Hello there, minions of hell!
For the last couple of weeks, I've been sinking a couple of my free hours here and there into Diablo 2 resurrected. I was a bit reluctant to purchase since Blizzard's track record lately leaves a lot to be desired. Still, it was 30% off during the Black Friday sales, so I decided to take the plunge into hell.
I wanted to wait a bit more to get started; I was hoping to play when ladders released (ladders is a game mode where everyone starts fresh, on equal footing, and on a new economy, it changes how everyone interacts with the game since there are no ways to rush it early on) but alas, I failed, I got the game and started playing after black Friday.
So is it worth it, or is it just another Blizzard scheme to get a quick buck out of nostalgia suckers?
Well, TL;DR - It is worth it - especially if you tried to get into Diablo 2 years after launch and found it hard due to the graphics and difficulty.
Something that I enjoyed is that they didn't mess with the difficulty of the game, it is not a snoozefest like Diablo 3, and you have to remain on your toes at all times, even the slightest mistake or overconfidence will result in you dying, and unlike Diablo 3, you lose experience and drop all your loot and gold in this game, so you have to walk back to get it OR quit the game and find it below you, but you will lose a good chunk of exp and all the gold you were carrying by doing that. It is punishing to die by overconfidence in this game because that usually means your corpse will get surrounded by monsters that will probably kill you again as you approach, so be careful!
As you can see on the screenshot above, I have two characters:
My first character was a Frozen Orb Sorceress, and she is a lot of fun. Still, she is a glass cannon, and without good items, you'll be dying left and right non-stop on hell difficulty, trust me, you will die!
My second character, and the one I'm playing right now, is a Whirlwind Barbarian, better known as spiny boys, he's a bit tankier, which I like, but monsters with physical resistance and immunities are a real pain in the arse.
I decided to talk about my experience first and the graphical and sound effects last because I don't have a lot to mention. Yes, the graphics are great, but nothing out of this world. It feels like they managed to keep the essence of what made Diablo 2 intact and successfully updated all the graphics and sound effects to the modern world. If you don't believe me, you can press G while playing the game. The game will show you the legacy mode, which is what the game looked like initially, a pretty cool feature if you ask me. I sometimes indulge in playing with the old graphic effects instead.
The audio has also got improvements from the original release. You can also check out the old audio and sound effects by pressing G. The skills sound better than legacy. Thanks to audio improvements, your footsteps sound better, and it is way more satisfying to kill monsters now.
In conclusion, and as mentioned earlier - Yes, it is worth it to give it a spin and at least get thru Normal and Nightmare difficulties, because Nightmare is really where the fun starts, but only if you held an interest in playing Diablo 2 before because you either have played Diablo 1 or Diablo 3 at some point. Still, suppose you're looking to get into a modern action RPG. In that case, you're better off going for Path of Exile until Diablo 4 or Diablo Immortal release.
I have had a lot of fun with this game and will continue to play it for a good while, especially when ladders come out!