Interesting way to think about it. I remember all three very well, though sometimes I remember Diablo III for bad reasons, such as the awful writing on how they handled Cain, how they use the “While you were out doing X, I was doing Y!” line a few times, and worst of all perhaps, how Diablo talks to you for 5 minutes before you actually fight.
I pick on D3, and believe it is objectively the worst written, but it is a solid game that I played a lot and have memorable parts stuck in my head for sure. I am just hoping the writing is better in Diablo IV, and that bosses don’t pause the game and talk to you for a while before the fight. It is anticlimactic and feels more like Final Fantasy than Diablo.
Killing Cain is the smartest thing that dark force ever did in the whole Diablo franchise. He is a threat to the dark force. His knowledge is a threat to the dark force. It doesn’t even make sense for Dark Wanderer to left him alive in D2 in the first place.
Better than Baal where he constantly “HAHAHAHAHAHAHA” at you even when you are winning and in good shape. Does this ever explain why Baal didn’t gang you up together with his Minion of Destructions or does he even aware that he indirectly causing the people in the Sanctuary to become superman that even surpassing Prime Evil?
It will. Why do you think it won’t? A lot of modern games that I am playing also have this and they are not Final Fantasy.
Do I think D3 is better than D2? Really it’s apples and oranges. They are two very different games that share the same world. Comparing them isn’t really fair at all. I loved D2. I also love D3. There are very different reasons why. I won’t go through and list all the pros & cons as that would take me all night and I’m not a fan of long posts. I do think in some ways D2 is better than D3 and in other ways D3 is better than D2.
Baal corrupted the Worldstone and there was nothing you can do about it, hence why it was laughing at your face. In the end it was destroyed by Tyrael which broke the seal and unleashed a balance breaker for upcoming fate of mankind. While mankind lost its repressing influence to gain more power, who can promise they will remain pure and won’t be swayed the other way? Prime evils would benefit from getting more powerful vessels after this point and he corrupted the only thing that soulstones made from.
I have no idea what Diablo in third game achieved by talking to you which seemed to be minutes or Azmodan telling you their plans that you saw from a mile away. Leah outright told you that her father was a great warrior but vanished without a trace; you saw it coming but didn’t think Diablo was able to open a portal right in the middle of high heavens from the very start. Belial was out in the open but you expected a twist, thinking that mustn’t be that easy. Tyrael’s powers were able to raise dead, made goatmen rabidly aggressive and he drove away barbarians to be cannibals yet you never questioned it either.
We killed the prime evil and saved the day, they had no legacy behind them beyond being resurrected in this world yet again. Their talking up to a magical mirror to tell you about their plans, doesn’t make it more harrowing or creepy. They had no substantial victory at hand and interrupted by us. Only Malthael was capable of keeping his silence about his plans surprisingly; just to sweep off dust and destroy black soulstone for Diablo to reset the whole thing. The only winner here was Tyrael for honing Nephalems.
Perhaps the writer team realized it repelled off more fans if they were to explain the entire gist of villains’ plans one by one to an audience who doesn’t care about them. Diablo 3’s story flow and narrative were like trying to explain a bad joke to someone who didn’t get it at the first place. Joke was about non-existent soulstones and an undying wizard with seven body parts, but punchline was lost on us. It was that bad.
Entire scenery flow was shoddily written and in a way “it was so bad that it’s good” for black humor; but gazing upon that as a gothic horror, there’s nothing averting it to be perceived as some bad writing attempt with plot holes and unanswered questions.
We played first two games, and game was catering to the first time fans of the series because they were trying to reach out to a wider audience who may or may not like to hear lore or backstories.
I have roughly similar /played in both D2 and D3, along with extensive D1 experience. So I’ll give my earned opinion on this. Diablo 2 is (was?) objectively better, it is (was?) The genre defining action role playing game. Now, Diablo 3 is also a strong/fun game, but it lost a lot of the RPG in the transition, and that made it so much worse than it could have (should have?) been. Of course, it’s still fun, it’s still flashy and smooth and things like that. But if you are dissecting the two games, making a pros and cons list, or however you measure the two games…I think Diablo 2 is far and away no contest, the better game, it isn’t even close. That said, Diablo 3 is still a fun game for what it is.
Absolutely not from my perspectiv. I played Diablo & Diablo 2 online & Offline, mostly online closed battle.net.
When Diablo 3 was released, I did enjoy the graphic, but everything else was bunch of crap, the skills, the skill system, item systems, gems stats, maps design… I can go on…
I and all of my friends lost interest, we all left.
I must admit, their were one thing I REALLY missed in Diablo 2, that was the graphical update. It has been played for many years, but still same graphic that was pretty low, otherwise best game I have ever played in my life time.
PEACE
Since you played D1 and D2, you remember what a crap game D2 was before LoD. Stash space that you couldn’t store anything, which was still a problem in LoD, but I digress. Much like LoD, RoS brought a lot to the game. D2 endgame was absolutely horrid. The same runs over and over for a game I already beat to complete a grail. Rifts and especially greater rifts brought a much better end game to Diablo.
Don’t get me wrong, Diablo 2 was a great game, but there are things that D3 does better and vice versa.
Diablo 2 was never a crap game, but yes LoD made it a lot better (in my opinion anyway).
Rifts seemingly have more value than Diablo II end-game, but in reality it really doesn’t. YOu open a rift, go right down, fly through, rinse and repeat. Yeah it changes up the envrionments as you go, which is nice, but you go through them so quick and so many times, with no choice either.
In Diablo II, there are several end game areas/bosses to grind, and you get to choose and they are also randomized.
My point is, they are not terribly different and neither are perfect by any stretch. I think PoE has it better, yet it still is missing something and loses me in the end game. I think something between PoE and Diablo III adventure mode (done better) is really a good end game. Hopefully the Diablo IV randomized keyed dungeons are a good solution.
Nope. I still think the original Diablo is better than 2 and 3. I am thankful that 4 looks to be going back to the roots of the original Diablo as a dark macabre and goth ARPG. 3 is good but it feels like Diablo… in a Warcraft universe. I’m not a fan of that.
Not sure how you can say movement and feel of combat is superior in D2. D3 will still feel amazing 20 years from now, D2 felt bad on day on to me. Slight improvements over D1 in that regard, but both are bad by today’s standard.
I liken it to WoW. Back in their alpha testing movement felt amazing. 16-17 years later I haven’t touched an MMO that feels as good to control your character. So IMO, D3 will always feel good. That cannot be said objectively about D2.
Endgame just needs more to do. I get all these games are about is farming, but if it’s the same activity that just looks different each time, then it gets old. So for D4, give me Dungeons, give me factions with quests, give me a lore book to fill, give me interesting items to find that aren’t just farmable from dungeons/bosses. Give me zone events that change the landscape, like an encampment that was taken over by cannibals. Let me clear them out and have a rare vendor take it’s place for a short while. Give me rifts of some sort. Tie them to a underarching story that will reveal itself way down the road, but they provide some mystery and clues to uncover it.
Not really. D2 was a masterpiece. D3 is fun allaround and can be addictive no doubt. At the end of the day both have strong and weak points but i will be more forgiving to D2 cause it is more than 20 years old.
i see what you’re trying to say with this but ultra fast dash monks that glide screen to screen exploding on impact isn’t my idea of “improvement”.
The more sluggish combat of D2 just made it feel better and i imagine that’s largely why D4 is slowed down in the same way from what we have seen at blizzcon.
I do think the flow of D3 combat is better.
But yes, characters are too mobile, there are too many monsters, and they die too easily. The foundation of D3s combat “engine” is fine, but the actual combat that D3 has is pretty bad.
Should be slower, more tactical, and enemies should have more of an impact.
like the ancients when you’re not way overly geared for it or how the ubers/ diablo clone were. not a tone of mobs just concentrated difficulty. i don’t have a fancy answer as to why this way is better but it just really does seem to be more engaging than the super fast pace of my D3 characters.
so far i’m really pleased they’re going back into this direction with D4