Diablo IV done. In July I sat down for about nine hours straight playing it and got severe carpal tunnel that lasted for months, which in retrospect is nuts because I injured myself for a game that's only... OK.

I think the issue with Diablo is it should have ended after II. Any extensions to the plot feel forced. Let's step back to III for a bit. I actually would get angry playing the game because of all the retconning happening, which Blizzard did to justify moving this forward. However it ended (particularly with the expansion pack) with the revelation the player is a Nephalem and a heavy hint that from now on the Nephalem would be wrenching humanity's fate back from angels and demons, setting up the next game. Which is crazy because I don't think the word "Nephalem" was mentioned a single time in IV. Although I could see connections between III and its predecessors, no matter how much I disliked the story, IV feels more detached. Cain's dead, and Diablo himself appears I think for maybe half a second in a cutscene. Of course Tristram was shoveled in needlessly, but it feels like we're doing that by rote at this point.

It terms of plot itself it's... it's fine. There's nothing terrible about it, I think it was better than III actually just because it didn't upset me. Lilith is all right as a villain, although I think for a "mother" she's very eager to kill her children, but I guess for her ultimate survival is more important. Starting from II, each act in a Diablo game is in a different area, and IV is no different except you can walk to any location from the beginning of the game (although you may be underleveled) and there are six areas, therefore six acts. Normally each of these is fleshed out, but toward the end I think they were rushing it. I actually timed myself, I beat act IV in a 1.25 hours. I didn't even go to the major town there because the plot didn't direct me toward it. At some point I'm like why did you even make this a separate thing?

The only major criticism I have of the game though is why I was rushing: You max out your level way too early on. Kind of. So you level up normally and unlock abilities all the way to 50. Once you hit 50, it stops and you can just add stats. That's fine, but all the enemies cap at 50. You can increase the difficulty to hard... but to go above that, you gotta beat the game. And I hit 50 toward the end of act II. Meaning I had trudge through four more of these without facing much opposition. And it's not like I was grinding; I just did all the sidequests and extra dungeons I found along the way. I don't see the point of preventing me to have a greater challenge should I wish. Overall I did find IV to be much easier than III, even when I wasn't overpowered. Like remember those enemies that would drop rotating arcane beams on the floor and you had to retreat so you wouldn't die? Yeah, that's not an issue anymore.

In terms of gameplay it's... again, OK. It's Diablo, we all know what it's about by this point. They changed up the abilities a bit in that you can put whatever one you want on any key, including the base attack on say... 1 or 2 instead of on the mouse. It allows for greater flexibility for fighting style and experimentation. But I think III was more fun. Take for example the witch doctor. You could make your base attack a jar of spiders. That was hilarious and enjoyable. I'm not feeling the same in this game.

Also with the environment. III had some pretty crazy areas. Like remember Cydaea? As you went down her web, there were all these giants in bondage gear in the back. Or finally going up to heaven and it had this weird, glass-like quality? IV is just miserable. Here's Russia where everyone is starving and cold. Next is Scotland where everything is muddy and wet. And then there's the desert, again, and after following Zultan Tulle so much in III I'm tired of that. Nothing really stroked my interest until we got to hell, and even then it was... aight. I mean, we've gone to hell in pretty much each game so you need to create something that's really gonna wow me at this point.

Maybe it's because I'm getting older or perhaps because the world feels awful now, but there's something about the helplessness you see in Diablo games that are getting to me. There's no happiness even after you help people; you try to find a cure for someone but it turns out it's too late and they transform into a monster you have to kill. You help a child find their parents' grave, and their ghosts come and attack you, blaming the child for "leaving them alone." A man is looking for his son, and upon finding him, he's transformed into a demon, rejecting his father's love and cursing him. It gets to the point that you wonder how humanity has survived. Like for example, how does trade even exist with all these giant scorpions, murderous trees, bandits, werewolves, and fourteen-foot snakes are running around. You see countless bodies rotting on the ground wherever you go. Like back in Diablo I, yeah shit was terrible, but you get the sense that wasn't the norm and what was happening under the church is an unusual situation. Now in IV it feels like this happens all the time and there's no hope left. You come out of it feeling worse than before.

In the end, if you like Diablo, sure, play it. There's nothing offensive about it, but it doesn't particularly shine in any aspect. I wanted to do the post-game stuff, but my carpal tunnel started flaring up whenever I did, so whatever. I'll move onto Final Fantasy XVI now.