Thursday 14 August, 2014

So we beat the game! Woohoo?

I'll admit that it was starting to feel a bit long towards the end. However, it definitely felt like the final chapters were shorter than the initial ones. So, good news on that front.

I have a weird lukewarm feeling about the game in the end though. I don't really understand why everyone seems to get so excited about it. It also feels incredibly over-produced. So much effort went into making it look great and so on, and I think that most people just blow past all of that. It's about the hack and slash, no one cares for the story (cut-scenes were pretty though). And even the hack and slash got really tiring after a while. Not tiring in the 'easy' sense, I mean I still died a few times (and we were playing on Master II). Just, lacklustre. Not special. Not memorable.

Ok, the one boss fight (Belial?) that changed the camera around was memorable. But it was memorable because it was different. Not because it was great or interesting or much else.

Gosh. It sounds like I hated the game, which I didn't. Don't. I mean, it was ok. Had I played it alone I would be less upbeat, for sure.

And now?

Curiously my son wanted to create a new character and have another go. I'd rather keep on with the one I have. And we can't really play together, which sort of sucks. You can't play on the harder modes with a character you haven't played through the entire game with. That REALLY blows.

Did you have Reaper of Souls as well? I haven't played D3 since shortly after it came out for similar reasons as you + the auction house gear grind. But I hear they've made major changes to the game since I last played. So I was wondering if the console version was any different than the PC version and if you are aware of the effects of any of the major changes on your experience?

Just using plain vanilla PS3 D3. My understanding is that (since the PS3 version came out after the PC one) many of the fixes/tweaks were incorporated in this version. I guess this makes it an improvement on the PC version, but I've never played it so I have no metric for comparison. Also, AFAIK, the PS3 version has no auction house, which also changes things quite a bit?

Ok, cool. And now it's shipping for PS4 with all patches and Reaper of Souls included. Yeah, the auction house made it a different game entirely. I want to buy Reaper and play through again sans auction house. I read up on the patch changes that your version has, and apparently in addition to the auction house being removed, the loot system was overhauled (less loot, but more useful loot), difficulty system changed, new shrines, and more. This is one reason why I usually don't play games when they are new. Many age well with lovely patches and updates.