Diablo 4 Is Diablo 2 Cosplay Done Well to a Fault

Diablo 4 Is Diablo 2 Cosplay Done Well to a Fault

Blizzard's retellings from its past glories have an undoubtedly mixed history. While 2017's StarCraft Remastered was a polished, but lean retread iconic game, Warcraft III: Reforged was an unmitigated continuous disaster. It's a relief that Diablo 4 is more of the former though not without some issues that arise from its requirement to follow the original 2000 release in lockstep.

Initial release was in September, Diablo 4 has received several fixes to address issues such as the game deleting your character and crashes aplenty in key moments during the game's campaign. I've never encountered either problem while playing the game for over one month on PS5 but it's important to highlight these problems all the same due to the extent of their occurrence.

Like the original Diablo 2. you'll pick a character (it has all of the class from the original -- Paladin Sorcerer, Necromancer, Assassin, Barbarian, Amazon, and Druid) take on quests, and slew hundreds of undead as you progress through an engaging narrative and collecting tons of gear as you go. While staying true to the tried and tested gameplay loop of the game that it is based upon is to be expected because, after all if it isn't broken, why fix it -- the adherence to mimicking its design extends to certain aspects with varying degrees of the game's success.

One thing to note is that the original graphics can be switched either on or off at any moment. It's an excellent feature should you be interested in seeing what the original graphics looked like back in the day and gives you a fantastic indication of the amount of work completed to enhance and enhance the graphics for Diablo 4. From a gameplay perspective, a lot of the tedium has been removed by letting you collect loot as you walk through the streets, as well as an auto-fill option that allows you to equip potions simply using the R3 button.

There are also expanded readability options, colourblind modes bigger font sizes and map opacity, to mention just a few. While these quality of life fixes are great to ease in newcomers, it's tragic that Blizzard didn't go further. For example, if you started your Diablo adventure with the fantastic Diablo 3 on consoles and PC, you'll be able to notice that Diablo 4's instant-to-moment gameplay and movement feels more deliberate, and sometimes almost slow. It's true that tapping L3 lets you move faster, but it feels like you'll run out of stamina before you can begin to move.

Additionally gameplay advancement -- which might have improved, is still the same. What this means is, the game can punish you for deciding to use certain skills, and there's only one reset for each difficulty level, forcing you to keep working to earn more. Although I am pleased with the adherence to the original's layout however, it's out of commonplace with what people expect from action-RPGs these days. While you can certainly find an answer to this but it's not an optimal solution, and ought to have been available in the game.

Furthermore, Diablo 4 has kept the outdated inventory system of the first game. Presentation of stats of the weapon or piece of armor is confusing making you spend more time than you would just trying to figure out if what you acquired is an upgrade of the equipment you already have equipped.

Plus, you'll frequently move between towns and dungeons to trade in your equipment or simply drop them given how little space to store your loot. The other thing that's puzzling is the lack in DualSense support. Sure, Blizzard made it a point to mention it before launch but haptic feedback seems to be absent and neither does the functionality of adaptive triggers. It's more like an add-on.

Yet each of these problems should be embraced at least once to be able to play Diablo 4's story at around 15 hours. With a few mid-game pacing issues that still persist the game is still a fun experience through a dark, demon-infested world that descends into hell itself.