Blizzard Entertainment partnered with Friv2Online Studio to recently complete a refurbishment of one of the most influential hack and slash titles. We have finally prepared a comprehensive review of the release version of Diablo II: Resurrected - a project in the dark fantasy genre, over which time seems to have almost no power.
If you follow our portal, you are probably familiar with the previous articles on the Diablo II remaster. We visited the technical alpha testing stage and told you about the cosmetic update and some quality-of-life changes, studied the network mode in the beta version of Resurrected, felt the friv game on the nextgen to evaluate its adaptation to consoles.
It's time to summarize the impressions and draw a line, but first let's talk a little about the game itself. In previous materials, we deliberately did not touch on the plot and gameplay, since Blizzard did not change anything (praise be to the light). But a good two decades have passed, and young gamers, whose interest in the genre was nurtured by late games like Diablo III, Path of Exile or Grim Dawn, could easily pass by the "old lady" with its low resolution and pixelated picture.
The events of Diablo II are developing in Sanctuary - a fictional Blizzard world in the entourage of dark fantasy. The main antagonist of the Diablo series, somewhat reminiscent of the Alien Lord of All Terror, recently suffered a shameful defeat at Tristram. And literally below it: in the city there was an old Horadric monastery with a huge network of underground labyrinths, in the depths of which Diablo, imprisoned in the soul stone, vegetated for several centuries.
The imprisonment came to an end when the local archbishop sacrificed the youngest of King Leoric's sons to Diablo. The monarch went mad, the dungeons of the monastery were inhabited by revived nightmares, and those of the local residents who were lucky enough to survive fled away from the cursed lands of Tristram. Everyone except the old witch Adria, Deckard Cain and Prince Aidan, who with their help descended deep into the monastery, defeated all the minions and Diablo himself, put the horned one back into the magic crystal, but did not come up with anything smarter than sticking this stone right into his head.
Plotally, this act is explained by the desire of the young man to keep the lord of horror in his body (the Horadrim practiced this), but somewhere I read a viable theory that Diablo, capable of influencing weak minds (as was the case with the archbishop and the unfortunate Leoric), could just whisper things to Aidan while the prince descended into the bowels of his lair.
Diablo II begins with the story of the "dark wanderer". That was the name of the hero who saved Tristram from an ancient evil. Adrian became a wanderer after he left the saved city and went east, either in search of salvation, or driven by the will of the lord of horror, gradually absorbing his soul. Our character arrives at the camp of vagrants, located near the ruined monastery of the Order of the Blind Eye, and sets off on the trail of a wanderer, leaving death, destruction and numerous minions of the forces of Evil in his wake.
Players will experience a five-act journey filled with side quests, dark dungeons, dangerous enemies and bosses. Locations will be randomly generated, and loot will drop in huge quantities. And you will also have to think hard about the build or read guides on thematic sites of many years of exposure, because when you finish the friv game in "normal" mode, the hero starts a new race in the "nightmare", and after - in "hell".
With each circle, the amount of experience for killing monsters and the quality of the dropped items will increase, but the monsters will also become much more dangerous and thicker, while the resistance to elemental damage of the player's hero will drop by 20% for Nightmare and 50% for Hell. For especially gambling hardcore with permanent death is provided.
Five creepy bosses at the end of each act, unique class equipment, numerous stones, enchantments, runes, jewels, and a horadric cube for crafting high-level items - in Diablo II, you can hang around for months, getting rare equipment and researching various builds, because each of the classes has three skill branches with 30 unique skills.
Diablo II: Resurrected includes the Lord of Destruction add-on by default, which means that all seven characters are available at launch:
A nimble Amazon who is equally proficient with ranged weapons, a two-handed spear, and even magical skills such as exploding or freezing arrows;
Assassin, a master of traps and martial arts, capable of manipulating shadow disciplines;
A sorceress wielding destructive spells of fire, cold, and electricity;
A barbarian who specializes in close combat and shouting to cheer up allies or confuse enemies;
A druid who can call on the elements of nature, call on spirits to help and turn into a beast;
A paladin gifted with the ability to use defensive and combat auras;
Necromancer, able to raise the dead and cast curses on the minions of the forces of Evil.
Even within the same class, you can create several unique heroes for different playstyles. Some are suitable for a relaxed “normal” sweep, others will have to be properly dressed for “hell”, others will fit for a collective passage, where their partners will balance their weaknesses.
We figured out the essence of the matter, let's once again discuss the main changes in the Resurrected version of the project. We've already talked about everything before, so let's go galloping:
Updated graphics: One of the main "selling" advantages of the Resurrected version is a new graphics engine with completely redrawn models, animations, effects and textures, supporting high resolution (including ultra-wide) and refresh rate. Instead of a thousand words, I am attaching a couple more screenshots. Pay attention to the detail of the landscape, scenery and characters. Now you can't take your eyes off Diablo II.
Updated sound: The project received support for Dolby 7.1 sound, due to which all atmospheric effects, as well as music, began to sound voluminous and modern. On the character creation screen, there is an option where you can switch between legacy and modernized versions of the game to not only compare the new hero skins with the old ones, but also listen to how the original Diablo II sounded in the Resurrected version.
Redrawn Heroes, Enemies, and Bosses: The updated hero models have become one of the key topics of discussion for Resurrected online. Blizzard has been criticized for desexualizing and censoring the project due to its more subdued image of the Amazon, but all this is nothing more than empty talk. Diablo II has remained the same bloody and frank, and the Amazon, as well as the greatly changed druid, look great.
Updated cutscenes: The developers have completely redone all the story cutscenes in Resurrected. They are not lost in atmosphere but look modern.
Updated stash: In the Resurrected version, the character's stash was more than doubled - from 48 slots to 100. Moreover, there were three tabs for a stash common to all network characters, which eliminates the need for players to start "mules".
Quality-of-life changes: Diablo II has been remastered with a number of customizable amenities. For example, improved display of character parameters and the ability to compare items of equipment, automatic selection of gold and mini-map settings, as well as a number of other useful things, including the ability to switch to a legacy image at any time and modes for color blind people.
Battle.net Dedicated Servers: The friv game has a multiplayer lobby where you can create your own game by specifying restrictions for guests, invite comrades to a session with one click, or join other players from the browser.
Among the main drawbacks of Diablo II: Resurrected are frequent (and expected) network problems. Ping is still jumping and at times the character is thrown back, and damage to monsters does not take place immediately. There are also problems with connecting to servers, though there are fewer of them every day.
Diablo II has been adapted to gamepads as much as possible. Playing with them is both pleasant and uncomfortable. The problem is that the project is based on "loot-hunting" with the constant dragging of loot in the inventory, work with the cache and merchants, fanny packs and equipment. All this takes annoyingly long with a gamepad, as well as collecting individual loot lying on the ground.
I’ve said it before and I won’t get tired of repeating it: Diablo II: Resurrected was and remains the most important game in its genre, a special and unique product with a unique atmosphere, setting and lore. Maybe now, due to the natural evolution of the ARPG, it can no longer be considered a reference ( Hack and slash games have taken a step further both in dynamics and in the variety of content), but Diablo II is still delightfully playable and deep to interest the younger generation of gamers and convince " oldies" to break back into Sanctuary from the zeros.
