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It’s become a meme to say that something is “perfect for the Switch” these days, as it’s a tagline attributed to pretty much everything from Doom to Dark Souls, neither of which, in actual fact, is perfect for the Switch. The piss-poor range of the Vita’s remote play mode just couldn’t cut it.
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I can’t accurately recall the amount of times I begrudgingly dropped the controller to limp cross-legged to the John after the “one more bounty” impulse had been overriding my other basic bodily needs for several hours. It was the one thing missing: true portability. Although initially unable to fathom why I was so giddy, I eventually narrowed it down to one single, all-eclipsing reason: now I can play Diablo 3 on the toilet. I Platinum’d it after Lord-knows how many hours on PS4, and yet I was still excited by the prospect of a new port on the Switch. I also played the initial port on Xbox 360 to death. I’ve played Diablo 3 a lot, beginning with the original PC version, which in retrospect now seems horribly limited.
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With patch following patch, each bringing new and improved ways to play, interact and loot, it’s no surprise that people were still excited five years after launch when the Rise of the Necromancer update was released, bringing with it yet another new class and a variety of quality of life improvements. It’s instant-action loop of attack-spamming and quick gratification garnered it a huge following when it was ported over to Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, and since then it has gone from strength on current-gen consoles, beginning with the incredible Reaper of Souls expansion that introduced the righteous Crusader to Diablo 3’s roster of heroes. It’s almost ironic given the controversy surrounding Diablo 3 at the time of its original PC launch in 2012 that it’s so popular now.
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