Redhawk617
2004
DMC clone for a tie in to a guilty pleasure movie I loved as a kid
2010
While I really enjoyed ME2, the combat felt like a dip from ME1 as the ever present need to cater to the Call of Duty audience in this era of gaming, hurt the fun that I felt in the previous title. With no need to ever switch weapons I found myself using the Assault rifle for every engagement and barley touching abilities. While there were more companions than ME1, this seems to hurt more than help, as some companions were simply redundant, and I felt no connection to more than half of the crew. Relationships didn't feel as natural in ME2 vs ME1, being Fem shep, I had no interest in any of the available love interests. After having a relationship with Liara in ME1, she felt distant and a missed opportunity in this game as after becoming the shadow broker, she is no longer of importance to you.
2007
Amazing game, this is the first RPG I truly wanted to do every mission and talk to every NPC to learn about the world. The game play was exciting and the necessity to experiment and swap weapons and abilities to deal with enemies was exciting and a feature that is severely missed in the later games. While I haven't gone back and played a second play though yet, I can't wait to pick this title up again in the future for an evil run
2023
first month launch review
A fun addition to the ARPG genre, enemies feel satisfying to kill and abilities have weight to them. Boss battles such as Andariel, Duriel, and Lilith were visually stunning but with no way to replay them it feels like a miss that the best part of the Diablo franchises which are the larger than life major villains are not re-playable. Music is fantastic, I found myself stopping in my path to listen to amazing compositions. Skill tree feels a little weak with an illusion of choice, but the balancing of the game clearly leads you down a path that you should specialize in. The Paragon board system while in theory is expansive and could open up builds more, does not allow for as much flexibility as advertised. Leveling is also not satisfying, as the game is tailored for group play with bonus XP buffs for party, proximity play, but with no in-game group finder or party system with randoms throughout the large world that is D4, the social aspect and the satisfyingly slow grind makes solo play almost unplayable. The single most important aspect of the ARPG genre being the loot grind, also feels very unsatisfying. When you think Diablo, you think about items like Shako, Grandfather, the extremely rare Tyrael's might. While the Harlequin crest and Grandfather do exist in D4, they are hidden behind a drop rate so low that even with the millions of players putting in billions of hours in the span of 2 weeks, only 2 are known to actually exist and be vetted by devs. This drop rate is extremely low, and borderline unachievable for 99% of the play base to find. While this in itself is not a bad thing, as rare items to flaunt to your fellow gamer is a long standing tradition, the issue is that every item you find in D4 besides the Harlequin Crest is so disposable you feel nothing about any items you find because you know that you will either be replacing it very soon, or you will be staying with it for the rest of your play through until you find another item with a .1% increase in a very particular stat you need for your build. And sadly every class relies on 3 to 4 main stats within gear that make everything else entirely useless. So while D4 is a fun first time play through and provides tons of entertainment for hacking down demons, it sadly misses and feels like a step backwards in the ARPG genre.
Season 1 updated review coming later
A fun addition to the ARPG genre, enemies feel satisfying to kill and abilities have weight to them. Boss battles such as Andariel, Duriel, and Lilith were visually stunning but with no way to replay them it feels like a miss that the best part of the Diablo franchises which are the larger than life major villains are not re-playable. Music is fantastic, I found myself stopping in my path to listen to amazing compositions. Skill tree feels a little weak with an illusion of choice, but the balancing of the game clearly leads you down a path that you should specialize in. The Paragon board system while in theory is expansive and could open up builds more, does not allow for as much flexibility as advertised. Leveling is also not satisfying, as the game is tailored for group play with bonus XP buffs for party, proximity play, but with no in-game group finder or party system with randoms throughout the large world that is D4, the social aspect and the satisfyingly slow grind makes solo play almost unplayable. The single most important aspect of the ARPG genre being the loot grind, also feels very unsatisfying. When you think Diablo, you think about items like Shako, Grandfather, the extremely rare Tyrael's might. While the Harlequin crest and Grandfather do exist in D4, they are hidden behind a drop rate so low that even with the millions of players putting in billions of hours in the span of 2 weeks, only 2 are known to actually exist and be vetted by devs. This drop rate is extremely low, and borderline unachievable for 99% of the play base to find. While this in itself is not a bad thing, as rare items to flaunt to your fellow gamer is a long standing tradition, the issue is that every item you find in D4 besides the Harlequin Crest is so disposable you feel nothing about any items you find because you know that you will either be replacing it very soon, or you will be staying with it for the rest of your play through until you find another item with a .1% increase in a very particular stat you need for your build. And sadly every class relies on 3 to 4 main stats within gear that make everything else entirely useless. So while D4 is a fun first time play through and provides tons of entertainment for hacking down demons, it sadly misses and feels like a step backwards in the ARPG genre.
Season 1 updated review coming later
2023
Fun game play, the environments were fantastic and the length while short, felt appropriate.