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It's a good week to be a Nintendo Switch owner with a penchant for exploring fantastic dungeons, facing terrifying monsters and collecting a lot of loot. Two of the largest series of RPGs in the world – Dark souls and Diablo – have just made their debut on Nintendo. And it turns out that their respective mixes of monsters are even more appealing when you can take the dungeons with you.
Diablo III was released on PC in 2012 and has since become one of the best-selling video games of all time, despite a tumultuous launch that has seen Blizzard revisit several aspects of its design and rethink the game with console versions and a major expansion pack. (I recommend reading this dramatic chapter on its development from Jason Schreier's book Blood, sweat and pixels.) The Switch version, called "Eternal Edition", comes with all these years of work, so if you play Diablo III for the first time, you'll get all the content updates and game settings from the beginning.
Diablo III may not be for everyone, but it's easy to see how much the game is so beloved and so addictive. The story is laughable and the fight is simple, but the main loop is to find the loot to level up and face the more powerful enemies, the endorphin, with the precision of a box of chocolates. I have not had the chance to take it on a plane yet, but I feel that this version of Switch will make intercontinental flights much shorter. It's all too easy to be seduced by the captivating mix of healthy bars and numbers.
The switch port is great. As with all Blizzard games, Diablo III was originally designed to work well on relatively modest computer hardware, so there was no problem in reducing it to the switch level. It runs at a constant speed of 60 frames per second with slightly reduced character patterns and occasional minor resolution drops. I did not play enough to evaluate performance in the final stages of the game. To be fair, things can get a lot more hectic on the screen, but basic performance levels are encouraging. It's also the first time I play a Diablo game on a console, and I'm surprised at how much heavy PC control translates into a nice translation.
Diablo III: Eternal Collection has a frankly ridiculous amount of content, and it's Switch's perfect game to curl up in a bag of beans while listening to a podcast. I would recommend it to anyone who does not have an urgent commitment to life, which takes a lot of time.
Dark souls, meanwhile, is considerably less cold. Unquestionably one of the most influential games of the last decade, From Software's brutal classic has lost none of its power to frustrate and fascinate since its release in 2011. Its intense struggles and irresistible mythology have seized a number countless players as they collect loot and descend into Lordran. And now you can play in a park on a sunny day.
I would not recommend it, actually, because Dark souls is very dark and you will not be able to see the screen. But it's an excellent portable experience when you're able to adapt to the control system, which relies heavily on the slightly pokey buttons on the Joy-Cons console. Dark souls is a game where every moment counts and where the slightest button slip punishes you. You may want to dock the switch and use a Pro Controller for the hardest fights.
In general, however, portable Dark souls is miraculous. Although it carries the remastered tag of the re-release of the PC, PS4 and Xbox One at the beginning of the year, the Switch version does not offer any of the graphics upgrades (actually quite minor) of this iteration. This is essentially the original PS3 and Xbox 360 that work at a more stable frame rate of 30 frames per second in 1080p on a TV and 720p in handheld. Dark souls has never been a technical showcase, even in 2011, but the dark art of fantasy still impresses today, especially in the palm of the hand.
It's not that Diablo III and Dark souls are excellent ports and are "perfect for the switch", as virtually all third-party games on the system proclaim. This is the reason why games like this one have hardly ever been used on Nintendo, laptops or other platforms. Diablo III is the first Blizzard game for a Nintendo console for decades, while De Software has never introduced any of its major titles on Nintendo platforms.
These are two pretty old games, of course, but they have grown in popularity with age. The beauty of these new versions is that they will delight the two veterans who play for the first time these legitimate classics, while attracting a whole new audience. Few people had expected software support of such quality and diversity to be supported by a third only a year and a half after Switch was released.
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