Review: Diablo 3 – Reaper of Souls

When angels have fallen, and with no one who can stop death… who will save us? Oh wait, there is someone! The Crusader will save the day! A new Nephalem to join the ranks. He will smite the new evil that corrupts the land with its very presence. His Fist of The Heavens will smite any evil caught in its path, no really it will do just that. He can summon up blessed hammers to swirl around him, wreaking havoc on any enemy caught in their path, basically smashing their faces in while either setting them on fire or shocking them with electricity. The Crusader, with his awesome “I care not” attitude to his “you’re too weak…” skills to use against the newer and harder creatures, is by far is the best Nephalem I have ever played on Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls. My favorite skill set is Fist of Heavens and Heaven’s Fury. Heaven’s Fury is a holy beam of light cast down onto the ground that moves, burning every evil being caught in its path.

I didn't want to spoil to much about the Crusader, but with his personality, he is just awesome to play. When killing Maghda she told him that she was a distraction to which he replied "killing you is worth the distraction" and I loved it!
I didn’t want to spoil to much about the Crusader, but with his personality, he is just awesome to play. When killing Maghda she told him that she was a distraction to which he replied “killing you is worth the distraction” and I loved it!

You will face new creatures in the expansion which are created by the Black Soulstone that a certain fallen angel steals and moves across sanctuary. I won’t say who because you’ll find out soon enough. The new creatures are fearsome, some make you wonder what had happen to the Burning Hells and the High Heavens after you (spoiler alert) killed Diablo. The worst part is that they’re angels. They’re not even the ones Diablo corrupted; they’re more free and willing to kill. An example of one of the new creatures (that isn’t an angel) is the Blood Golem. They drip red blood and eat humans to look more like them… it’s just chilling. Even the living, not safe then either, can suddenly change into the undead and attack. Wandering through Westmarch can be dangerous, so make sure to watch your back since a once friend could turn to a enemy. If you manage to kill them, however, they might just drop something shinny, just like the Treasure Goblins… bless their small and weak hearts.

On the topic of shinnies, there is a new drop/loot system in place which made finding loot much easier for both the expansion and the vanilla D3. Though if you can’t wait to find anything better from drops you can always visit the Haedrig the blacksmith! He will always help you with your equipment needs, providing you have the gold and scraps for him. I personally had Haedrig craft my stuff pretty much up till I hit level 60ish. About level 60, the drops were getting a wee bit better than the stuff I could get forged. Overall the drops are way better now and legendaries drop more frequently and are more useful (not useless shiny scraps like they were before). With the new drop system working like a charm, the only bad news is that the auction house is now closed/closing because it made trying pointless. You could just buy all the items you want for gold and didn’t need to put effort into the game all that much. You still get the shinnies anyways, so all is good! Now then, let’s see, so far we’ve covered the Crusader, new creatures, and new loot… now all that is left is spoilers!

You did what to my kitten?!
“You did what to my kitten?!”

Spoiler alert past this point! No really, I mean it!

You think defeating the evil around you was enough? You think stopping death by empowering yourself with death was enough!? Well you are wrong! Oh so very wrong, as you see….killing Malthael after he destroyed the Black Soulstone only did one thing..well several but the biggest thing is this: YOU LET ALL THE EVIL FREE! So what are you going to do about it? Simple! Go out and collect bounties on evil and claim even more loot! Of course this also sets up for the Nephalem Rifts which tests your epicness as a Nephalem… and also give loot. With the rifts and bounties come blood shards! Blood shards can be traded for random gear from Kadala, sometimes the gamble pays off with legendaries. To give length to this already pretty long game (if you do it right) they add 10 more levels for you to power your way through! Then as if those levels weren’t enough they changed the Paragon levels. now you get a choice in where you want to put your point each time you level selected from a set guide, the rework is also in the normal vanilla D3 as well.

Now I’m wondering, why did they end the campaign with all the veil freed just for the bounty system? I’m thinking they’re planning another game/expansion. I’m sure that I’m not the only fan wanting more from this epic game series that has been around for ages. Sadly, that is for blizzard to decide. Judging from their track record, I doubt we’ll be disappointed.

I loved the new expansion, sadly I didn't even cover all the cool new stuff in the game. I didn't even mention the awesome new environments with eerie background music that honestly gave me chills as I played. The game for me was worth the 40 bucks to buy it, the crusader was insanely fun to play, his attitude was epic and well... awesome! If you can't decide based on what I've said, I'd recommend watching some play-throughs of the 5th act.
I loved the new expansion, sadly I didn’t even cover all the cool new stuff in the game. I didn’t even mention the awesome new environments with eerie background music that honestly gave me chills as I played. The game for me was worth the 40 bucks to buy it, the crusader was insanely fun to play, his attitude was epic and well… awesome! If you can’t decide based on what I’ve said, I’d recommend watching some play-throughs of the 5th act.

Anthony Buck Sig

5 thoughts on “Review: Diablo 3 – Reaper of Souls

  • June 12, 2014 at 18:28
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    This game was fun the first week it came out. But my Steam friends ruined the experience of this game for me because all they wanted to do was exploit all the bugs in the game to get the highest paragon level possible. I believe I ended the first week at paragon 125 and they were already 300+. It’s not fun anymore when your friends are have 2 million dps and you’re stuck at 600k dps, working your butt off earning your loot while they exploit theirs. Jon: Now I know how you guys felt when I bought gil in FFXI. Totalllly makes sense now. Ugh. Sorry about that. lol

    Reply
    • June 13, 2014 at 05:52
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      Sucks doesn’t it? There is something to be said about taking your time and enjoying the experience of a game. There really is. The tougher truth is that there are kids that love to do what you just said and that’s how they enjoy the games they play. It just sucks when that’s the group that you want to play with and your playstyles clash a bit. It doesn’t make them wrong, but it does bring down the enjoyment factor.

      I haven’t played the expansion yet, but I haven’t fully enjoyed the basic version of D3… However, Reaper of Souls has the class I want to play so I’ll probably pick it up some time. Can you play through the original D3 with the Crusader class?

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      • June 19, 2014 at 14:04
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        Well the original D3 is Acts I-IV so yeah you can play with Crusader. But you need RoS to play as Crusader.

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        • June 19, 2014 at 18:45
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          Well… I guess when it goes to $9 or when it’s a gift I’ll pick it up since I haven’t really beaten vanilla D3 and it wasn’t really drawing me in.

          Reply
          • June 23, 2014 at 23:21
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            Path of Exile’s new expansion comes out in August and they’re resetting all the ladders for the new content. If you haven’t played it I would highly suggest you do. My wife probably has more hours logged into it than me.

            Reply

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