What Diablo III wanted to be but could not

I was one of many who were excited to play the new Diablo chapter. And I was one of many who became frustrated with the result presented by Blizzard. Not that the game worthless, it’s worth a lot - I have hundreds of hours played over in little more than a year since the release - but the truth is: there is a lot changing on D3 when comparing with D2 and D1. First, the colors were blown to the max, probably an attempt to approach the cartoon style color World of Warcraft and the environments are all very clear. And this is something execrable in the world that was created for Diablo. In Tristram, things are gray, if not black, after all it is a world dominated by a supreme evil, where skeletons and zombies wandering in the cathedrals and there’s rot in every corner, infesting cities and plantations. In this world, there is no room for anything colorful; nothing clear can be founded in this world.

Diablo 3 on console

After this launch and the later disappointment, there’s a huge game gap opened in the heart of everyone who wanted to get into the darkest dungeon. And, to fill this gap, were not lacking of candidates. Torchlight was appointed by many as the spiritual successor to Diablo, but I confess that this colorful eycandy that is presented for the game did not catch me - and did not make me understand why he was appointed as a Diablo’s successor. With all this color around the hack ’n’ slash games the older games have gained notoriety with the younger generation, like Icewind Dale and Baldur's gate, but none had the quick and angry gameplay slash we saw in Diablo.

Path of Exile Skilltree

Until now. Now tha game community have Path of Exile. Dark. Dirty. Fast and difficult. Very difficult. PoE is hack 'n' slash that resemble D2 at the core of its gameplay (and its graphics). The variability of environments is quite large and rich, but manages to keep the dark aura that everyone wanted. Dungeons are poorly lit and bring an interesting effect: to the extent that your life decreases, your vision also decreases. The halo of light that your character have to see in the dark starts to diminish according to your life decrease, making the dungeon a lot more dark, and making you to see just a small portion of the scenery when in imminence of death. This helps a lot when creating a charged atmosphere of struggle between good and evil and also increases the player's tension.

But what strikes the eye is the almost infinite ability tree, which can help or hinder, depending on your indecision to follow a certain path for your character. This is generally one of the most criticized points of the Diablo series (which was never a masterpiece from the point of view of the characters creation and alignment of classes). Each class has a starting place in that tree, and this determines the size of the path we must follow to get certain skill. For example, a Marauder (barbarian) is much closer to the skills of strength and fighting; e.g., your strategy needs to be very well defined already when you’re choosing your character.

Path of Exile Town on Act 1

The PoE learning curve is quite tenuous. You will develop your skills and improve your character according to the level you are in (if you didn't any kind of grinding) and the monsters follow this curve as well. It is not uncommon; however, go into some dungeon with level 12 monsters while you still standing at level 10, for instance. But it's nothing that comes to disrupt the gameplay of those who have plunged into the dungeons of other classics of the genre.

In terms of gameplay you have nothing very new. Much exploration, much loot and dropped item (rarely an enemy does not drop anything), much like the other games. The exceptiom here is the gems system - attack, defense and support - which differs slightly. The usual systems tend to be a little less complicated then in PoE, here we have a certain combination of gems that have to happen in determined way to act in her fullness, and you will take some time to get used with this system.

The game HUD is very similar to the Diablo series - and every other game on this genre - and presents nothing new: a globe of energy, a globe of mana, a belt of potions and spells a tree - which will vary according to the use of gems - leaving the only novelty for the energy shield, which protects you for a few strokes only (more or less, depends the size of your shield).

PoE is free-to-play and is available on Steam and the game's website [pathofexile.com] and is recommended for those who want to lose hours of life entering dungeons and quests zeroing.