On the fly commentary for:
Thanks a lot, McClane for bringing this one back to the foreground. Grrr... Yeah, I had been eying it passively for the last few weeks but never figured I'd jump on it. Perhaps the recent dive back into Starcraft II rekindled an old school love for Blizzard (then, less so much now), but the night before release I ended up purchasing the DII + DIII package. I have DIII on the PS systems, but thought what the heckers, for another 20 bucks I have it available on PC for when I need a dumb shooter =\ Wait. Shooter? Yeah.
.....yeah.
I've read a few reviews and I have to say that 2 of 3 read a bit unfair and arrogant. Like, in the way someone who grew up in today's modern gaming standards has tried to jump in for a DII run without contexts of what existed (with all the limitations) in that time. All social/political drama from Blizzard aside, this game, to me, pretty much nails all expectations. And, as an aside, has taught me a bit about myself having not really played this game for around 15 years.
As noted, it's been a while since I've touched the original. It resides on an old PC still lurking in the shadows of a back room closet. So I won't be able to draw any practical comparisons between it and today's Resurrected, but the developers did manage to wedge one very cool feature in to help. At any point during gameplay you have the option to hit the "G" key on your keyboard, toggling the original graphics. It's immediate, as in it requires no load time and can happen during combat, if you're weird enough to want that.
I find myself constantly toggling the display to see how the remastered content looks in comparison, or to clod around in my bouncing 2000-era character (bouncing because the screen scroll was NOT smooth back then!). Yes, resolution reverts back to classic (or annoying, depending on your definition of nostalgia) 800 PIXELS in 4:3 FORMAT!!!! Still, the game is great. The soundtrack is still there, the voice acting is the same, and the grind---OMG the grind---is as Hellraiser-esque painful and pleasurable at it ever was.
There were details that threw me off (and this is where I split with some of the review complaints referenced earlier), such as the fact that you can only arm two (yes, TWO) skills at a time. That's one for your left mouse button, and another for the right. Granted, you do have a key-bind weapons swap (W) that changes the weapons in hand and the two attack caster attack options for, I suppose (counts) a total of four attack binds? I had forgotten that particular limitation and died a few times for it. To compromise, it seems that Blizzard added binding options to the F1-F8 key row. To be very clear about this, I have not tested it as I feel if it wasn't in the old then I don't want it in the new, but it reads as those those F-key binds are not direct casts either. Instead, they act similarly to the (W) weapons switch. I believe that you can assign different left/right mouse associations to different cast attacks with the pair bound to one F-key. So (counts again) that should be eight sets of two-key bind options. Only AFTER hitting one of the F-keys, of course, can you then cast the switched attack by using your left and right mouse buttons. Wonkiness to a degree, but at least it keeps in line with the heart of the original game rather the Warcraft style of custom binding everything, infinitely. Oh, and good luck attempting to run-and-gun as has become the standard within DIII. Not. A. Chance. Your left mouse button serves dual functions: one is to click-to-move, while the other is to click the target to attack. It's one or the other, folks. Such a wonderfully painful reminder to how spoiled we've all become!!
As of last night, I cleared Act I capping a weekend run, and I have to say that this game is SLOW. That's not a bad thing, but I had forgotten just how short attention-spanned my attention span has become over the last twenty years or so of gaming evolution. Some reviewers have complained about having the same number of slots for your gear and that that, somehow, is unacceptable. Hogwash, I say! That was part of the game! Why else would you need to buy so danged many Scrolls of Town Portal?! You're almost required to pop back to the Rogue Encampment every 10 minutes or so just to unload your loot for gold. All the more reason to stop and chat it up with each vender as their gear resets with each new camp visit! THAT. IS. THIS. GAME!!! Why would they complain for that? I love it. But, alas, that is also a cold reminder of just how much time I
had to completely waste as my then twenty-something self. I'm not sure how much of that near required grind time I have now to devote to each dungeon, though I do so want to!
As long you have realistic expectations for what this game is (was), and aren't looking back through some weird rose-tinted goggles expecting the unrealistic, then you should still love this game just as much as you did way back when. It really is as addictive as I remember it being.