Diablo 2: Resurrection just makes me want to run back to Diablo 3
When Diablo 2 came out of hell and entered my heart, I was only 14 years old. For a jagged teenage metal head, there is nothing better than walking through impenetrable dark dungeons, beheading demons, and watching things explode in massive amounts of loot and loot. This is unparalleled, I think. Sure enough, when Diablo 3 came out more than a decade later, it paled in comparison to its predecessor. too bright. so easy. Even in the deepest part of my obsession with D3, it is always the second best Diablo.
“Diablo 2: Resurrection” is on sale today. It has been carefully designed and has some mainly optional quality of life improvements, but this is still the same game I have been playing on the docking station all these years. At the moment Marius began to narrate in the opening animation, the hairs on the back of my neck did not stand up-it felt like they were trying to jump out of my skin. The first “greeting, stranger” in the thieves camp? I applaud like a drunk sea lion. From there, everything went downhill.
I don’t like Diablo 2 very much.
Now, I did not imagine that I used to like everything about this classic ARPG, and I didn’t have bad taste in my teenage years — at least not in RPG — but things have changed a lot in the past 20 years. year. My expectations have also changed. For some remakes, the attraction lies in the dead end of replay evolution or the absolute pinnacle of the genre-something unique. But Diablo 2 is far from unique. It turns out that all the new content and all the growth we encountered in “Torchlight”, “Terror of Dawn”, “Road of Exile” and “Diablo 3” are Make the 2000 classic feel a bit antique.
All the growth we encountered in “Torchlight,” “Dawn of Terror,” “Road of Exile,” and “Diablo 3” made the 2000 classic feel a bit like an antique.
Even something as simple as moving my creepy old necromancer is very unpleasant. It has an endurance bar and grid-based exercise that is consumed when you run, making turning around look and feel bulky. . None of these things remain in my memory, and they were not a problem in 2000, but the development from a smooth ARPG like Diablo 3 to this is unpleasant. Just writing about endurance bars makes me angry again. too frightening! This is not the soul of darkness. It is inseparable from the battle. It determines the flow of the battle and provides you with those exciting moments. In the last attack you took all risks, knowing that this might be your last attack. It just means that you are not good at running. Gosh, I hate it.
Small setbacks are piled up like a mountain. With cunning wayfinding, you can easily get stuck on debris in battle, and objects can block your vision of the enemy and your own character. This was obvious during the technical alpha, but I hope, perhaps stupidly, some of the jagged edges will be smoothed at launch. They haven’t.
How about actually establishing your character? I think I prefer Diablo 2’s ability tree. On the surface, it provides more variety, but more importantly, it provides a lot of choices. But this just can’t stand up to scrutiny. Yes, there are more options, but many times you just put points on things that gradually increase your ability, or worse-put points on things you don’t care about at all, so you can reach Farther under the tree. For example, as a necromancer, you may first put points on summoning skeletons, and with each point, the power and number of your skeletons will increase. However, after a few points, you no longer get more skeletons, but just increase their power. You can also do this through skeleton mastery, which is a separate passive ability. Obviously things that can be simplified can be seen everywhere, and of course this is exactly what Diablo 3 will do in the end.
I should add that I don’t think the character development of Diablo 2 is bad. Not at all. You can upgrade quickly, and there are many different ways to choose your own course. They may not all apply to endgames or PvP, but now you can easily re-roll your character, which is not a problem. However, this flexibility is borrowed from Diablo 3, which also makes me long for Diablo 3 to improve other ways to build experiments. Look, although there are fewer abilities, all abilities can be enhanced by runes, which greatly changes them. Every time a new ability or rune is unlocked, it will fundamentally change the way the character plays. In the end, fiddling is more interesting, and the differences between the builds are more dramatic and meaningful.
This lets us know how you actually use your abilities, back before Blizzard improved its user interface and shortcut bar. See, abilities are mapped to mouse buttons, and you can only have two activities at a time. This is very inflexible, Diablo 2 seems to be aware of this, so you can map all abilities to F1-F8. Unfortunately, using these hotkeys does not actually trigger this ability; instead, it just changes the ability that is mapped to the mouse button. Not choosing to enable the more modern “keys, projection capability” input scheme seems to be an oversight. Even with some unlocked abilities, micro-management can indeed become a pain, especially when a temporary interruption of your attention may lead to death.
Speaking of things that will kill you, potion management is really a headache. The working principle of potions is not particularly shocking: you put them in your potion shortcut bar, use them once, and they disappear. Swamp standard. The real problem is that they don’t stack. Nothing at all! Therefore, your inventory will be full of potions, occupying important space until you make room for them in the hot bar.
Obviously things that can be simplified can be seen everywhere, and of course this is exactly what Diablo 3 will do in the end.
However, this is an area where Diablo 3 does not have a better solution. In the sequel, you mainly rely on the health ball, and staying healthy is something you hardly need to consider. The Path of Exile system is much more superior, you only have a small number of flasks, each with different attributes-just like your other equipment-and some costs. They just have more utility, and once you drink them, they will not disappear.
At least we now have a nice shared storage. Your inventory may be ridiculously small, but your storage volume is huge. However, this is something brought from Diablo 3 again, which makes me wonder why I once thought it was a bad Diablo.
I haven’t seen what Diablo 2: Resurrection did in its endgame, but honestly I won’t hold on for that long. But if it is consistent with the original, I must admit that this is another place where Diablo 3 is better. Both are bad, but they are ARPG-what do you expect? However, Diablo 3’s adventure modes, seasons and rifts are far better than Diablo 2’s boss farming and difficult marches to level 99. Crucially, the endgame of Diablo 3 has a proper structure and a large number of discrete challenges. The ladder provides some structure for Diablo 2, but will not be included in the resurrection until after it is released.
Atmosphere, aesthetics, music-these things are still the killer. Even in the traditional mode of restoring the game to its original form, it has only this kind of air, an edge that penetrates the ancient pixels. It’s been several days. The narrative is also the best of all ARPGs. After Diablo’s original hero, Dark Wanderer, follows the chaos left behind him, you are almost a secondary character. This is all the consequences of heroic actions-your heroic actions, if you play the first game. It’s really attractive, and it hasn’t changed. Some things are just eternal. But it is much more difficult to enjoy now. Diablo 3 may have a totally unforgettable story, but it is the one I will have more fun in 2021.
I suspect that groups of former players will still like to go back to Diablo 2. There are still people playing the classic version today. I see. Most modern isometric ARPGs have no confrontational relationship with players. Of course, there are many challenges to be discovered, but Diablo 2 really wants to kill you, which has a certain appeal. This is why I am excited about the remake. I want an equidistant ARPG, which can get me out of trouble. But this time it was not the tricky encounter that killed me—but the shabby design and flaws, which had become sacred.
Now replaying Diablo 2 can clearly see how many of Diablo 3’s streamlined additions (some of which I absolutely disapprove of in 2012) are direct responses to where the predecessor felt stiff or dull. Many of the “hardcores” I once thought were really old ones, and they existed because we didn’t know better. Yes, video game characters can run forever without breathlessness, now we know. This did not detract from the impact of “Diablo 2” at the time, or its importance in ARPG history, but it reminds people that the era of every game has arrived.
So I’m sorry, Diablo 3. I have not been able to give you the respect you deserve for many years. You are still not my favorite ARPG, but I will definitely choose you instead of your predecessor. Or I can go back to the path of exile. Yes, I think I will do this.