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I'll be the first to admit that over the years my taste in games has somewhat devolved. As I have run out of time in my day to dedicate to gaming I have found the quick fix of Action RPGs to be the perfect mix of theorycraft and time investment. Granted, all Action RPGs beginn as a low time demand, high reward, and end in soul crushing grinds... which is probably why my fandom in ARPGs tends to focus on the first play through, and how easy or hard character advancement is. Original release Diablo III was a great game on first play through, and then you realized that the subsequent play throughs required such specific sets of stats on specific items that advancement was nearly impossible.
Anyway, this has been my experience with all of my favorite ARPGs of the last few years. So I decided that if there is any others here who also loves the fast faced mass destruction followed by color coded loot and near-actuarial-style number balancing inherent in Action RPG min-maxing we can discuss the good ones here. Gems you have found that maybe don't get a lot of press, as well as big name titles that might have finally fixed themselves after a disastrous launch.
My favorite recent ARPGs are **:
1) Diablo 3. I hit the grind wall on this about 6 months ago and have not found it to have gotten any better in the mean time. That said, it did eat up a lot of my time, and I maxed level well before I hit the wall.
2) Path of Exile. I hit a wall with this game well before level cap, but it still gave me a lot of good, productive, fun time. I think the Ascendancy trials probably ruined the fun for me. Maybe I am just old and reactions aren't what they used to be, but trials that involve an hours of rogue-like trap puzzles in order to advance your class spec is entirely un-fun. But it is second on the list of hours played.
3) Grim Dawn. I hit the wall in this game fairly recently, and there is a huge content patch coming out this summer so I am not willing to call it yet. It has been the most fun ARPG experience for me in the last year.. granted, #1 and #2 were well advanced towards the grind in that same time frame, but I believe when all is said and done Grim Dawn will take the #2 spot, and possibly #1.
4) The Division. I find I am getting tired of swords and spells and this game hits all the right notes on min-maxing and constant advancement... and color coded loot, but is masquerading as a very good third person modern day shooter with some sci-fi elements. I'll have to double check, but I think hours played in this game would put it in 4th. I am still planning on going back to this game when the next content patch is released so it isn't as dead to me as Diablo 3, and I'll definitely return to it faster than POE... so it my not stay at #4
5) Torchlight 2. As much as I would like for this to rank higher I just got bored with it. I think it suffered from the shortage of distinct, repeatable, Boss fights... there is something to be said for crossing through a door, having it close behind you, and squaring off with a boss followed by the shower of color coded loot.... I didn't get enough of that in this game.
6) Van Helsing. I give this game an A for effort, and I got a lot of fun out of it. I mean, it has all of the elements that should have rocketed it to #2 or #3... but Grim Dawn, which is Van Helsing's spiritual twin, just did it better, I think, and I simply stopped playing this game well before the grind only because when I sat down with time to play I fired up Grim Dawn.
** - Based on time played, since I tend to stop playing on the brink of the start of crippling grinds... so if I played for a while it means I was getting meaningful enjoyment and returns on time invested the whole time. These games weren't necessarily released last year, but I purchased them last year and invested significant time in playing them.
When I come across games in this genre that meet my personal criteria for a good ARPG I will post them here and I invite fellow ARPG fans to do the same. I have an interesting one I have started playing in the last few days that will be the topic of my next post.
Anyway, this has been my experience with all of my favorite ARPGs of the last few years. So I decided that if there is any others here who also loves the fast faced mass destruction followed by color coded loot and near-actuarial-style number balancing inherent in Action RPG min-maxing we can discuss the good ones here. Gems you have found that maybe don't get a lot of press, as well as big name titles that might have finally fixed themselves after a disastrous launch.
My favorite recent ARPGs are **:
1) Diablo 3. I hit the grind wall on this about 6 months ago and have not found it to have gotten any better in the mean time. That said, it did eat up a lot of my time, and I maxed level well before I hit the wall.
2) Path of Exile. I hit a wall with this game well before level cap, but it still gave me a lot of good, productive, fun time. I think the Ascendancy trials probably ruined the fun for me. Maybe I am just old and reactions aren't what they used to be, but trials that involve an hours of rogue-like trap puzzles in order to advance your class spec is entirely un-fun. But it is second on the list of hours played.
3) Grim Dawn. I hit the wall in this game fairly recently, and there is a huge content patch coming out this summer so I am not willing to call it yet. It has been the most fun ARPG experience for me in the last year.. granted, #1 and #2 were well advanced towards the grind in that same time frame, but I believe when all is said and done Grim Dawn will take the #2 spot, and possibly #1.
4) The Division. I find I am getting tired of swords and spells and this game hits all the right notes on min-maxing and constant advancement... and color coded loot, but is masquerading as a very good third person modern day shooter with some sci-fi elements. I'll have to double check, but I think hours played in this game would put it in 4th. I am still planning on going back to this game when the next content patch is released so it isn't as dead to me as Diablo 3, and I'll definitely return to it faster than POE... so it my not stay at #4
5) Torchlight 2. As much as I would like for this to rank higher I just got bored with it. I think it suffered from the shortage of distinct, repeatable, Boss fights... there is something to be said for crossing through a door, having it close behind you, and squaring off with a boss followed by the shower of color coded loot.... I didn't get enough of that in this game.
6) Van Helsing. I give this game an A for effort, and I got a lot of fun out of it. I mean, it has all of the elements that should have rocketed it to #2 or #3... but Grim Dawn, which is Van Helsing's spiritual twin, just did it better, I think, and I simply stopped playing this game well before the grind only because when I sat down with time to play I fired up Grim Dawn.
** - Based on time played, since I tend to stop playing on the brink of the start of crippling grinds... so if I played for a while it means I was getting meaningful enjoyment and returns on time invested the whole time. These games weren't necessarily released last year, but I purchased them last year and invested significant time in playing them.
When I come across games in this genre that meet my personal criteria for a good ARPG I will post them here and I invite fellow ARPG fans to do the same. I have an interesting one I have started playing in the last few days that will be the topic of my next post.
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