The Exile's Path

Day 1 (25.04.2016)

The Beginning
I started, where would you think? - with the choice of game class. At first, I thought this process would take some time since I couldn't quite decide who to build, but after this

They burned her home

the choice became very obvious. What could be better than hunting house-burners? We'll answer fire with fire, ha-ha-ha! Blazing hell everywhere, same explosions, fireballs, what could be better?! I had to choose normal mode since the others weren't unlocked yet. And so my little adventure through the corruption-ravaged lands of Recklast began.


isn't she a cutie?

I initially played with an acquaintance who chose the hunter; quite a lot of time was spent on interface setup and synchronization, but eventually everything worked as it should.
We ran around the beach - farmed crabs and undead, reached the first town, where we started the quests.
Only three days have passed, but I don't remember all the events anymore, and I have no desire to describe the plot in detail, so here is a brief summary of the main points.


Interface
At first it evokes mixed feelings - on one hand, everything seems (ha!) copied from Diablo, starting from the health and mana bars and ending with the character menu and similar things. Nevertheless, for modern games, everything is implemented quite inconveniently: item descriptions are cluttered with various fonts and almost overlap each other, putting items into chests and taking them out is cumbersome, and the vendor interaction menu is a total nightmare. Still, you get used to it very quickly, and the initial effect of repulsion fades, especially since some improvement work has been done and continues to be done, which leaves a pleasant hope for something better in the future.



The question involuntarily arises - what is this blur in the middle of the screen? That, ahem, is the minimap.
Perhaps the only thing that still irritates me quite a bit. It would seem that making a decent map isn't such a difficult task; at the very least, coming up with textures for different types of terrain underfoot would have significantly improved the situation, but for some reason, this wasn't done. Of course, after a couple of hours of gameplay you get more or less used to it, but anyway, such an approach is not right.


Graphics, atmosphere, rendering
Now here the situation is more interesting. As I understand it, the original game developers handled the design of the first game locations, who for obvious reasons were unfamiliar with this business and didn't bother much, which is why we got absolutely terrible game locations ~through half of the first act. Most of them consist of stretched textures of sand and water with a few jarring bushes or stones thrown in, and I won't even mention the swamps. In this regard, there is a very funny divergence from Diablo 3, where (for obvious reasons) everything is done exactly the opposite - from the very start of the game, maximum work is put in to attract potential players (and force them to purchase the full version, naturally) - everything is polished to a shine, ooh, scary atmosphere, ooh, zombie-undead-Tristram, let's go!
In "Excel" however it's different - the further you go, the more pleasant the reward for your eyes, although this lasts until the last act added in the latest update, but about that a bit later.

For comparison - left [the coast in act one]; right - [solaris temple in three]:Perhaps I didn't choose the best pics, especially since the second one is a bit blurred, and the coast has already been reworked, but the difference in the game itself was felt very strongly. By the way, dark and sinister locations like hells, prisons, and various dungeons turn out much better for the developers than open ones - and thanks to them for that; you immerse yourself in the atmosphere and even remember the first and second parts of "Diablo".


Adventure Time
From the very first steps, the difficulty and at the same time the interest of the game were clearly felt - here, strictly speaking, the balance is not polished even at early levels, but that's also cool, and you really feel the differences between classes, specs, and builds during the walkthrough. The Witch, having effectively the highest magic damage in the game, suffers greatly without proper equipment and dies everywhere possible, while the hunter is quite fine with a decent bow and high evasion rating to normally farm everything living with auto-attacks.
It's worth mentioning separately that trying to get even remotely ownworthy gear at the start of the game is a pointless endeavor, so you have to make do with any junk you find along the way. Reagents also drop very rarely, so you can forget about improving or crafting items. Town portal scrolls again need to be saved - they may come in very handy later. However, there are pluses - levels increase quickly and effortlessly, passive points rain down, which means you need to quickly put them into key skills that will be very difficult to obtain later. In other words - I hurried to level up elemental damage and fire magic, while leaving the abilities available almost from the start for later - and I didn't actually miss out!
At this pace we reached the first serious opponent encountered on the underground levels of the prison (I had a good laugh here, since the continent itself is essentially a prison, but these seem to be abandoned structures of the ancient imperials, so everything is fine). And what was our surprise (not), when in the depths of the catacombs we discovered fresh remains and a bloody trail leading to the far hall of the dungeon.


really now, this reduced visibility radius, this retro texture rendering, we already know who is waiting for us there!


This reincarnation of the butcher doesn't actually present any particular difficulties, although the video was taken from the highest difficulty on hardcore, which really makes your nerves tingle.
Among special abilities in the new version, Brutus has gained spikes appearing under the player; melee damage is very high, hook pulling with a stun, a rapid charging dash, and summoning skeletons in the final stages make up his entire arsenal. Skillful kiting and a properly chosen strategy with trips back to town allow you to take him down without particular problems.
In a party, victory over him is much easier; since I had no way to deal damage through slow fire spells, I used the ability to summon these cuties, who can both tank excellently and deal consistently high damage. This brought up pleasant associations with this thing from Castlevania.

It's worth adding, by the way, that I really liked the soundtrack in this location, and throughout the whole game in general, which is worth mentioning separately.


Results: day 1
Playtime: ~4 hours (4h total)
Character level: 25
Experience gained: ~2.000.000
Number of deaths: 1
I couldn't play much, but it was enough to get into the atmosphere of "Excel", more or less figure out the mechanics and complete the first act. No decent gear or legendaries were found, nor good gems. The only death was at the final boss - Merveil.

kind of a mermaid

Of course, my fire sorceress, charging headlong into a water mage, shattered to pieces after a deep freeze and a machine-gun cast of ice spears to the face, which somehow reminded me of Hanelion's death. Overall, the boss is very simple, having two phases, the second of which occurs after death - with this, the mechanics are almost identical, except for the minions summoned in the final stage.
With this, the witch's adventure moved to the impassable jungles gripped by war between savage tribes, and the first day came to an end.