Posted on: April 6, 2020

songoffall
Verified ownerGames: 307 Reviews: 7
Mixed bag of blessings.
I had a fever, and the cure was something like Diablo 2. I played Diablo 1 when it came out - still got the Prima guide to it. Then I spent countless hours in Diablo 2. Diablo 3 was... underwhelming. So how does Grim Dawn stand out as a Diablo-style ARPG? 1. The presentation The environments are beautiful. The character models and the gear are not. Not jarringly ugly, but Diablo 2's art direction this is not. 2. The sound The sound design is horrible. In Diablo and Diablo 2 you could understand a lot about the world just by listening to it. Each kind of loot made a distinct sound when dropped. Monsters would have unique sounds. In Grim Dawn you can't rely on it. At all. 3. The gameplay It's bad. Like the bastard child of Diablo and World of Warcraft. Bitter, estranged bastard child. Humans and ghosts and undeath only look different - they may also inflict different kinds of damage - but are not as distinct as in BG or even Diablo. The bosses are extremely cheap. Not hard; cheap. After 30 hours here's how the bosses play out: most spawn minions endlessly, some don't. You kite them and once in a while throw a ranged attack or skill at them. Take forever to kill. The loot... isn't worth it. But often are required to progress the game. Too many magical items and rare items and epic items. Too many item effects to realistically manage. Opaque and confusing character progression. At some point in the game there was an acid floor. Did it act as an obstacle in front of a secret? Was it to force the player to find an alternate root? No, it was just there to punish the player for whatever. The developer thought it would be cool to have an acid room. 4. The verdict It's not all bad. Except all the good ideas are carried over from Diablo. Most of the rest... speaks of lack of ability on the developers' part. They seem competent, just not that good at it.
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