Diablo 3 has been out for a little while, and I am a bit late writing a review on it, as I had been playing it almost nonstop since it’s release one month ago. That might be an indicator as to how good it is, as most games i tend to either beat in a few days, or play on and off for a while.
If you played Diablo 2, the game should feel familiar to you. The camera and mouse controls are the same, and it is easy to get acclimated to the new setup. In addition to these controls, keyboard buttons 1-4 will start to unlock as you level up, allowing you to use far more skills than you could in diablo 2.
Some of the more apparent changes have been in the skill system. In diablo 2, you had a skill tree that gained one assignable point each level, and you gained 5 attribute points each level. Due to a lack of reliable respecs, experimentation on a playstyle and skill set you enjoy could take several characters of the same class to find.
In Diablo 3, all skills for your class, as well as 5 runes each to customize them unlock as you level up, and your stats are automatically assigned. While at first it seemed like this would restrict the player from personalizing their play style it actually makes personalization much easier because there is no penalty for experimenting.
You can only have 6 skills and up to 3 passives on your character at one time, and when changing a skill, you will have a cool down before the skill is ready. This makes it so you cannot just change up your entire skill set at the drop of a hat, but the cool down isn’t so long that you cannot switch a skill or two if you really need to.
As for stats, the major source of stat points is in magical equipment. While you cannot permanently alter your base stats as you could in Diablo 2, you are no longer required to have mandatory amounts of any particular stat in order to equip weapons and armor. This allows you to equip any armor; with any distribution of additional abilities and stat points that you want. So, while this change is not permanent, it is no less personalized.
Most of the game is fairly easy actually, and incredibly easy if you use the AH. Inferno, however, is where the difficulty takes a major boost. The major part of Inferno’s difficulty is in champion packs with interesting affixes. Since all champion monsters, and all affixes are randomized you can get some really cheap affix combinations such as a melee having to fight a fire chains, molten, plagued, vortex pack of Unburried. Sometimes it provides a good challenge, other times the pack that spawns isn’t worth fighting.
I have two characters now in Inferno, a Barbarian, and a Monk. These are considered the worst characters, because they are forced to take the hits, and they cannot take the hits. I’ve found that act 1 though is entirely doable while entirely under geared, up to the butcher.
That isn’t to say ranged classes aren’t better at this time, but Inferno is definitely do-able as any character class. My friend who has an inferno demon hunter easily out-Damages my monk or barbarian, but on the same token, he dies from one hit from anything and my melee characters can stand on the front rows and tank everything short of high damage champions.
I would definitely recommend the game, it is quite fun on it’s own merits. There are some people who hate the game because its different from Diablo 2, but if you fell in that category, you probably wouldn’t be reading this review for the sake of deciding if its worth getting.