Review: Diablo 3 Ultimate Evil Edition

Rating: 0
Author: Jim Smale

by Jim Smale · August 25, 2014

Over 15 million players have battled the demonic hordes of Diablo III. Now, it’s your turn to join the crusade and take up arms against the enemies of the mortal realms. This Ultimate Evil Edition contains both Diablo III and the Reaper of Souls expansion set, together in one definitive volume. So stand ready. Something wicked this way comes.

Pros:

Gorgeous graphics, Looks every bit as good as the PC on ultra settings. All running at a solid 1080p/60fps action.
Import your save from PS3 or 360 into the Xbox One or PS4 version.
Six characters to choose from, Wizard,Barbarian, Monk, Witch Doctor, Demon Hunter and Crusader. each bringing unique abilities and skills to the table.
15 character slots so you are free to have several different character builds.
Three initial difficulty options: Normal, hard and expert raising to ten as you level up. bringing difficulties: Master and then the much harder Torment difficulties, Going for a Torment 1-6 level scheme. Each difficulty affects enemies health/attack but also how much exp and loot that can be found. Play on a higher difficulty to get better loot and more money.
Gameplay is a straight up dungeon crawler taking in many unique and wondrous locations from deserts to snow to higher heaven!
You can lower or higher the difficulty by one level in game without restarting the game.
Controls are really fluid and easy to learn, The face buttons and R1 and R2 buttons are used for spells, L1 is used for potions(health) L2 to target enemies. Right stick is used for rolling/evading which is handy for evading attacks and smashing boxes, crates etc. the touch pad is split in half and is used to open inventory and skills menu for leveling up.
Has 4 player online and offline play. Offline players can still go online together all though each account needs to have Plus/Gold to do so.
Offline co op players have separate stash boxes. Loot is shared between all players and is randomly determined by the computer. Anyone can pick the loot up as it will go to where it says it will.
Invite friends or jump into their game at any time within the menu.
Quick match for online with a filter option for difficulty,level etc and a list of open games will appear. not really that quick when you think about it.
Re designed menu system for console use. Everything from choosing spells to buying from vendors and using your inventory. Going for a circle option system you pick each one by rolling your stick over it and hitting a button.
huge selection of options for the gameplay like: show damage numbers,critical numbers only,dodge notifications,health bars are just a few examples.
Online is cross region and can be turned on or off along with the option to only play with same region players.
Stash boxes which are used for storing items you may not want to use yet. You can access the box and its content from any of your players. Ideal for people going for multiple builds. Its not only stash boxes that are shared between your characters, You also share money, blood shards and paragon points.
Find and hire AI followers, You can assign their spells/powers and even equip new items on them.
5 acts to play through in campaign. Originally just 4 acts, The UEE version brings you the Reaper of Souls fifth act that brings even more gameplay to it! on normal difficulty you can still expect it to take around 20 hours to finsih all acts. Each act brings its own hub world offering vendors, blacksmiths and jewelers.
You can unlock new merchants/vendors like blacksmiths,jewelers,sellers and the new mystic which allows you to transmog weapons/armour appearances.(Basically make your crap armor look like badass armor)
Full platinum trophy but also brings a huge collection of challenges. These challenges are basically the achievements from the PC version, They give you a score which is used on Battlenet (think Xbox gamerscore) and also unlock new banner options.
Banner to customize, At every hub you have a banner and is used by other players to click on and teleport straight to you. Unlock new options for the banner like sigils and colors by completing the challenges and trophies.
Fast loading game between levels and even connecting online.
Legendary drops are much more common. Legendary items are drops that give you top level equipment/weapons and are what any decent player wants. When they drop you get a unique sound, A orange beam shooting up from it and a big marker on the map. Another new console only addition is when you get a legendary you have a chance of getting a gift able present for a random friend. In essence you have a chance to send a friend a legendary item and help them out in there game!
Mailbox which again i a new console only addition. Here you can send items or even money(limited to 1000g a time) to people on your friends list.
Adventure mode gets unlocked once you finish the main campaign. Adventure mode is a series of randomized events across all areas of the game. Each area has five missions and once finished will grant you a hoardic case which gives you a huge set of random drops. Oh and a shed load of exp and cash. Due to the randomness of it all, its very rare you get the same five missions every time you boot the game. Another reason for doing the mission is you get to earn blood-shards and rift keys.
blood-shards are collected from adventure mode and is another type of currency, You can only use them with one woman and what you buy is always random. All you have control over is what time of weapon/armour you want to buy. For example you want a ring? Pick ring and pay the fee, Then you get a random ring bestowed upon you. You have a chance for legendaries or even the coveted green drops. You are more likely to get better items from her than any other vendor.
Aside from legendaries you can get green drops, These are items that belong in a set and offer huge bonus buffs for completing the set. Finding green plans is the goal and worth getting whenever you can.
Auto saves regularly.
Rift keys collected from adventure mode are used to open a random rift to another world. Here you face off against increasingly difficult enemies. Killing enemies raises the completion bar laid out in a percentage format, Once 100% is achieved you face off against the rift guardian who is a huge hard as nails boss. Killing him will allow you to shut the rift and collect loads of drops and earn boot loads of money and exp. Anew PS4 only rift is available and that is a rift including the enemies from the popular game The Last Of Us. Worth noting that each rift has several levels to it and will randomly pick a different level for you to play.
Easy new addition for identifying if armor/weapons actually improve your stats. Adopting a green/red arrow system. good armor will show either a 1,2 or 3 green triangle to show how much it will improve, In a similar way a 1,2 or 3 red triangle will show how detrimental it will be to your stats.
You can use the Vita as a controller.
new addition again and this time its a simple one, You now just have to walk over dead boides, empty boxes to flip them over and check them for loot. Always used to be a click on them affair on the PC so this speeds the game up.
Gems are collected in game, Higher difficulties drop better gems. Gems are used to buff stats and you use a jeweler to remove them or craft better ones.
Find plans to make better weapons,armor and even gems.
Mystic apart from allowing you to transmog items also allows you to re roll buffs on an attribute you may not like or want. To re roll you must have money and the materials you salvaged from other items. Re rolling a stat/attribute is known as enchanting.
Blacksmith is used for crafting new weapons and Armour from plans you find but also basic generic items. For every item created gives you random results. You could make the same item five times and have five completely different items. Another thing the blacksmith does is allow you to break (salvage) items down into materials which are then used for further crafting or enchanting.
The requirement for crafting and just the general cost of everything is cheaper on console than PC.
Paragon system is a new system bought in with Reaper Of Souls. its a system that allows you to continue to level up once you have hit the Level 70 limit. now when you level up you get one point to spend in a round robin choice of attributes. one brilliant part is you can spend paragon points on new characters straight away. Going up paragon levels also improves your player portrait, Only a small thing but the results are brilliant.
new HUD system. Health is now a health bar in one of the screen corners, All spells are shown underneath and have the button assigned next to it shown. All text in game is shown on the left side. A mini map is in the middle at the bottom and can be set so it only shows up as you come close to an objective.
find treasure goblins who carry loads of loot! Once engaged the goblin will attempt to run away dropping money as he goes. Once he thinks he is safe he will open a portal and attempt to escape. In short find them and kill them as quickly as possible.
nemesis mode is a new feature that is brilliant. basically it works like this: A friend on your list dies in game, That creature that killed him turns into a nemesis creature and leaves his game, he leaves their game and invades another player on his friends list game, Coming in stronger he will be identified as the killer of your friend. Killing him will grant bonus exp and cash and may drop a legendary item for you to send to your mate. The best part is the actual act of the invasion. Your pad will start to vibrate and a growling will be heard, The noise and vibration will increase until all of a sudden a portal opens and out pops a huge nemesis! Even better is this feature works even when you are offline! Instead a creature that kills you will invade you again later on!
Campaign mode also has side events for bonus exp and again have a random nature to them so you can always be sure you will get a different event each time.

Cons:

Slight learning curve for the new menu system but this is aimed more at PC players coming over to the console version.
Couch co op is very stop start as managing inventory can only be done by one player at a time and fills the screen whilst pausing the game.
Loot by doorways/shrines is a hit and miss scenario.
Loot is random in couch co op and is not always well shared out.
Cant do adventure mode or rifts until you finish the main campaign.
Jumping between online and offline missions can mess the progress up and set you back.
Some legendaries/items can be account bound for no reason in couch co op.
Vita is really awkward to control and the screen is just too small.
no teleport to player in game aside from going back to the hub and hitting the banner.
No salvage all button.
no book in the hub world for identifying multiple legendary items.
No notifications in game like in the pc giving you an almost running commentary of what you have done. Is also handy as it says if you engaged a treasure goblin or elite.
Minor stutters in busy areas.
Item descriptions are not great, Knowing if a weapon is one or to handed being a main one.
players joining in on couch co op level up faster than the main player no matter what the level difference.
Players joining in couch co op always have there skills/paragons showing as new on load up.
Enemies on screen feels a lot less than on PC, A lot of empty space is in game and even more so when on the higher difficulties.
When going for end game items and doing your paragon levels, The item drops get rubbish and legendaries of any use are far and few between.

in Summary, This is a solid port and well worth your money. In essence you get two games in one. Reaper Of Souls is the DLC on the PC version and with it brings as much content and gameplay as the base game, Making this version twice as long. Loads of new additions for the console really streamline the experience. Online is solid and fun and the game is best played with friends. I know its a long review but i wanted to get as much info into your hands as possible. I will do a separate post on the major differences between the PC and console versions. That aside this game is worth a purchase and will provide 100s of hours of gameplay. I feel personally its a step down in a few ways from the PC version but to have the convenience of having Diablo on the big screen, It balances itself out. new players can expect the game to deliver so much. it is a slow starter though so dont get it twisted, For me the true game opens up after campaign. Adventure mode and rifts bring the loot and fun to a whole new level. With new additions and the promise of Patch 2.0.1 coming very soon, You are in for a real gem of a game here. PC players will get fun from it but will be just amazed how much easier and lenient the game is compared to the PC version. Prime example is the secret level in which the console version only requires 3 items to craft against the PC’s 5. Another thing about that is one item in particular (gibbering gemstone) had me farming it for over 30 hours and giving up whilst in the PS4 version I had it at the first attempt! Anyway its worth a purchase so get your loot on!