Then there’s the evade feature. The left analog stick is mapped to general movement while the right analog stick is for the sole purpose of combat rolling. Being able to roll away from a charged up attack or out of a pool of lava revolutionized D3 for me. There’s no cooldown or stamina restriction on rolling, so you can roll whenever you want as much as you want. It’s an amazing addition to the game and now I wouldn’t want to ever play without it.
Skill management - more lovely radial menus
Another amazing addition to the game is the difficulty setting. D3 launched with four “mode” difficulties (Normal, Nightmare, Hell, and Inferno) which got progressively harder. Upon beating the game the first time in Normal, players went back to the beginning of the game and started the game on Nightmare with higher level enemies. This hasn’t changed for the console version. On top of it has been added a second difficulty setting (called “difficulty”) that can be set from the beginning of the game and changed whenever. When you first boot up the game you can pick between Easy, Medium, and Hard, but very soon Master I and Master II difficulties unlock as well. Master I and Master II are much more difficult, but enemies give increased gold and XP and players receive bonus Magic Find and Gold Find. I absolutely love this new feature. Master II difficulty is a blast, and I can get a challenging experience with better drops really early in the game instead of having to wait until reaching Nightmare and beyond.
Gorgeous scene
There’s a bunch of other changes/refinements that I could gush on about like the quick equip system (which lets players cycle through a little menu by their health bar, telling them if items are upgrades or downgrades regarding damage, armor, and health), the adjusted camera (the Belial fight is now about 250% more awesome), or Nephilim Glory orbs (gold power-ups that drop on the ground). Honestly, I only have two very small complaints about the game. One is that in shared-screen co-op, players can’t be in the main menu at the same time, so everyone has to take their own turn setting skills or selling. The second is that there are very tiny lag spikes here and there, but they don’t really impact gameplay. These minor complaints pale to the quality co-op experience the game has to offer.
When the PC version of Diablo 3 launched, I was pretty disillusioned for a number of reasons. After about a month of playing it, I put the game down (with a fair amount of disgust) and never picked it back up. Never in a million years would I have thought I’d be singing such praises of the console version over a year later. The console version was the version of D3 that I didn’t know I wanted. The console team for D3 made me remember why I love Diablo. It’s the worthy successor to Diablo 2 and more than worth your time if you own a console.
The Co-Optimus Review of Diablo 3 (Console) is based on the Playstation 3 version of the game, purchased by the reviewer.
Verdict
Editor's Choice!
Co-Op Score
Overall
The Co-Op Experience: Choose between five classes (Monk, Witch Doctor, Wizard, Barbarian, and Demon Hunter) and play online with four friends. Players can trade items and complete quests. Difficulty scales based on number of players.
Co-Optimus game reviews focus on the cooperative experience of a game, our final score graphic represents this experience along with an average score for the game overall. For an explanation of our scores please check our Review Score Explanation Guide.