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jakebasile

Isometric ARPGs are niche now, but there's still games being made. Off the top of my head:

- Titan Quest (just got an update and a new expansion!)

- Grim Dawn

- The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing

- Victor Vran

- Path of Exile

- Warhammer 40000 Inquisitor - Martyr

- Torchlight 1 & 2 (I wish Runic games hadn't imploded...)

It is unfortunate that most of these don't have the same level of randomness than Diablo has, but they're pretty good games in their own right.

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> - Torchlight 1 & 2 (I wish Runic games hadn't imploded...)

Runic is dead now? Oh sad. I loved the Torchlight series :( Torchlight 2 is the Diablo 3 the world wanted.

I actually preferred the first one over the second.

/ducks

Yeah, they sold to Perfect World Entertainment which then closed the studio so they could focus on thrice-damned "games-as-a-service" (http://archive.is/yIC0z).

I played path of exile years ago and it was great.

Now it's even better, and even more addicting...

Me too! It was fantastic. Ironically, I stopped playing a few weeks before it came out of closed beta (just didn’t have time and then never went back to it... now its changed so much I feel a bit overwhelmed by the thoughts of going back to it)

I actually heard about PoE on HN too, back in 2012 :)

The latest update has a sort of dungeon building mechanic and its so so good. Highly recommend trying it out again. The art & graphics have improved a lot since closed beta too (I was there ... just never left)

Thanks for the comment! I may give it another look.

(although a big reason behind why I haven’t is that I mainly play on consoles now, will have to see how well it runs on my shitty machine!)

Way too complicated compared to Diablo.

Sadly the complication is "skin deep". Thanks to some odd choices when designing defenses, your best bet for survival is piling on as much life boosters as you can muster.

After that it is all about picking up as much damage boosts as you can (again there is some weirdness there because one type of boost is stronger than another kind, and the only way to tell the two apart is by the wording) for how you want to kill stuff.

Yea it's too bad that the actual complication is more an obfuscation of game mechanics. That and the game is quite grindy compared to Diablo2 even if you know what you're doing. A single player version with support for mods could've been very nice. Sadly it's online only.

It's online, but multiplayer/co-op is optional.

Exactly, so unfortunately no potential for modding.

The latest update (Incursion = large dungeon building) is super good and worth coming back for

Grim Dawn is incredible. Second expansion comes out this Fall!

Blade : Edge of Darknes (aka Severance: Blade of Darkness ), could count as some kind successor on 3d and the grand father of Dark Souls.

That game had _the best_ weapon play ever. I truly feel it never got the recognition it deserved. Unfortunately it came out in close proximity to Rune, which had a much more arcadey feel, and, I think, may have stolen much of the audience.

If you're interested have a look at FromSoftware's actual Dark Souls (spiritual) predecessors. In particular King's Field. The setting is very similar; although the gameplay is very primitive, it has the same feeling of exploration and similar difficulty. Also it's 1st person (quite innovative for the time).

Victor Vran was great, def worth picking up. Works well with a controller too.

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