Diablo III: Reaper of Souls (Add-on)

A new danger threatens all of Sanctuary and has the whole Diablo universe cringing in fear once again. At the end of Diablo III the heroes managed to defeat the Lord of Terror in a fierce battle in the High Heavens, but now a powerful new evil has arisen – Malthael, the Angel of Death. Reaper of Souls is Blizzard Entertainment’s highly anticipated first expansion to Diablo III. To find out whether it was worth going head to head with Death himself, check out the review.

Death Comes for Us All

The Nephalem were victorious in their bold campaign against Diablo, vanquishing him at the Crystal Arch and binding him to the Black Soulstone. The greatest of all the Prime Evils has been destroyed, but the Black Soulstone still exists, as surely as the sun rises and sets. Tyrael, Archangel of Justice, is now a mortal, though he has nevertheless been able to rejoin his erstwhile brethren in the High Heavens as the new Aspect of Wisdom. He is well aware of the potential danger the soulstone represents.

No one can approach the Black Soulstone, not even the angels; so Tyrael decides to bring the wicked artifact to a dark and hidden place. But things don’t work out as planned – Tyrael and his companions are encountered by Malthael, the Angel of Death, who is intent on recovering the soulstone, and willing to use all his power to this end. Taking up El’druin, the legendary Sword of Justice, Tyrael attempts to stop his brother, but against Death himself, even Tyrael is powerless. Soon, chaos prevails, but there is still hope – the Nephalem.

Bring Me My Broadsword

Reaper of Souls definitely does justice to the name “expansion”. Blizzard has made all kinds of changes to the main game and introduced a ton of new features. One of the most significant changes is that they have raised the level cap from 60 to 70. They’ve also added three new passive abilities, as well as a new skill slot starting at level 61. The story continues with a new fifth Act, taking place after the triumphant ending of Diablo III, and the developers have much more devilry in store for players. But first, let’s raise the curtain on Act V.

Our hero has been enjoying a few weeks of peace and quiet, but soon a message arrives from Tyrael: now that Diablo has been defeated, we cannot allow the world to be subjected to evil once again. The hero sets out immediately for the ancient city of Westmarch, but what he encounters there fills his heart with rage. Death and decay lie over the city like a shroud, and even worse, the troops who were once tasked with defending Westmarch have been transformed into undead monstrosities. In a place that used to be home to Westmarch’s nobility, our hero faces his first major adversary, Urzael. At level 61, wearing very good armor, and with the difficulty set to “Hard”, our hero faces an uphill battle. But the despite the deadly blasts from his foe’s flame cannon, he manages to defeat Urzael.

Our hero’s path leads through the Blood Marsh to the Ruins of Corvus. Everything reeks of death and corruption. And it’s right here in this place that he meets an old friend whose betrayal has gone unpunished until now. It’s time to make Adria pay for what she did to Leah. However, Adria’s power has grown since our last encounter with her. Our hero now faces not a just a witch, but a blood demon who tries to destroy him using vampire magic that drains his health. It takes a good bit of stamina and perseverance to dispatch Adria, but after we do, we plan to pay a visit to the Angel of Death as soon as possible.

The story takes us to a remote location known as the Battlefields of Eternity, the site of the great battles between Heaven and Hell. We discover that Malthael has barricaded himself inside the Pandemonium Fortress. Our adventurer must now use an ancient siege weapon to break down the main gate and gain access to the fortress. As expected, he is attacked from all sides by untold numbers of Malthael’s minions, and he has to clear a path through this horde of Death before he can get anywhere.

One more blow from the ram and the gate will give way. With one last great heave, the Nephalem finally manages to break through the gate and is now able to continue his mission. Before we enter the fortress itself, Tyrael informs us that Death cannot be defeated unless our hero becomes “one with death” himself. Luckily there are helpful spirits inside who will assist us if we do something for them in return; namely, unlock the soul prison in the depths of the fortress. After freeing the spirits in the prison, our hero is able to take on the essence of death itself.

There’s not much more to go now. Our adventurer hacks and slashes his way through wave after wave of enemies, meeting two of Malthael’s sub-bosses along the way, both of whom we destroy in a storm of unquenchable fury. The portal in front of us leads directly to the Angel of Death. We walk through it and find ourselves in the middle of a sort of round platform. We attack, careful to avoid the swirling clouds on the ground, as they will reduce our health permanently. For our Nephalem to emerge from this battle victorious, it’s going to take every ounce of his abilities. In addition to the clouds on the ground, Malthael creates a force field around himself, which will also cost us health. And then the unthinkable happens – Malthael destroys the Black Soulstone and absorbs the newly liberated essences himself. Using fire attacks familiar from Diablo, he literally gives us hell. After a while, and down to our last drops of health and mana, we manage to deal Death the final blow, and can now add him to our list of defeated enemies. Now it’s time to celebrate.

I’ve really go to say that it’s clear the guys and girls at Blizzard must have had a lot of fun creating Act V. Each location has been crafted with love and care, down to the smallest detail. In particular, the music, which always fits the level, and the unique color palette really give the game its own atmosphere and a tremendous amount of depth. You can feel death in the air, and this binds the player to the storyline, providing even more motivation to go all biblical on the legions of evil. The final battle with Malthael will push the player’s skills to the limit. And many a wounded heart will be pleased at the chance to meet Adria again, as it was after all her betrayal that allowed Diablo to be reborn. I’m sure many players will find it satisfying to make her pay for her crimes. I was somewhat surprised that the ending was not rendered in 3D, but rather presented in a familiar sketched style. A nice little rendered ending sequence like in Diablo III would have been nice here. Oh well.

After successfully completing Act V, highly motivated adventurers will be left hungry for more action, as every hero knows that if you don’t use your gear, it gets rusty. And, really, what good is a rusty sword? The ladies and gentlemen over at Blizzard must have been thinking something similar, so they came up with a new incentive to play to get right back in the game – Adventure Mode.

The Joy of Battle

Adventure Mode allows brave swordsmen to travel freely throughout Sanctuary, and they can also take on bounty missions in each of the five Acts to collect extremely useful items like Blood Shards and Rift Keystones. If you take the Blood Shards to a certain vendor in town, Kadala, you can trade them for items. Of course, there’s a catch – you can only choose the item’s basic category (e.g. ring, amulet, gloves), and the rest is left up to chance. The whole thing is somewhat reminiscent of the “Gambling” feature from Diablo II. Along with magic (blue) and rare (yellow) items, you can also find legendary (orange) and set (green) items, so it’s worth keeping this in mind. You can use the waypoint map to get anywhere you need to go. Each Act has a total of five bounty missions to complete in order to claim your reward. I should mention though that Adventure Mode is not available until you’ve completed the main quest all the way through Act V.

So what do these bounty missions actually look like? Basically, the player has to dispatch an especially nasty evil minion, find a way to deal with a cursed chest while cutting waves of enemies, or even face off against major antagonists like Diablo, Belial, or Malthael themselves. Or perhaps a certain area just needs to be cleared of enemies. When the hero has fulfilled all his objectives, he can go see Tyrael to receive his reward and then hop on to the next Act.

But bounty missions are not the only new feature available in Adventure Mode. You can also use Rift Keystone fragments on Nephalem Obelisks in each Act to open a portal to a Nephalem Rift. These are parallel worlds where the hero must prove himself by sending a certain percentage of enemies to the Other Side. Once he’s reached this goal, the boss shows up, and he too needs to be taken out before the hero can claim his prize. Traveling through Sanctuary and playing a combination of bounties and Rifts is really just a whole lot of fun. You can tell Blizzard was really thinking about how to make their players happy.

Speaking of making players happy, one especially praiseworthy addition in Reaper of Souls is the “Loot 2.0” system, which makes it easier for players to find more items specifically for their character. Everyone’s familiar with the old dilemma from Diablo III: you’d find an awesome pair of pants with buffs to strength and agility, but your character would be a Wizard. It was especially annoying to find legendary or set items, which are already extremely rare, and then you’d discover that it had attributes that were of no benefit whatsoever to your character. And these weren’t isolated cases, either, but the rule.

They’ve also overhauled many legendary items and added new ones, and they now drop a lot more frequently than they did before the expansion. However, one unfortunate consequence of the expansion is that equipment sets composed of items found before the expansion with those found after it won’t work as a set. The system no longer recognizes that you’ve found two items from the same set, but rather that you have one from before the expansion and one from after. This means you might have to find certain items you’ve already found before. Not cool.

There’s also been some work done to the way stats are displayed when different items are equipped. While Diablo III still showed the stats Life, Damage, and Armor, Reaper of Souls has Damage, Toughness, and Healing. Damage (per second) is now made up of a combination of your weapon’s damage, your character’s main attribute, Attack Speed, Critical hit Chance, passive skills, and a possible increase in attack speed from dual-wielding weapons. Toughness is the amount of damage your hero can take; it’s composed of your maximum Health, Armor, Dodge Chance, average resists, and Damage Reduction for ranged attacks, melee attacks, and elite enemies. This means it’s no longer necessary to exclusively invest in, say, resists, but rather to consider how all these things work together. Healing is the amount of Health you regenerate during combat. It includes values like Life per Second, Life per Hit, Life Steal, Life per Kill, Life per Spirit Spent, Life per Fury Spent, and Health Globe Healing Bonus.

Blizzard scores another point with their changes to the game’s difficulty levels. The old familiar levels – Normal, Nightmare, Hell, and Inferno – are no more. Instead, the new difficulty levels are Normal, Hard, Expert, Master, and Torment (itself in 6 different levels, I-VI). The Torment levels are not available until a character has reached level 60. The new difficulty progression system is better adapted to character level and other conditions, but keep in mind that enemy levels will now be scaled to the level of the character. This makes boring clashes with low-level monsters in familiar areas a thing of the past. A Witch Doctor with a lot of legendary and some very good rare (yellow) items can definitely play at the “Expert” level. A level 60 Barbarian can try Act V either at the “Master” level or even “Torment I”, depending on the character’s equipment.

No Limits

The developers have also re-worked the Paragon level system. The Paragon system was introduced before the expansion in order to make the game more appealing to level 60 characters. It allowed players at the maximum level to collect experience and “level up” so to speak, which provided more motivation for end game players. Up until now, these Paragon levels also had a maximum limit, but in Reaper of Souls, this level cap has been removed. Another thing is that the highest Paragon level reached by a player applies to all of the characters in that player’s account. Each character receives one Paragon point for every Paragon level on the account, which can be used to increase different stats in four alternating categories: Core, Offense, Defense, and Adventure. The range of stats includes Vitality, Intelligence, Critical hit Chance, Resist All, and Life Regeneration, among others. This is one more area where Blizzard has really managed to provide more variety and increase the flow of the game.

Always a Charm

Another great new dimension Blizzard has added to the gameplay and items system is a new NPC artisan, the Mystic. The hero can go to her to have weapons and other items enchanted, and also change bonuses on magic items if they’re not what the player really wants. Clicking on the value to be exchanged will show you which values could be randomly generated in its place. You can only change out one enchantment for another, provided, of course, that your adventurer has enough Gold and the right crafting materials. And if you repeatedly attempt to get the attribute you really want, there’s a significant fee increase for each attempt, making the process more expensive each time.

The other service offered by this buxom lady is called Transmogrification. This opens up a range of new options affecting your character’s appearance. Imagine you’ve found a piece of armor that makes your Wizard look like a real spell caster and not a little schoolboy. But the next piece that comes along has much better stats, and now you’re forced to run around looking like a snotnose brat. And this is where this magical lady comes into play – why not just have your new armor look like your old one? Your problem’s as good as solved, as long as you’re able to cough up the small fee she charges. There are a ton of styles to choose from, and you can add more by finding more items. She’s a real artist!

The Last Crusade

The real icing on the cake, though, is a new character class, the Crusader, who also brings new items into the game. Players will find the Crusader to be similar to the Paladin from Diablo II. His main weapon is a flail that deals some truly nasty damage, and looks really good doing so. More than anything, a passive skill allowing him to carry two-handed flails in one hand makes the Crusader fun to play and gives a feeling of strength and power. Furthermore, he also carries a huge Crusader shield that can be used defensively (blocking) as well as offensively (Shield Bash).

The Crusader also has other useful heavenly skills, such as the ability to summon a Blessed Hammer or the Fist of the Heavens, which calls down a column of lightning to decimate the evil legions in your way. One of the most striking features of the Crusader is his ability to use Laws, which like the Paladin’s Auras, are able to offer the hero and his allies buffs like increased attack speed, resistances, or life regeneration. A fully armored Crusader armed with a flail and carrying a heavy shield is obviously a formidable and dangerous opponent for any of the countless monsters that plague Sanctuary. The developers have really outdone themselves in creating a link to the classic Diablo II and bringing the glorious adventures of the Paladin back to life.

Small but Powerful

A new gemstone has also found its way into Reaper of Souls – the Diamond allows you to reduce skill cooldown times or increase all resistances, among other things. The quality of precious stones you can find in the game has changed, too. From now on, advanced characters will find “Marquise” quality gems. At higher difficulty levels, they will also be able to find “Imperial” ones, which can in turn be upgraded to even higher quality levels. Patch 2.01 introduced many changes to the Skills and Runes system, including increased damage for certain skills, the removal of some Skill Runes and addition of others, or changes to the level requirements.

The expansion has also brought with it a whole set of new achievements for players to unlock. But it really makes you wonder what’s supposed to motivate the player to rack up achievements that don’t really offer anything in return (except the knowledge that they’ve done it). This is where Blizzard could have perhaps considered offering a special design or map or something as a reward for completing all achievements. That would definitely do a lot to increase motivation.

Together or Alone, That Is the Question!

Just like in Diablo III, players can enjoy playing in either single-player mode or one of the multiplayer modes using Blizzard’s own servers. You can launch private sessions with friends or join an open round. One annoying thing is that you can only trade many of the items you find with friends within a two-hour limit, after which they’re permanently bound to your account. But there’s no limit on transferring rare (yellow) items, since they don’t get bound.

A new feature of Reaper of Souls is that you can now form clans and communities. Among other things, players who form a clan can receive news about item finds over their own chat channel. You can also join a community where you can share common goals and interests. Like Diablo III, Reaper of Souls is controlled using the mouse and keyboard. They keyboard is used mostly for skills, and the mouse for navigating the character. The mouse buttons are also used for melee attacks and certain skills that can decide the course of battle.

Nothing Else Like It

Having fought through the first four Acts of Diablo III, most players are well aware of how appealing the game’s custom 3D graphics and physics engine proved to be. Act V includes almost entirely destructible environmental elements, and levels designed to create an atmosphere of foreboding and dread. The uneasy feeling that death is near is ever-present, all the way up until the end when you fight Malthael himself, who doesn’t hold back on devastating attacks. And that’s how it should be – the build-up to the finale is palpable, and it requires skill and perseverance to get there. A job well done on Blizzard’s part.

The level design for Nephalem Rifts is based on the level you enter the Rift from. By changing up the color palette or the light/dark values, Blizzard manages to take the atmosphere of the level in a different direction, and it’s everything but boring. There’s one irritating thing from Diablo III, though, that’s managed to make it into the expansion. I’m referring to buildings and ruins that don’t become transparent when the hero enters them, making it hard for the player to be aware of his surroundings.

Cold Shower

The game’s musical score works well as a whole, and has a sort of chilling effect that stays with the player throughout his adventure. The choral pieces are dark and somewhat depressing, but this is just right considering the game environment. The designers were apparently trying to create a feeling of coldness and unease, and they’ve really done a good job of it. Voiceovers are more or less natural and credible-sounding, though this is of course an extremely subjective element, and tastes will differ, of course.