Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls
Producer: Blizzard
Release Date: March 18, 2014
Platform: PC
Rating: Mature
Genre: Role-Playing Game
To Hell and Back
Written by Jesse Seilhan
When Diablo III came out last year, fans and critics alike found themselves mouse-deep into a hole of loot grinding, boss raiding, and gear comparing. It only took a few months for the attraction to wear off, however, as glaring issues with the end-game content and auction house kept the game from truly meeting it’s predecessor’s level. With Reaper of Souls, Blizzard looks to right all of its initial wrongs, offering fans a new way to play, a ton of new loot, and a new character to play it with. While the expansion does cost $40, it is money well spent if you have a couple buddies willing to stomp through Hell one more time.
First off, you get a whole new act for your money. While not as long as the prior four, Act V is definitely worthwhile. The new areas are excellent and the new enemies add another layer of strategy to an already complex game. The story is all about another angel, this time the archangel Malthael, who has come to capture the stone that Diablo was trapped in at the end of the main campaign. It all becomes quite clear very soon why he desires such ultimate power, but it is up to you and your weapon of choice to make sure this does not happen.
Blizzard decided to make that trek a little more fun by adding a new character to the fracas: The Crusader. Equipped with a trusty flail, this holy soldier has a variety of badass powers at his or her disposal. First and foremost, a shield is used as an offensive tool, being thrown across the battlefield or bashing it into demon skulls around every corner. Even cooler, you can call in a magical steed that lets you traverse the grounds much quicker and do some stomping damage in the process. Toss in some quality voice acting and a semi-strong narrative and you have the perfect fit for an already eclectic group of heroes.
The biggest addition to the game comes in the form of Adventure Mode. Once the final boss has been slain, players will want to repeat moments of the game again and again in search for better items. Before Reaper of Souls, this task was a bore as you had to sit through all the story stuff again and rinse and repeat until you found something cool. With Adventure Mode, you are given a series of bounties to complete in nearly every area of the game. Once those trials are finished, you are rewarded with a giant bag of loot that explodes like a pinata. Along the way, you will fight some of the toughest enemies within the game, including remixed versions of prior bosses, all who will happily leave some cool stuff when you have levied the final blow. All in all, it makes for the best reason to keep playing after the credits have rolled.
For fans of this series, expansions are widely believed to be some of the best Diablo content ever produced. Reaper of Souls continues that tradition by giving players hundreds of hours worth of stuff to play through. Unless, for some reason, you found the basic mechanic and art design boring, there is no reason why you wouldn’t pay to get more rich, gaming goodness from one of the best studios alive today. They even revamped the difficulties, adding another one altogether and giving you full control over how tough the last one is, just to make sure you never really feel more overpowered than the angels and demons you fight. So call a buddy or two and let them know that Diablo III is cool again, that way you and some pals can Adventure Mode your way through this fantastic game.