Do you remember playing Diablo 2 when it came out? Not the years of playing it after it came out or playing it now, but just when it came out. That game was hard as balls and you died a lot. These days I know exactly how to play that game so I rarely die and I play through it in just a few hours. But back then when you were new to ARPGs it was a hard game, but fun nonetheless.
This is the experience I have with PoE2. It is hard, but fun. It is easy to get overwhelmed by enemies, they hit hard and you die. Bosses need some learning before you can beat them and there are a lot of things going on in the boss fights.
I think my main problem with Diablo 4 was that the gameplay isn’t very interesting anymore. The game is too easy and the bosses are not doing anything that require any skill. I sailed through that game. It has become more of a cookie clicker for loot than an actual game.
This is what makes PoE2 more intriguing because it will not hold your hand. It will beat the shit out of you, and if you fail to dodge when the boss hits, you’re kind of screwed.
However, making a hard game that is so open as PoE2 is, makes it very hard to balance. How do you create a boss fight that is fair to every starting class, which takes the huge skill tree into account, but still make is challenging? I don’t really think it’s possible without dynamically scaling the boss to your specific character or build. Otherwise the boss will become too easy for some, and impossible for others. Sadly I chose a class and a build that cannot beat the boss of act 1.
Maybe I am the problem. I’m not good enough at the game. But I have upgraded all my spells to level 5, I am 3 levels over the boss, I have hunted down the resistances needed, and I have given it 20+ tries. This is the point where it stops being a fun game and just being frustrated. I would love to continue to act 2, but the game won’t let me. I will not re-roll to a different character and I think there are more fun games I could spend my precious gaming time on.
So far my experience of act 1. The game play is fun and challenging. The graphics are cool and the atmosphere is really dense. They have failed to deliver a story by this time of playing and I find the skill tree and the upgrade system very confusing.
I rate this game as OKAY
Replay 