Welcome to our review of the highly anticipated Nintendo Switch port of Diablo III. Take a dive into the world of New Tristram, and get ready to battle the lords of Hell themselves.

Diablo III is not a new game since it originally was released in 2012 on Blizzard’s own Battle.net network. For those unfamiliar with the game, a quick summary: Diablo III is a dungeon crawling action role-playing video game (commonly known as an ARPG). It is the third installment in the Diablo franchise, in which a hero embarks on an epic quest to fight the spawn of hell.

Character Classes of Diablo III

In the game, players choose one of seven character classes – Barbarian, Crusader, Demon Hunter, Monk, Necromancer, Witch Doctor or Wizard and are tasked with defeating the Lord of Terror, Diablo.  A little side note, this version of Diablo comes with all previously released DLC, which gives players access to the Crusader- and Necromancer class, without spending extra money. And since this is a Nintendo version, you can also play dress up as Ganondorf, including a chicken pet – because killing Diablo with a chicken pet is the new craze.

Before delving deeper into the gameplay of Diablo III, a quick summary of the classes and what they stand for:

• The Witch Doctor is a new character reminiscent of the Diablo II necromancer but with skills more traditionally associated with shamanism and voodoo culture. The witch doctor has the ability to summon monsters, cast curses, harvest souls, and hurl poisons and explosives at their enemies. To power spells, the Witch Doctor uses Mana, a vast pool of mental power which regenerates slowly. A nice class to play, with versatile skills and also handy to solo through the campaign.
• The Barbarian previously appeared in Diablo II, and has a variety of revamped skills at its disposal based on incredible physical powers. The barbarian is able to whirlwind through crowds, cleave through swarms, leap across crags, crush opponents upon landing, and grapple-snap enemies into melee range. The resource used by the barbarian is fury, which is generated through attacking enemies, getting attacked by enemies, and using certain abilities. Fury is used for the barbarian’s strongest abilities and degenerates over time.
• The Wizard is a version of the sorceress from Diablo II or the sorcerer from Diablo. The Wizard’s abilities range from shooting lightning, fire, and ice at their enemies to slow time and teleport past enemies and through walls. Wizards fuel their spells with arcane power, which is a shallow but fast-regenerating power source.
• The Monk is a melee attacker, using martial arts to cripple foes, resist damage, deflect projectiles, attack with blinding speed, and land explosive killing blows. Monk gameplay combines the melee elements of Diablo II‘s assassin class with the “holy warrior” role of the paladin. Blizzard has stated that the monk is not related in any way to the monk class from the Sierra Entertainment–made Diablo: Hellfire. The monk is fueled by spirit, which has defensive purposes and is slowly generated through attacking, though it does not degenerate.
• The Demon Hunter combines elements of Diablo II‘s amazon and assassin classes. Demon hunters use bows and crossbows as their main weapons and can also throw small bombs and knives at enemies. The demon hunter is fueled by both discipline and hatred: Hatred is a fast regenerating resource that is used for attacks, while discipline is a slow regenerating resource used for defensive abilities involving acrobatics or shadows.
• The Crusader is a Reaper of Souls expansion character. The crusader has a variety of combat skills at its disposal based on physical prowess and typically wields a shield and an associated weapon (typically a flail). The Crusader is able to ride a horse and strike enemies, shield bash enemies, summon a blessed hammer that circles around the Crusader, leaps into the air and comes crashing down on enemies, have lightning strike foes from the sky, taunt enemies, hurl shields and hammers at enemies, and many more. The resource used by the crusader is wrath, which is generated through attacking enemies, getting attacked by enemies, and using certain abilities. Personally, I think this is the best representation of the old-school Paladin class in Diablo II, which was my personal favorite to play in Diablo II. But hey, you can always pick the templar-sidekick if you opt for another class.
• The Necromancer is a death-themed spellcaster, which became available as downloadable content for Reaper of Souls. Described as a “reimagining” of the previous incarnation seen in Diablo II, the Necromancer specializes in controlling the dead, be it by summoning minions, reviving dead enemies temporarily or using their corpses as a medium to their magical powers, while using blood magic to power their offensive and defensive abilities. The resource used by the Necromancer is essence, which is generated by attacking enemies with their primary skills. So, if you want to be that one creepy dude that siphons blood and wears the bones of his enemies? Be a Necromancer!

The power of the Diablo series

The Diablo series is not the first ARPG in its genre. But it sure is the one game that perfected and honed the genre to what it stands for today. When one opens up an ARPG nowadays, it usually has orbs, next to a small toolbar with skills. Red for life, blue for mana (or something else the character uses). The environments you go through are all designed and inspired by the dungeons you walked through in Diablo and Diablo II. And that’s not a bad thing. I really loved games like Torchlight, Titan Quest and the closest thing to Diablo III, before Diablo III became a thing, Path of Exile. They took the base of Diablo, and turned it into magic – but Diablo III again reinvented itself when it launched in 2012.

Blizzard gave us a more dynamic game, with more fluid gameplay, audiobooks to craft a nice backstory and a high replay value, due to the different interactions your characters have, depending on the class they play as. The graphics were given a nice boost, classes were revised and added (still a shame we can’t play as the Druid anymore) and we got an overhaul of the skill system. With the introduction of runes, the skillsets of a Barbarian could be even more diverse – and the options were even more limitless compared to its predecessors.

The gameplay of Diablo

Does one have to play the Diablo I and II before enjoying this one? No, the story takes place a hefty amount of years after Diablo II, and gets enough of a backbone due to the earlier mentioned audiobooks. A really nice touch, which will make you look for all of them, in every nook and cranny (you’ll even get achievements for them!). It makes the game more fun though. You’ll get to remines about the first time you beat the Butcher in Diablo, or the time you met Cain and his weird identifying powers. I applaud the team behind Diablo for adding a lot of the old bosses as revamped historical beings, like Leoric and the Butcher. Hence, what is Diablo without some overpowered badasses (not talking about the lord of Terror himself of course)?

“The Diablo series is not the first ARPG in its genre. But it sure is the one  that perfected and honed the genre to what it stands for today.”

The game plays solidly in handheld mode and docked mode. The mini-map is sometimes a little small in handheld mode. The button mapping makes up for the lack of sight. I always wondered how a game like this would play on a console, but Blizzard did a fine job. Switching between skills and equipment is done through a small ‘weapon wheel’, you often see in shooters. The same goes for changing equipment. Once you pick up a new weapon or helmet, the game will display with green and red arrows if it’s ‘better’ or ‘worse’ than the currently equipped item – a nice touch! This makes it easier to decide to wear the nice pink helmet you just picked up. Or you could keep the greyish helmet which matches your current gear (go for the pink one, with extra intelligence of course!). Good to know, on the other hand, the game’s loading times are very short, the game never had frame drops (even not when I achieved a 168 kill combo) and just felt smooth all the way.

Porting Diablo

The main problem with this port, however is, for those die-hard Diablo veterans, such as myself, that it does not bring anything new to the table. There is no new content, except for the season-gameplay which gives you new and rare equipment and challenges. There is no cross play (boo), which means you can only play with other Switchies. The only thing that was changed is the fact you can jump into adventure mode without completing the story mode. To those new to Diablo, I do recommend finishing the storyline before attempting to do this.

Conclusion

For my playthrough, I played mostly with the Necromancer. Mostly due to the fact I finished the story a few times already on my PC. The Necromancer was released as the latest addition, and I never really took him for a test ride. It made my Switch-Diablo playthrough a fun one, and I highly recommend this game to anyone looking for a great AAA-title on the Nintendo Switch. The game offers a highly in dept RPG system, with a great backstory and a beautiful overworld. Once you get yourself immersed into the world of Tristram, you will crave for more. If you play in handheld mode, bring a battery pack though, since you’ll run dry in a few hours of die-hard dungeon crawling.

9.5/10

Tested on Nintendo Switch

And as a little extra, we unboxed the Nintendo Switch consolepack on our youtubechannel! Thanks to Timmy for providing us with the video.