My earliest memory of playing Diablo was back when Diablo II was all the hype in a random cyber café, using my friend’s account without his knowledge. I had very little knowledge on computer games back then, (my parents believed video games would fry my brain) so I had absolutely no clue as to what I was doing. All I could remember was selling off all my friend’s armour and weapons just so I could get more gold. To this day, he still doesn’t know who ‘hacked’ his account.
This latest DLC from Blizzard Entertainment now gives gamers a brand-new character class: Necromancer alongside a new gameplay element along with it. Although I’m not a big fan of Blizzard because Overwatch killed Borderlands, I was willing to give this a try solely because I didn’t have a choice (I kid, of course).
Keeping Things Interesting
After breezing through the first mission (I couldn’t believe it was that easy), I finally developed a rhythm with the game. First off, I am not a fan as of the hero movements in the game. Sure, it’s been there for a long time but coming from a Dota background where the right-click is meant to move the hero while the left-click is your action command.
In Diablo III, both buttons are your movement buttons as well as being your two starting abilities. This was infuriating for the first five minutes as it did take me some time to adjust (I am a seasoned semi-professional, mind you).
But, I soon realised that playing Diablo III will actually help me improve my Dota mechanic skills. Instead of having to right-click further away just to move, it requires shorter distance clicks so I wouldn’t accidentally cast a spell on an unknown enemy (especially if that enemy has the ability to gut me in half with one attack).
Killing is Fun Again
Although levelling up the character does take some time (which is hard seeing as I have a social life), I did manage to get a few levels onto my character. With new abilities unlocked, you can create combos with your abilities like summoning the dead to do battle on your behalf (I am a necromancer after all), causing spikes to erupt from the earth and turning corpses into bombs. Oh, the joy of killing is addictive.
Another strategy into hitting massive massacre combos (which grants you added experience gain bonus) is to find a huge group of undead and drawing them into a tight space while nuking them down. Once you have a fresh batch of carcases, drag the next group of enemies close to the same spot and blow them up.
However, I do quite enjoy the Necromancer’s ability to raise the dead as it does tend to get quite lonely when you’re gaming alone. With a helpful undead doing my bidding, at least he can keep me some company while I traverse through dungeons, cemeteries and dark forests all alone. If you decide not to detonate the dead corpses, you can summon an army of skeletons; how cool is that!
I Need More Friends
As far as the storyline goes, the latest DLC from Diablo III isn’t that great nor is it that boring. I guess you could say I’m on the fence about the entire storyline in general as it was compelling enough to keep me entertained but not so interesting to the point I’d drop everything to play it.
I guess with Diablo III, it’s all about getting the raids done with your friends, which is quite disappointing as I only have a handful of friends who play Diablo III and all refuse to play with me because I am too low level and will only slow them down (I don’t know if I should laugh or cry to that statement).
Final Thoughts
Being a born-again first-time Diablo player, I must say, the game has grown a lot. Gone are the days of shitty graphics and bad gameplay mechanics. Although it does lag a bit here and there when the graphics get too intense, the overall gameplay of the Rise of the Necromancer DLC was pretty awesome. If you’re a Diablo III player and you don’t already have it, what are you waiting for?
Byline: Teh Wi-Liam
Publisher: Blizzard Entertainment
Developer: Blizzard Entertainment
Platform: Microsoft Windows
Release Date: 27 June 2017
Genre: Action RPG
Player(s): Single-player, multiplayer
