ARPG / Hack-and-Slash Games - What are some good ones?

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Bob's Vagene

Bob's Vagene

It's only gay if the balls touch.
kiwifarms.net
Joined
Mar 3, 2019
Always been a fan of games Like Diablo / Diablo 2, Path Of Exile, Baldur's Gate, etc.

Recently I found a game called Grim Dawn, which is currently on sale via steam for like $3.75. So far I'm really enjoying it. If you haven't played it and are looking for something new to play, I'd check it out.

Anyone into these type of games? Any suggestions?
 
I hate the term "hack and slash" because it's non-descriptive and can just as easily be applied to games like DMC, ninja gay den and so on.
"ARPG" is better. Can include things like Dark Souls, that are definitely RPGs and definitely action-focused, but will punish you for just zoning out and "hacking and slashing", too.

Titan Quest was my childhood, I know it inside and out and beat it like ten times.
Grim Dawn has a thread here, btw, IIRC. Made by former Titan Quest devs after THQ imploded. IMO they kind of blew the whole lovecraftian cosmic horror angle (ended up more "gothic fantasy" than "cosmic horror", for varous reasons), but it's otherwise very fun. The build variety is amazing, two characters with the same specializations can end up playing completely differently. You can also do a complete respec and turn your entire build upside down. Very cool. It gets kind of sloppy towards the lategame as your damage output becomes a rainbow of like seven different damage types, and wrangling all of that into an endgame-viable build becomes a bit of a headache. Also there's a bit too much rape in the lore, played for drama and grimdark. But that's the worst I can say about it, definitely a recommend if you're into the whole genre.
 
Bob's Vagene said:
Recently I found a game called Grim Dawn, which is currently on sale via steam for like $3.75. So far I'm really enjoying it. If you haven't played it and are looking for something new to play, I'd check it out.
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Grim Dawn is dope. it's a bit outdated at this point but they're working on a new expansion that doesn't have a release date yet. probably Q2 2026 if I had to guess.

if you haven't tried it yet, Diablo II Resurrected is great. it's nothing more than a fresh coat of paint on the original game, but it looks really fantastic. it fits the original's style extremely well, and there's a really impressive amount of detail, just like the original sprite art. as much as the ARPG genre has iterated since Diablo II, there still really isn't anything quite like it, and D2R really makes that clear. I just wish they had fixed the futzy hit detection.

Titan Quest II is currently in the works and has some positive reviews. I haven't tried it yet, but I have an eye on it for now.

No Rest For the Wicked has attracted a good bit of attention. reviews have been kind of varied but seem to be solidifying in the positive direction. it's still in early access but development seems to be proceeding at a good clip. their next update is adding co-op on Jan 22.

Darksiders Genesis is a great game that flew under the radar. it's a lot more action than RPG, but it's fun as hell and has incredible amounts of juice. it's also a fantastic two-player co-op game - one character is melee-focused, and the other is range-focused, so you normally swap between them in solo gameplay to solve puzzles or adapt during combat, but with two players, you naturally complement each other.

The Riftbreaker is a cool genre fusion kind of game - part RTS, part tower defense, part ARPG. you build bases to extract resources and craft gear for your mech, and defenses to protect yourself and your structures from periodic enemy attacks, while also exploring the map to find new resource points and enemy bases.

CrossCode is a Zelda-like with ARPG style gameplay, and some of the best dungeon design in the genre. an all-around charming and memorable game with a great story.

Gauntlet fucking owns if you have lads to play it with. it's hard as balls, has a good amount of content, some light competition aspects and tons of shit to unlock. the characters all play quite differently from each other so there's lots of replay value. definitely one of the best four-player games you can get.

there's also the whole survivors-like genre if you're into that; Time Wasters, Soulstone Survivors, and Rogue: Genesia are some good entries.

personally though, I think Path of Exile 2 is the absolute peak of the genre currently, although it attracts a lot of haters.
 
I like Path of Exile 2 but I would recommend waiting for release when it's more of a full package and maybe they will figure out what they actually want to do with the game. Right now it feels like there are two leads in GGG, they fight and don't talk with each other. Game starts out slow and turns quickly into Path of Exile 1 with dodge button and much less interesting passive tree/skills. It's a great deal for arpg junkies.

For the real recommendation I also think that Grim Dawn is great. Even if you don't like the base game/classes it has plenty of mods which add content or are total conversions. You can even turn it into Diablo 2 and you can play with diablo classes mixed with Grim Dawn classes. So good.

Speaking of which nothing hits like good ol Diablo 2. I replay it every year. Usually try to take a HC character through hell, farm a bit and put the game down.
If you think the game got stale you can also turn towards mods. Project Diablo 2 is TOP TIER mod which adds melee splash, changes lots of skills to make them viable(paladin holy bolt for example gets more projectiles with level), adds PoE map system, let's you corrupt items adding random modifier to items and much more. They have their own ladder which started about a month ago.
Second mod I recommend is MedianXL. I think you can call it a total conversion. Changes the classes completely and makes skills super flashy. They feel a bit railroaded though. Paladin turning into a shadow beast is one of my favorites. Mercenaries are revamped making them more powerful. They added in depth crafting system. New areas, new quests, new challanges etc. People call it bloated but I personally had plenty of fun with it over the years. I think their ladder started 2 months ago.

Sacred 1/2 - old but gold. Especially the 1st one. They are a bit different from other arpgs. They feature unique classes and system like combos. They are open world. They have mounts and lots of quests to complete. There are dragons and big bosses to slay. You can jump to either one without worry about story. It's go 'kill da baddies'. Avoid Sacred 2 remastered though. Just install community patch for Sacred 2 Gold and you're good to go. I think Sacred 1 works out of the box.

Chronicon - I know it doesn't look like much in screenshots but give it a shot. Starts out slow but turns into pure mayhem chaos and you kill hordes of enemies with very flashy and cool skills. I got about 60h out of it on two classes. One of which I took to deep end game which is basically poe1 maps.

Torchlight 2 - another oldie but goldie. Quite simple like Diablo 2 but very addicting. I think this is the game that introduced mapping system into arpg. Items are a bit boring to my liking. I strongly recommend installing synergies mod. It makes the game a bit harder, adds new monsters, changes items, adds challenges, respec, adds crafting options and much more.
 
I'm Retarded? said:
No Rest For the Wicked has attracted a good bit of attention. reviews have been kind of varied but seem to be solidifying in the positive direction. it's still in early access but development seems to be proceeding at a good clip. their next update is adding co-op on Jan 22.
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I played this game recently solo and some co-op sessions with the recent co-op beta. I must say, I so far quite enjoy it. It's a more methodical ARPG that has a lot of mechanics to it if you care to go deep into it. Such as elemental combinations that can create unique effects on enemies, you can swap abilities off weapons with different ones if you want to tailor a weapon to your wants, and the stamina system makes you think of when and how you should attack an enemy so you don't waste all your stamina and get staggered. There's also resources collecting that you can use to craft gear and can collect new gear recipe's when looting around or can do RNG and spend three recipe papers to get a random new recipe in category of your choosing.

The co-op still in beta but that was fun with friends. your friends can tailor into unique builds like being the tank or healer which does become helpful in later boss battles. You can also do separate things in the game as well, if you want to go off and do your own thing or stick with your friends and go do quests. I do like the freedom of that in multiplayer. World progress is tied to the owner who creates the realm, but your character and its equipment can jump to different realms or go into your solo game if you wanted to. Which is nice that a character you play with your friends can be played in another realm or solo.

I do find the characters to look funny with their overly long arms, but the artstyle of everything else like environments, fauna effects, and lighting is beautiful. soundtrack is atmospheric too, sets the mood well when you are in beautiful bright Lucious forests or a grey beach at night surrounded by death. You can also buy a home in the games main town too and customize it with knickknacks and stuff.

Overall, I can recommend this game in January when co-op update officially releases, but I can see the game gaining more traction when it hits 1.0. There really is something there for everyone who either wants a challenge or can put the game to easy mode if someone wants a more chill experience.
 
Since you like diablo you might like inquisitor its very diablo like design wise and hard as fuck but worth trying. Currently on sale for under $5 as well

Plus you get to torture people into confessing shit, literal inquisition style
 
Last Epoch is good but the dev's just got bought out and are now going to be a microtransaction factory.
Its effectively the inbetween Path of Exile and Diablo, its not as complicated as the first, but not as simple as Diablo 4.

Its claim to fame is that every skill for each class has its own sprawling skill tree, alot of them change the skill entirely, very customizable, and each class has 3 subclasses that add not skills and gameplay styles.

the negatives is the Campaign isn't bad, but its easy as fuck, and you really don't want to do it again beacuse it isn't as enjoyable as D2's campaign, but it does have seasonal content and endgame "maps" that aren't nearly as annoying as POE2's maps currently are.
 
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