The graphics, animations, increased framerate option, and sound design are a delight for the senses. The updates are a joy to behold: loading times are instant, controls are tightly designed, and it remains a very easy game to pick up and play. It is also hard not to linger on what makes the original frustrating by today’s standards. It is hard to talk about Diablo 2: Resurrected without dwelling too much on what made Diablo 2 great to begin with. It breaks the flow of combat and exploration. While slaughtering countless enemies, I had to pause, return to camp, and dump or sell items to make space for more loot that I would have to dump or sell.
You are given a large stash to dump items, but there is no way to send any item directly to stash, as games like Demon Souls’ remake allow. The inventory space is extremely and unnecessarily restrictive. If you love nitpicky administration and Excel balances, you will adore this. (It is only in the third game that we find real NPCs, who grow, learn, come into conflict, and have their own agendas.)īut perhaps Diablo 2: Resurrected’s worst issue is its inventory “management,” another hangover from the original’s old-school design. Indeed, the first two Diablo games don’t have characters so much as glorified audio logs on two legs. I almost never skip dialogue in games, but in Resurrected I often did, because the subtitles served the same purpose. They’re extremely well-acted, but they become cloying nonetheless.
Since this is an early 2000s game, NPCs drown me in words, rather than engaging in interesting or animated discussions. Well written, performed, and directed, they remain campy scenes we can all love and treasure. The plot remains the same as it ever was, with shot-for-shot cutscenes told through gorgeous, updated cinematics. With a level cap of 99, there are plenty of hours to spend even the core, original game could clock in at just under 200 hours for completionists.
Before I knew it, hours had flown by, despite setting myself a limit. No doubt many MMORPG fans can speak to this thrill: I just wanted to level up one more time, gain one more skill. However, levelling up my character was the main drive. I was constantly thrilled when I found a powerful wand or unique sword. But monotony is broken by the variety of enemies, evolving environments, dungeon randomization, and loot. Given the responsive controls, it became a joy to play as any of the classes.ĭiablo is a famously addictive franchise, despite it consisting almost entirely of combat from the same fixed angle. By mixing and matching combat and magic, my characters turned into absolute machines. I tend to use these secondary buttons for magic or special abilities (which drain the characters’ mana pool), while keeping my vanilla buttons for immediate, non-draining attacks. For example, I press X to do a basic attack, but by holding L2 and X, I can execute a character’s more powerful magic attack. Resurrected allows me to map a secondary set of actions to the controller’s left trigger. Once I actually figured out the button-mapping mechanics, the characters opened up. It is not hard to figure out, but a bit more guidance would have been welcome – especially for new players who never played the original. I also had no idea that when levelling up, I could choose to obtain new skills and abilities, in addition to upgrading Attributes. When I obtained a new skill, I thought it would be automatically mapped and bound to an available button – instead, I had to figure out binding and manually do it myself. However, in keeping with the theme of old-school games, Diablo 2: Resurrected does little to guide players. Playing on PS5, I feel every jab and magic bolt on the DualSense. The controls are wonderfully responsive, and each class has its own mechanical feel.
In contrast, my Necromancer stands back to let his army of foul beasts, ghouls, and skeletons simply wash over the land, leaving nothing but destruction in its wake. My martial artist Assassin would be right at home in a Yakuza game, chaining jabs that build into a devastating final blow. For the purposes of this review, I went through them all. Players choose from a pool of seven character classes, with which they smash, shoot and magically blast their way through randomized environments ranging from rural encampments to creepy tombs. It is, in essence, Diablo 2, complete with all the joys and annoyances players might remember. There are no big updates to controls, camera angles, or map design. It remains campy as hell, and it’s a joy for being so.ĭiablo 2: Resurrected is a remaster of the dungeon-crawling classic. Upon its release in 2000, it was the video game equivalent of a self-aware black metal album, with a performative seriousness that’s not meant to be taken earnestly. For the uninitiated, Diablo 2 is an isometric action-adventure with RPG elements, set in a dark fantasy universe with angels, demons and all sorts of nefarious entities.
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