You know, I was wondering whether to do a Through the Lens on this title or just your standard Review. I was going back and forth on it and both make sense. As such, Imma do what I want. Since this game has been released and updated for around a decade now, it's a beast of its own. 😅
A true trendsetter if there ever was one. ARPGs were once the 💣 with Diablo II, then they vanished. Then they returned somewhat with Torchlight. Then they vanished again with Diablo III only to be rescued from the jaws of doom by none other than our feature presentation: Path of Exile. biiiiiiiissshhhhhh
We have A LOT to talk about with this one 😁 So let's not waste any more time.
I usually do this in my Through the Lens articles, but why not here as well? 😂 I recommend, dear reader, you listen to the game's soundtrack while reading the review. 🙂
Path of Exile is being developed by Grinding Gear Games. One of the rare indie studios started in New Zealand. A mythical country somewhere to the South East, I hear Hobbits come from it. 🤷♂
GGG is comprised mainly of ARPG veterans who wanted to make their own game (ARPG - Action Role Playing Game). The senior staff comprises ex-Blizzard devs who worked on Diablo II. As such PoE's DNA is strongly linked with Diablo II.
I assure you, this is an excellent thing.
We have managed to meet most developers on the team, and they are all stand-up blokes. They listen to community feedback and are connected with what the player base wants. They mess up and trip themselves up from time to time, but they have never failed to pick themselves back up. 🙂
I remember the commotion when Diablo III first released. That was a storm like a few others. 😅 Most GGG devs were present at Blizzard during the conceptual stage of D3. When they saw the direction the project was going they left and decided to band together to make the ARPG they always wanted.
Path of Exile feels like the Diablo game we never got. If you go from D2 to PoE, you will become eternally sad at D3's poor design decisions. PoE is such a fitting spiritual successor to D2 that wholesale mechanics have been ripped from that game and placed in PoE. 😀 // those that shout 'Stealing!' don't understand the fundamental process of creating... well anything, honestly.
So why is it so true to its roots? Well, you got: Loot that matter, boss battles that require study, meaningful stats, challenging mobs; big, bad dungeons.
The monsters are all deformed and nasty as well. I think that has to be checked ✅ to qualify.
If PoE was just a carbon copy of D2, it would be cool, but it wouldn't have lasted with such a huge player base for so long. 📈
First of all, Path of Exile is Free to Play. Not only that but it's extremely generous. No content whatsoever is locked behind a paywall. Everything is playable to everyone, the main way GGG monetizes the game is through cosmetics. Well, that and stash tabs better organize your precious loot. You may argue that is the closest GGG gets to being pay2win but in actuality it's a pay2convinience feature. 😁
Another really cool feature in PoE is that it has no gold. 💰 Instead, the game works on a barter system. There are certain loot drops called currency items. These items can be consumed on an item to apply specific effects to it. Or, they can be used as currency to trade with vendors/players. There are also vendor recipes - simply sell a specific combination of items and you will get a reward from the vendor.
Needless to say this system rules. When I first discovered it back in...2013? (sheesh, but that was a long time ago 😬) I found it revolutionary. GGG has iterated on it over the years, and right now it's at the peak of its powers.
Another unique PoE feature became a trendsetter, of course, I speak of its daunting skill tree.
Now this great big behemoth is much simpler than it looks. 🙃 A lot of "hardcore" gamers like to bump their fists in their chest and claim they play the hardest games out there. That's some beta male $#!% in my books. 🤓 And with my 1k hours of play in PoE, I can tell you the skill tree is mostly for show.
It's daunting for beginners, sure. But once you get the hang of it you realize it's like having multiple skill trees (which a lot of games have) but they are all interconnected. Also, most people just download a skill tree and follow the guide, so yeah, the boogieman is not real folks. 😁
Path of Exile also has challenge leagues. These content updates keep the game fresh, as they add new mechanics that sometimes carry over into the next league. This, IMHO, is as much a bad thing as it is good. As the game has now become very bloated. There are so many screens and so many upgrades that you can have. It's overwhelming. And hard to keep track of. 😡
There are other mechanics that are PoE exclusive, of course. But we all have a life, we can agree on that, at least.
Story-wise, PoE I'd say is... compelling. It's not groundbreaking in any way. But it's there, it's serviceable, and it's consistent. The story is mainly transmitted through NPC dialogue and lore stones that you can click on and have a narrator read you a lore entry while you slay your monsters.
There are no cut scenes whatsoever.
The aesthetics have only gotten prettier over the years. But the visual design has stayed consistent. You literally will ho through every biome imaginable and more. Dungeons, temples, sewers. Anything and everything. 😁
The game also has some badass voice acting, I'll say that much. 💯
The animations, soundtrack, and VFX, have all gotten upgraded through the decade. That's the thing with PoE, it is constantly being upgraded, and people are constantly coming back to it. And by the time this review comes out, Path of Exile 2 might release. 😁
Yes, there's gonna be a Path of Exile 2.
If this review didn't convince you -yes, you should play this game. There is no better value for a free-to-play game out there. None. Now, you have to like ARPGs, as this is as ARPG as an ARPG gets. But who knows, you might discover something new you like. 🙂
The sequel I cannot imagine will be all that different from this one. It would be just a new campaign with some slight mechanical tweaks. the "2" in "Path of Exile 2" will be more for marketing than anything else. Do i know this for a fact? Yes. I have inside sources in every video game company that tell me their plans for the future. I use these awesome superpowers to talk about their intentions on crypto social media sites around the world. 😎
I don't give out scores on my reviews. All I can say is: it's free to play, try it, what do you got to lose?
Besides wasting years of your life. 😭
Shout-out to the 🍕PIZZA🍕 gang, 🤙 gang. 🤙
As an add-on, I'd say this game is best in hardcore difficulty. As time has gone on it's been less so, but this is still the best way to play this game. 💯 You can play it as an MMO-type game on a non-hardcore difficulty, but I think that's just a lesser version of the game. This, again, is just my opinion - which is why I didn't put this section in the actual, factual review. 😅
I've also died TOO MANY times to a projectile off-screen. Losing tens of hours of progress and tens of hours of leveling back up to catch up..... the pain has been immense and I am not sure if I will ever recover from it.... so maybe you should just ignore me. 😭
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Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a nice day.