Trying Out Diablo IV

 I didn't grow up playing Diablo or Diablo II - as a kid, I was pretty averse to any grim, ultra-violent games, and for certain my parents were (I remember when I was twelve having to persuade my mom that the then-upcoming The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time wasn't too violent despite the fact that the player character wields a sword). So, my experience with the franchise began with Diablo III, born out of the good will that Blizzard had earned with me after playing World of Warcraft for a few years at that point.

However, despite Blizzard starting out as a Mac OS game developer, the release of Overwatch and eventually Diablo IV on PCs only left me out in the cold.

I had barely cared to finish Diablo III's campaign initially, but the game underwent some serious refinements with its Reaper of Souls expansion.

I actually played quite a lot of that - I got characters of every class a full class set and had a build where I could mow down waves upon waves of demons at the highest Torment difficulties.

Here's the thing: Diablo, and honestly a lot of Blizzard games (WoW included) are built to be perpetual treadmills - ever higher power and ever higher challenge.

And as I make my way through Diablo IV, I'm confronted with the fact that such things aren't quite as appealing to me as they once were.

I like the aesthetic of the game - while I don't want to wallow in it for every game I play, there's something compelling about the extreme-dark fantasy of the world of Sanctuary. Indeed, Diablo IV's opening sets a tone in a way that few games do: the first town you come across, while worrying about freezing to death in the wilderness (not that this is a danger mechanically,) sends you on a pretty standard sort of quest to go fight some monsters in a nearby dungeon. In lieu of gold as a reward, however, they give you dinner and party with you, only for it to be revealed that they've drugged you, apparently seeking to sacrifice you to Lilith, the game's demonic big bad (also, I believe this breaks from the tradition of it always turning out to be the titular Diablo as the game's final boss).

I also really like the take the game has on its various character classes - I've primarily played a necromancer, but I also started a Druid (which wasn't an option in D3).

But I think that the combat is just not really doing it for me. Diablo combat is all about fighting absurd numbers of monsters, where enemy density becomes a positive thing because of the chain-reaction way that a lot of character abilities work.

It is, perhaps, the polar opposite of Dark Souls-style combat, in which each attack and dodge is something that you have to carefully consider in the moment. I don't mean to say there's zero thought that you have to put into what you do in Diablo, but I find that even without a bunch of legendary items and on high difficulty settings, the most important thing is to make sure you're using everything at your disposal as frequently as possible.

To be clear: this is a matter of taste, not of quality. But I do think that the purpose of a game like Diablo is to get a kind of zen calm in clearing out waves upon waves of enemies.

But for me, the enemies themselves kind of blur together into an undifferentiated mass.

The story is grim as ever - even the angelic church that would seem to protect the world from the demons is a deeply repressive and unforgiving one - at one point, a friendly NPC who admittedly screwed up big time by taking a bribe to let someone get in somewhere they shouldn't have is forced to wear a suit of "Penitent Armor," which is one part mech suit and one part Iron Maiden, so he dies after coming to our aid. That's just one example.

One thing that's maybe a little disappointing is that the story doesn't really follow up on the revelations of Diablo III. 50 years have passed, but the only real direct reference to that is that Lorath, the young Horadrim apprentice who befriends us in Reaper of Souls, is now a bitter old man with tons of regrets (though he does seem to serve as our primary ally through the game - and is voiced by Ralph Ineson, whose voice is always fun to hear). But the implications of the Nephalem reawakening their god-like power seems to have been just kind of tossed to the side, at least for now (I'm I think in Act IV - I'm in Kejistan).

Actually, one thing that's funny is that the Butcher, who was the Act One boss in Diablo III, has been returned to his old role from previous games of being a randomly-spawning nightmare boss that just zeroes in on your character (even if you're a poor Necromancer whose skeletons and golem are supposed to tank for you) and murders you. Having gotten used to the Butcher as an easy kill on my super-powered D3 characters, this is a brutal wake-up call.

Anyway, I feel weird complaining about the game because it's just being what Diablo has always been. And yet, there's a part of me that might better enjoy playing through this story in just a different game system.