I am in absolute love with grim dawn. Bought it during steam summer sale and I have never made such a good purchase on a video game ever. I though I’d never find a game that I loved more than Diablo 2 and I guess I was wrong.
Needless to say I love ARPG. I was wondering if any of you guys could recommend me arpg games that are this good. I havent played video games because of work and lifestyle but now that I changed jobs I have MUCH more free time. In any way, I feel like Ill still play this game for a few years. It’s just that good.
Edit : I bought D2 resurrected and pretty much played and understood all of its content and mechanics (which is no where near as deep and complex as grim dawn, I gotta say.)
well, cant really recommend any other arpg to play, but i sure can recommend arpgs NOT to play, as im quite experienced with some of the commonly played ones:
d2 resurrected: absolutely hated it. you see, d2 was popular due to a solid foundation that ensured the game has had a massive community for years. that solid foundation was pvp. it was absolute perfection. even bugs made pvp only better. which is why d2 pvpers advised the devs to not touch the base mechanics, but the idiots thought they knew better for example, a bug that was one of the pillars of d2 was wsg. they removed it because they thought they would fix assassins just by adding a refractory period so to say, after a stun, where you couldnt be stunned anymore. now i truly wonder how they expect that to work against lets say a hdin, where if you have a bad day and encounter one that can use smite/foh stun, you are basically fucked as that one stun is all they need (although in their defense, good duelers from d2 dont play this shit so this is unlikely to happen). tldr: pvp is horrible and that kills the base of the game. do not play it.
diablo immortal: not too much to say about this one except how predatory it is. it is p2w to say the least. there are videos all over youtube on it, i recommend the one from josh strife hayes as he is posh as fuck, but at the same time cheaper than alan harper and hates predatory monetization
path of exile: speaking of predatory monetization. poe devs were very careful about presenting themselves as the friendly neighbor gamer who has the best intentions towards gamers. the main man, chris wilson, is the main dev/PR expert, who somehow always manages to subvert people into believing him, which is surprising to me as he has less charisma than the zombie you first encounter after you start the game. you see, the game isnt technically p2w. except you cant really do jack shit if you dont pay. its kinda like canada’s vax laws. sure you dont have to do it, but you cant do anything unless you do. playing without at least 100$ worth of stash tabs is like trying to guard prime michael jordan while wearing nothing but slippers and a beer gut. mtx monetization is extremely predatory but people still do it as they have triggered sunken cost fallacy after purchasing the tabs
oh and, they can close your account for any or no reason at all. i once got closed for a credit card chargeback. i dont even have a credit card. and even if i did, i would never give them a dime to begin with, so i would never have anything to chargeback. anyways, their first class support told me i had to pay but (since i assume another acc did on as serbia uses dynamic ip) they wouldnt even told me how much to pay
the game itself is overly complicated to the point of being an unpaid job. there are no new players because no one wants to waste 2-3 irl years on learning all the bullshit mechanics the game has, and you do have to know all of them as they synergize and its either all or nothing. do not play this piece of crap unless you already have experience with it and/or like to being fucked in the ass without a lube. also pvp is trash. and even if you choose to completely skip the entire game and just go full sims and design hideouts, anyone can steal it just by typing /save_hideout
all in all, shit/10
lost ark: somehow even more of a “pay or grind for years” than path of exile. i…i honestly dont need anything after that
Well, good is subjective, but the closest to actually playing like GD would of course be Titan Quest, GD’ spiritual predecessor. Set in mythology based Greece, Egypt and the Orient it uses the same 2 masteries make your class system though it doesn’t have the devotions that GD has. Build diversity is pretty good, though not as diverse as GD’s.
GD uses a much modified and improved version of the old TQ game engine and Medierra aka Arthur Bruno - head honcho and founder of Crate Entertainment - was Lead Game Designer on the original TQ/IT.
Loved Titan Quest and that is what brought me to GD. I was a very, very early supporter($$) and followed the development. We do need more games like these two.
My recommendations (in order of how good I think they are) are:
Last Epoch (the only game on this list that I actually think is better than Grim Dawn; though it hasn’t got co-op yet; next patch for that, later this year)
I recently took a break from GD and am now playing D2R with a few friends who are oldschool D2 veterans. I didn’t really like Diablo 2 back in the day, it looked horrible and the control scheme sucked. D2R took care of the graphics and a recent patch modernized the controls so it is very enjoyable for me now.
Although there isn’t much content for endgame, it’s fun to try all the classes (and the few viable builds) and trade loot with friends. I can see why the original game was such a success, and high rune hunting is the everlasting carrot on the stick.
So yea I can really recommend D2R but only if you got some friends to play with, alone it’s gonna be boring as hell.
I also played Diablo 3 a few years ago, I did enjoy it for a while but it soon turned out there isn’t much substance to the game. Where D2R has the fewest useful drops I’ve ever seen in an ARPG, D3 is the exact opposite, you’ll be decked out in endgame gear in no time and there isn’t much incentive to play much further unless you’re aiming for ladder rankings. The skill system is easily accessible but seems dumbed down. It’s an OK game for playing casually though.
I played Path of Exile when it was brand new, but never really got into it. Played a few characters until midgame but always lost interest sooner or later. I didn’t like the graphics either.
The first ARPG I absolutely loved back in the day is Sacred, but I don’t think it holds up well enough today, I recently tried the Steam port and it felt really clunky. I wish someone would remake that game!
Other ARPGs I played and enjoyed include Titan Quest (obviously one of my genre favorites), Victor Vran (which is more Action than RPG but it’s a fun challenge on higher difficulties), Divine Divinity, Torchlight 1 & 2, Van Helsing (all four of which didn’t have much replayability for me though), and WH40K Inquisitor Matyr (its’ biggest downside is the boring level design, otherwise it’s pretty good).
Obviously none of the mentioned games are as good as GD. The game is almost perfect imo and has very few downsides, maybe really only one (the crafting system). I know it was never intended, but the icing on the cake would be a solid multiplayer system with battlenet style servers. Maybe if Crate’s new games are a success they can build a server infrastructure for GD2.
In the meantime I’ll keep my eyes on Diablo 4, hopefully Blizzard has learned from their myriad of mistakes and took a note or two from GD’s game design. And I think I’m gonna try Last Epoch when co-op is added. I don’t care about Wolcen and Lost Ark, what I’ve seen so far didn’t impress me at all.
It’s a solid game that is unfortunately tied by the usual MMO tropes like repetitive daily content. If they removed all the MMO stuff and made it single player while doing an overhaul to the main campaign structure, it could be a great game because the combat can be a lot of fun.
And i say all of this after 670 hours of playtime.
Diablo 1-3 (yes i even like/love Diablo 3 despite some flaws - i’m still struggling between 2 and 3 as my favorite in the series, but only the console-edition for Offline-Play)
Torchlight 1-3 (def. TL2, though there are some things which i geniunly enjoy about TL3, still kinda sad that they didn’t quite make the use of it’s potential).
If we take “special” cases into it, than i’d add
Borderlands 1-3 and TTW into it (I’d go for 3rd, because while i liked the Story of 2 better, after playing 3 Gunplay/Gameplay feels flat, i also like the Class-Concept better of BL3, and that you go to different Planets… etc etc.TTW was amazing too, i really love quite some features like create your own char, dual-classes, Spells, the overworld, i also liked the Pen&Paper Fantasy Setting etc. However the Reason why i might still put 3 above is simply that it felt like a small sidegame … mechanical the game is top-notch, but contentwise it’s lacking, 6 classes with single-tree isn’t really much, Mob variety isn’t that much and also in terms of Items it’s compared to previous Games quite a small pool. Also first time they disappointed me with the Season pass. Next Borderlands i might take a break from that). If people might ask why? Because FOR ME it’s the Diablo of the Shooters. Sure it created the “Subcategory” Looter-Shooters, but that’s why i got invested into this game back in the day, because i looked for a diablo-esque Shooter.
Book of Demons.
Potentially
Last Epoch - so far i really had a blast with the game… one deciding factor will be if they geniunly really deliever an offline-mode.
Alaloth
Games which i also like very much/enjoyed:
Titan Quest
Sacred 1+2
Fight the Dragon
Avencast
Dungeon Siege 1+2
Chronicon
Silverfall
Warhammer Chaosbane (NGL, it’s way behind it’s potentiall, i can see why people might find it okay’ish - but for me the Warhammer Universe have simply a big plus on that)
Vikings: Wolves of Midgard
Champions of Norrath
Baldurs Gate Dark Alliance 1+2
Heroes of Ruin
Special:
Hellgate London
Potentially:
Wolcen (if i finally get my rig to play it… i know some people might now come with “bruh it’s bad anyway”… seriously: I don’t care, i judge games for myself and from what i could play before i got my GFX Card broken, i really did enjoy - even though it’s sad they never could deliever their open-world’ish planned game)
Pagan (same issue, however i credit them for one thing already. The Day they decided they pull off the servers, they delievered an offline Patch. If more companies would do that, i would be more open to play these nonsense online-games which acutally wouldN#t need online-only to begin with. )
Does V-Rising count?
The Slormancer
Darksiders Genesis…
Which i found okay/still somewhat fun:
Marvel Avengers ultimate alliance 3 (nice game if you want hack’n’slash through enemies with your favorite mavel heroes… but it miss quite of it’s potential…)
Hellsing Series (I might get hate for this, but it never grabbed this much… it was to streamlined / story-centric for me and i never felt the appeal to replay with different characters or whatsoevery unlike other games above). And the rest of the game never could compensate that.
Potentially:
Fate
Mythos
Disliked / Found Bad
Sacred 3
Ieasabel
Lost Ark (Online-Only F2P nonsense)
Path of Exile (same plus i wasn’t really fond of it in general)
Warhammer 40k Inquisitor Marty (Online-Only)
Diablo Immortal (Online-Only-F2P-Mobile with scammy predatory Monetization. Even is a huge fan of Diablo, i’d say from all of my list, it’s the worst)
etc.
I’ve just come from playing 600 hours of Wolcen. It was on sale so I thought I’d ignore all its bad press and give it chance. I have to say I had a blast. Despite the loot being a bit dull, it is excellent now and I am so glad I played it. The graphics are absolutely amazingly, it looks like a true next-gen ARPG. And it runs really well for me on my aging rig. If you can run Last Epoch without issues (especially with a summoner with maxed pets (~30)), you can run Wolcen. I recommend both, though Last Epoch is my #1 ARPG of the moment; it is really really good.
To a dagree i can understand the Frustration people had over Wolcen. There are quite some Players who geniunly spent time and money on the Game to support the initial Idea. If you don’t know,t hey originally planed to have an huge open world, which is in this Genre still kinda rare, considering Sacred (out of my mind) the only one which did it before (maybe you could consider Silverfall, than again while it had bigger open-world’ish maps, there were ends when you hit them you switched over to the next map). Diablo 4 seems to try now. And ngl the Alpha/Beta back than was a real blast with the old Concept, i really enjoyed to explore the open-world’ish nature because it gives you a sense of the world. Than they also had features like a big housing system, where you even could create your Dungeons and let other People (like Friends) run them.
They really watered and streamlined much, and if you are a supporter beforehand who payed and played into the Early Access, this is still somewhat frustrating, esp. if you see cases like Grim Dawn which were planned less, but Crate did over the course of Early Access expand it so much.
That being said, while i say this, i also understand the Dev-Side of it… i mean i remember the days where it took them 6 month to implement bow (and nothing much else), they were really slow at the time and updates were even more wonky than the release update. It feels like they were overambitious and couldn’t really deliever that, so in the end it was a good thing that they swallowed their pride and took a step back and approached a more realistic direction. And even with all the ideas they cut and changed, it still can be a good game.
Back in the day i could hardly even run LE, i had to highly reduce the Graphics and even than i had FPS stutters here and there. Wolcen was a more interesting case, because Alpha/Beta run absolutely fine, it was the Release Version which screwed me.
But maybe it was also the first signs of my GFX Card dying (now i’ve a way older in my rig)…
Well, Last Epoch have the Potential to expand my Top 3 Game(-Series) to Top 5 (same goes for Wolcen), because from what i’ve could play, it was already pretty amazing. And seeing how much changed over the course since the free alpha-demo back in the day, they are def. not lazy either and “quite” fast with their dev. The only thing which took quite long rn is the Multiplayer, but except that, if you compare 1:1 the first alpha Demo vs 1 to 2 Year afterwards, it’s like an complete different game.
The only Reason why i’m still on the edge is because of how much i value Offline-modes. That’s a very defining factor for me. I’ve a big issue with online-only Games in general and only a few exceptions i can overcome that (and even on that i’d prefer if it have an Offline-Mode so i can fully embrace and enjoy them), it makes me outright angry for Games like this.
And i know with one of their last announcement they said they still deliever an Offline-Mode, however nowdays i’m still cautious esp. considering how long they kept silent if you asked them and at one point they said, they weren’t sure if the still can keep. My problem, and that’s mostly thanks to Companies like Blizzard, Devs & Publisher can be pretty good about semantics or do keep in a way their promise, but it’s still somewhat scammy. Think about Diablo 2 Resurrected: Overall i really “love” the Visuals and Stuff(though I’m to this day pissed about the censorship and ugly redesign of Characters, ngl), i was happy to finally get Diablo 2 back, they said beforehand yes it will be offline. Well screw you if you don’t log-in all 30 days, then you can’t play the Game anymore. And now consider this, i bought the Game also on Switch and want to play-on-the-go (or in my example on-the-drive) but had no Internet-Access and forgot to login before (because if i’m at home i mostly play on XSX). (And think about Diablo Immortal when they said beforehand you wan’t be able to pay for gear which make you stronger… well yeah semantical speaking its technically even true because what they sell to you are crests, which simply enables to get some items, they don’t sell it directly to you… plus it’s gems and not gear.)
So right now i’ll wait and see how it really works out.
The redesign of the characters in D2R is indeed horrible. Just look at the shovel face paladin. They also gave him pubes as hair. What bothers me even more is that you can just press a single button to clearly see that he was bald in the original game as the light bounces off the top of his head.
And I’m still wondering why the amazon’s face looks almost exactly the same as Steve Buscemi’s.
for example, a bug that was one of the pillars of d2 was wsg. they removed it because they thought they would fix assassins just by adding a refractory period so to say, after a stun, where you couldnt be stunned anymore. now i truly wonder how they expect that to work against lets say a hdin, where if you have a bad day and encounter one that can use smite/foh stun, you are basically fucked as that one stun is all they need (although in their defense, good duelers from d2 dont play this shit so this is unlikely to happen). tldr: pvp is horrible and that kills the base of the game. do not play it.
