Right, played through the beta with a friend last night. First impressions:
- I'm not enjoying the art style.
- Still it got the most important part right: this feels like a Diablo game even if doesn't always look it.
- It also sounds like a Diablo game even if doesn't always look it. Hearing the original Tristram music as I stepped into the beta made me feel at home.
- The skill system seems suspect. At the beginning your skills are essentially being chosen by rote with no input from you. You're being hand-held were before you would have been planning a build from the ground up. I really hope the skill system hasn't been vastly simplified as it takes away alot of the challenge and indeed, alot of the experimentation of playing around with different builds.
- Further to that last point, it also makes Diablo III, dare I say it, a little boring? Certainly in the beginning. The only thing I have control over is clicking the left and right mouse buttons. Even when I have a few skills to play with in battle, I can't quickly switch to anything in my repertoire on the fly. There aren't any hotkeys. (That tiny little action bar they give to you in bits for 'action bar skills' doesn't count.) I have to go to the skill menu, choose a different skill, then wait for a cooldown. Obviously they want you to use only one skill from each skillset and maybe that'll be fine later on, but right now it just feels a little dispiriting.
Basically, I still don't know whether I'm gonna love Diablo III as much as its predecessors. I guess I'll just have to spend some real quality time with it after May 15th!
