Diablo III: Reaper of Souls Ultimate Evil Edition Review - Battle the forces of evil as you try and finish the Eternal Conflict once and for all

Written by Brandon Hofer  on September 11, 2014

Reviews: The fate of Sanctuary is up for grabs as you clash with the Lords of Hell trying to end the Eternal Conflict between angels and demons.

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Diablo III is somewhat of an open world RPG where you can choose how you are going to approach any given situation. When you are first beginning you are given the choice of which class you want for your character. There are six for you to choose from with the Barbarian, Crusader, Demon Hunter, Monk, Witch Doctor and Wizard. There is also a plethora of weapons from you to choose from, spells to upgrade and much more. If you like a game that has a lot then this is the game for you.

The story of Diablo III is told over the course of five acts. While going through those acts you will be chasing down the Lords of Hell and trying to figure out why certain events have transpired. The game opens up with something falling from the sky which causes the dead to start rising up and it is your job to eliminate them before. As you set off on your journey you will encounter many twists and turns while meeting friend and foe alike along the way. You start off alone but you eventually get to the point where you start gaining allies and you can even choose to take one of them on the battlefield with you to help wipe out the hordes of enemies that you are going to be facing.



Combat on the battlefield can go any number of ways and it will be somewhat dependent on what class you selected in the beginning. I played the majority of my time with the Barbarian class as I enjoy going right up to an enemy and smacking them in the face with my sword or whatever other item I might have equipped. In addition to my melee attacks I had access to different skills that I could assign to the buttons on my controller. One of my favorite skills was “Cleave” paired up with “Rupture” which would not only make my weapon strikes more powerful, but the “Rupture” addition would cause enemies I killed to explode which would cause an additional 160% weapon damage as fire to all other enemies within an eight yard radius. Another favorite of mine was “Call of the Ancients” which definitely helped me out of a jam on more than one occasion. With this skill I would summon three ancient Barbarians to fight alongside me for 30 seconds and each of these Barbarians would deal 180% weapon damage per swing to the enemy. With the four of us attacking a group of enemies (in addition to my companion) there weren’t too many of the undead that could survive our onslaught. This was a strategy I would frequently use during boss encounters and would make the fight substantially easier for me. There are a number of different skills and augmentations for you to choose from so that you can play the game how you want and each skill is mapped to a button on the controller giving you immediate access to quite a few different spells.

Diablo III is one of those games that is incredibly loot heavy so after you get done dispatching your enemies you are going to want to pick up everything they drop. This can range from money, gems, weapons, armor and more. As you continue to pick up more loot you are going to want to periodically check your inventory. If you happened to pick up a better sword than the one you are using, for example, then you are going to want to switch it out. You will want to pay attention to the details though as a weapon that looks like it might be the best option at first glance might turn out to be the wrong choice. You can switch out weapons, armor and much more and some of them will come with open slots. These slots can be filled with gems that you find on the battlefield that will increase the potency of your weapon and/or armo. You can, for example, add a “perfect diamond” to your weapon which will give you a +6% in damage to all Elite enemies. It is fun to mix, match and strategize to see what can get you the best opportunity for victory. You can also swap out weapons and spells for your follower as well so be sure to check how they are doing after a while.



As the title of the game suggests, this also came with the “Reaper of Souls” DLC content that is an adventure mode where you can try and collect bounties, enter Nephalem Rifts and more. The adventure mode only opens up after you beat the main story so you are probably looking at 15-20 hours or so of gameplay before you can get to it. If you are someone who wants to just burn through the story and not do anything extra you should be able to do it quicker than that though. In Adventure Mode you have access to all the acts and waypoints, however, quests and story events are disabled. As I mentioned above you do get access to things that aren’t available in the main campaign mode, such as the bounties. In Diablo III bounties are special missions where you have to meet some type of requirement. You might need to kill a specific person or demon, clear a cave of monsters or whatever else you are asked to do. Nephalem Rifts are alternate realities where you never quite know what to expect as the terrain is randomly generated and you don’t know what type of enemies you will encounter. To open up a Nephalem Rift though you need Rift Keystone Fragments which you can get by completing bounties or by simply engaging in combat in the open field. Once you complete a rift and defeat the rift guardian there is also the possibility that they will drop a Greater Rift Key. Greater Rifts has many difficulty levels with each one being progressively harder. To advance to the next level you will need to defeat the rift guardian within a limited time. If you happen to be playing with some friends then they will each need their own Greater Rift Key to gain entrance. Something you also need to keep in mind is that if you get killed in a Greater Rift you won’t revive in town or where you were killed, you’ll revive at the last checkpoint you passed.

Diablo III: Reaper of Souls Ultimate Evil Edition can indeed be played solo or with a group of friends. In the main menu you have a chance to change your network settings and select whether you want your group to be invite only or whether you want people joining your party at will. These types of games are always more fun to play with friends, however, I will say that I had a tremendous amount of fun going through the story solo as well.



I went through Diablo III: Reaper of Souls Ultimate Evil Edition on the Xbox One and the game ran flawlessly. Going through the game I never noticed any slowdown when the screen was full of enemies trying to take me out and aesthetically the game looks really nice. The audio is also well done with the different voice acting as well as some of the dialogue from both your party as well as your enemy. Blizzard also did a really amazing job bringing Diablo III over to consoles as playing it on a controller feels completely natural and as if this game was made to be played with a controller.

Reflecting back on my time with Diablo III I don’t really have anything negative to say. There is a tremendous amount of content here for you to enjoy and if you are someone that wants to try and get all of the achievements you are going to be kept busy for awhile. This is a game that can be replayed over and over again as you experience different classes, hundreds of bounties to go through, different rifts and much more. If you happen to have a Battle.net account Blizzard will even give you something for linking your account to your Xbox Live profile. If you don’t have an account it is free to get one and easy to sign up. Overall I had a really good time going through this iteration of Diablo III on consoles and it is definitely a game I will keep returning to again and again. If you are in to action RPGs at all I would definitely recommend that you give this game a try.