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Diablo: Immortal First Impressions

by - 3 years ago

I’ll be the first to admit that when Diablo Immortal was first revealed I was skeptical. I haven’t done a
ton of mobile gaming in my lifetime so I wasn’t sure if it would click with me. I also have larger
fingers so I was a bit worried that playing on my note 9 (which has a 6.4 inch screen) would result
in an unoptimal experience. I was worried that too much of the screen would be covered in UI elements and my thumbs.

I can say though that in my first few hours of playing it on a Barbarian that those reservations can be put to rest.
D:I has some of the smoothest touch screen controls that I have ever experienced in a mobile game.
It was a little bit awkward at first but I quickly got use to it and it was only a matter of minutes
and a few encounters with large groups of zombies that it almost became natural.

The combat and targeting in the game is much more intuitive and smooth than I had expected it to be. It’s punchy, weighty, and satisfying. There’s a lot of Barbarian skills here that have been carried over from Diablo 3 but they aren’t a copy and paste. Hammer of the Ancients is back but it has a much larger AoE effect and each single strike hits harder but with a twelve second cooldown. Cleave has returned as well but it comes with three charges that have to be aimed in a cone and a brand new animation. There’s also “Ultimate” abilities which are really cool that you charge up when using your primary skill with the Barbarian’s being “Blood and Rage”. This ability makes you almost invincible and able to dish out huge AoE damage by enhancing your primary Lacerate ability to give you 20% more healing and increasing the size and damage of your attacks. So far, the Barbarian has been the fast paced berserker that you know and love and it’s been my favorite so far.

The inventory management and menu navigation is also very smooth and felt very similar to other ARPGs. It made sense and felt natural right out of the gate which was also a nice surprise. Figuring out what is and isn’t an upgrade is just as easy as D3 and the UI does a good job at making it easy to compare pieces of gear to work out what’s best for your playstyle. The game just plays very well and there were a lot of moments where I completely forgot that I was playing on a phone. This really does feel like a full fledged Diablo game in your hands.

One of the biggest standout features so far has been the MMO elements. Seeing other players out in the world of Sanctuary really makes it feel alive which is a nice breath of fresh air for the franchise. This is enforced by public events that are randomly scattered throughout each zone. Each public event I have done so far has you take down a boss in the world that has a few mechanics that you have to watch out for that ends with a big reward chest full of loot and materials. I just can’t stress enough how good it feels to be grouping up with random players in the game world to accomplish different tasks in a Diablo game. The added social elements really do add a different dynamic and feel that I have been looking for in the franchise for a while now.

There’s also group dungeons that you unlock as you progress through the story that you can queue up for and also do solo. The first dungeon I did was Mad King’s Breach where we were tasked with taking down our old friend Leoric. This dungeon had two boss encounters before the Skeleton King himself. It was really wild to be doing a queued group dungeon with multiple boss encounters in a Diablo game.

I initially had a concern that these dungeons would be too easy without presenting much of a challenge. Until I did the Forgotten Tower Dungeon where The Countess destroyed me multiple times before I finally took her down. This was a good experience because the Mad King’s Breach was a bit easier than this dungeon. But I will chalk that up to it being the first dungeon that’s introduced to the player, so it’s probably not tuned to be as hard.

There’s a lot to like so far about Diablo Immortal. It feels good to play, it’s controls and UI are intuitive, and it does a good job of blending in the MMO elements without making it feel too crowded. Having this on the go also makes for a really cool experience as I was able to continue playing at work while I was on my break, which was really fun

What are you excited the most about with Diablo: Immortal? What are your concerns? Is there a standout feature? Drop a comment in the section below!


hotstreak

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