes.

The other big addition to the game is the Bounty and Rifts mode. Once you’ve finished Act 5 this opens up and is really Blizzard’s attempt to have an End Game, and while I’m not sure how well it fills that roll, i do like this mode.

So once you’ve finished the game once you can restart in Adventure mode, you run bounties, which are exactly as they sound. Each act has five bounties, randomised out of twenty five per game. These  can range from kill a named elite, or a boss, or cleanse a shrine or chest. You get dropped into the area needed, but you still have to find it and then complete it. Once you’ve finished the bounty you can move onto the next one or fully clear the area if you so choose. Once you finish all five bounties you get a few Blood Shards and a Horadric Cache from Tyrael for finishing them. These can include crafting mats, gems, items, and most importantly Rift Shards.

Rift Shards are used to open, well Rifts You need five of these to open a rift, and personally i usually run bounties till i have 50 or so. Rifts are sort of like endless random dungeons, they use all the maps of the game, and all the mobs of the game, there’s no story or anything. Your literally just going in to kick the snot out of the mobs. The aim is to clear as many monsters as possible to cause a Rift Guardian to appear, there’s a big bar telling you how close you are to the big guy spawning. Once the Big guy spawns you kill it and get loads of loot, and in this case a lot of Blood Shards. And that’s pretty much it, the Bounties and Rift mechanics are really just a way to help you farm loot, and honestly i have to admit i do like this mode. I levelled up my crusader purely though the Bounty and Rift mode as i was a bit tired of the story, but I’m now working through the story again.

If I’m honest i think that’s probably the biggest gain from the new mode for me. Having done the story so many times already it’s wearing a bit thin, having the adventure mode ads some variety to the game. Though a lot of people do seem to feel it’s not enough.

Blood Shards, what are they? These are rewards, you get a few from Bounties, double from the bonus acts, and a load from killing the Rift Guardian. These are essentially another currency, you use them on at a merchant and gamble. You buy a ‘mysterious’ item, say a mysterious 1 hand weapon, pay the shards (currently 10 shards) and hope for an upgrade. You can get blues from there, or rare and even legendries, it’s all a gamble. It’s just another loot gaining method, but it’s interesting.

However as much as i like this mode, it has a huge flaw in the way it’s implemented. Firstly once you finish all the bounties the only way to rest them again is to logout and back in. This is long winded and frankly annoying, how hard can it be to set button to refresh the bounties? Secondly, when you start the bounties there’s always two of the acts that are ‘Bonus’ levels, these reward you with double the amount of Blood Shards. Because of this most people just do the two bonus bounties and then reset, this is because there’s no reason to complete all five acts. There’s no bonus reward for doing all five, which is a shame. As the system stands now very few people actually do the full five bounties. It would be nice to be given say a load of Blood or Rift shards for completing all five acts.

Also I’ve noticed a lot of repeating Bounties. Given the variety of monsters, dungeons, shrines and chests they can have you’d think there would be more variance in the the Bounties. Sadly the past few days all i see are the same. This is also true for the Rifts, given the number of tile sets at their disposal it’s a shame we always seem to see the same few areas cropping up.

Next we have the new crafter, who i have to admit i both love and hate. Myriam is a fun character and i liked her story, and want more of it. However the services she offers are crippling, again unless you’ve bought gold or used the AH before it was removed.

The enchanting aspect is amazing, get a new item that’s better than what you have but in one area its weaker, go change it! The problem however is in the materials needed and the costs. A lot of the lvl61+ items require Death’s Breath, this is a rare (stupidly rare) crafting material that you’re going to need for your crafting as well. I’ve now got a full team of lvl 70 and in near 200 hours I’ve had around 50 Death’s Breath. that’s painfully low when it can take upwards of 7 of them to re-enchant an item. Then there’s the cost, for some of the items it costs more to re-enchant a single stat than it does to craft the original item. I had one armour piece that cost me 100k to craft, but cost 130k to enchant, and still needed 5 Death’s Breath.

Personally i feel this is done as another way of forcing players who bought gold to spend that gold, but again it cripples people who didn’t.

The Transmog is awesome, have a weapon or armour set you love and want to keep using after it’s been replaced, now you can! While i love Transmog and use it loads, i do feel it’s pricing is a bit off. The basic armours are all 500gold, which is fine. Legendary looking armour though costs 50k gold, which is not fine. Should it be more expensive? I don’t see why it should. Raise the price to an all round 2-3k and you’ve a good middle ground.

This is even worse for weapons. Again you’ve got a lot that cost 500gold, but then for no reason you’ve got price hikes of 5-25k and then 50k for Legendries. For me i finally found a sword i loved, Oni Blade, it was a white trash pick up, but i loved the look, a large Katana (who doesn’t like those!!) but to make all my other swords look like it is a staggering 25k, and i can see no reason for it other than it being a desirable skin. Frankly that pissed me off no end. But i still use it cause i love the look lol.

The actual new campaign is a bit meh, i found it very short, you can breeze through it in around 2-3 hours depending on how you play. I played on Master, explored everything and killed everything, and it took me just over 3hours the first time. What i found really sad was that the follower stories were more interesting than the campaign. At the end of it i couldn’t help but feel like Act 5 was nothing more than a prologue for Act 6. Which i don’t really mind in a way, so long as Act 6 is good. I also loved that there was a lot more going on in the Act, more people in the town, more out and about and it just felt more alive.

Although i have to admit i did find the huge plot hole to be rather off putting. I mean we’ve got an angel whose killing off humans because they’re tainted with evil, i get that, like that. But in killing off the humans he turns them into demons….wait that can’t be right…This is never explained and for me, as I’m a story centric guy, i found it a bit off putting. Even later on when you’re fighting Malthael there’s some large plot holes. After his statement i was like, WTF am i fight for if what he’s saying is true?

The ending, on it’s own, is lame, however if it turns out the rumours about the next expansion are right, it will be awesome. And yes I’ll forgive Blizzard for this rather lacklustre ending. Having an expansion pack being a prologue for the next one is a risky business, especially in this case because the expansion costs the same as what the base game does, and contains relatively less content.

Finally there’s two areas that are huge problems in the game, and that are interlinked, and make the game a chore to play. Those are crafting and power creep.

Pre lvl 61 the crafting isn’t to bad it’s decently balanced, and while I’ve always thought it could be improved it really was fine the way it is. Just before RoS was released i was finally able to craft my first full Legendary set, i was very proud and happy. My set was awesome and i did really well with it. However as soon as RoS launched it became useless as the first rare i picked up was just plain old superior in every way, and not just a little. The weapon i was using, a legendary had around 1200DPS, first rare i picked up had 1800dps and the first Legendary, which i picked up after 30mins, had 2500DPS. So all of the mats and gold I’d accrued and spent to make my lvl60 set were wiped out by the first lvl61 drops.

Sadly, this is a common issue with Blizzard, when they release an expansion everything it is just flat out better than it’s predecessors. What this means in this case though is that it’s pointless crafting anything at all in the lvl50-61 range because as soon as you hit lvl61 everything you get is just going to be flat out better. This is also true with the gems, gone are the crappie little gems you have to spend a fortune on upgrading. Here come the nice new uber gems that drop like candy and are flat out better.

The gems problem i think would feel so bad if they weren’t such frequent drops. Literally every other mob drops a gem these days.

Crafting wise there’s a vacuum between 61-70 with only a few items that aren’t as good as the stuff you find. Gone is the balance of the 1-60 where every few levels you’d have an upgrade. Instead we have a vacuum that just makes the power creep all the more evident, and painful.

Power Creep, this is where you start the expansion feeling like a god, you massacre everything in sight you get your first set of lvl61 gear and you go nuts feeling all godly. However as your progress through the Act that slowly starts to change, you notice you little things at first, then it becomes more evident as you struggle against elites, and then even trash mobs cause you problems. This is all down to the fact that while the mobs get tougher and meaner, you don’t. You’re weapons and armour stagnate and you suddenly start to struggle. Then when you get to the last part of the game, Pandemonium, everything kicks your ass, and Malthael, the last boss, wipes the floor with you. However once you reach level 70 and use lvl 70 gear it flips back around to you being godly. though thankfully Malthael will still give you a run for you money, but this time it’s not because he’s OP as hell.

Yet, as much as i criticise this game and rip it to shreds, there’s no denying i love it. I play it almost daily usually for a few hours, and will most likely spend another 200 hours in it. But at the same time it’ll always be a little disappointing because it’s not as good as it could be.