PixlBit

I finished Inferno Mode on Hard today playing co-op with my friend Mark. Then we replayed the boss to try and get the last Diablo Triumph Challenge, which is beating him without picking up a health potion or drinking from the health well. This is a little trickier than it sounds because Diablo and his minions all drop health potions after getting hit and it's hard to not accidently pick them up. I discovered some of my equipment increases my reach to gold and health potions, so I removed all those before the battle. After a few tries, we both got the challenge and the associated achievement.

                             

                        Sword freezes. Spells make fluffy rain. The wizard with the blizzard.

I also got the purchase-the-following-items-from-merchants achievement. I had to figure out what class of equipment a Sprit Stone was. Turns out, it's a helmet. Nothing in its description tells you what class it is until it shows up under helmets in your inventory. Once I knew that, I could go find it with the merchants. Achievement unlocked.

So then it was time to start Hardcore Mode, and get to level 30, for the second to last achievement. I set the difficulty to Medium because I figured Easy would be too easy, but I'm kind of regretting it now because it's a little bit harder than I thought it would be. I created a Demon Hunter and named him Spook after Jeff Bridges' character's title in the Seventh Son movie. I thought I would be the one to get killed early but Mark did around level 10. He tried to come back in with a fresh Barbarian, but he got killed again because the level difference was too great. From then on we played solo. I got up to level 13 and he got to level 6 before time ran out on the day.

                                 

                                      The Demon Hunter uses lots of arrows and bolts.

Hardcore makes you keep your eyes open. Once I nearly got instantly killed by a charging bull that came at me from off the screen. You have to be very active and use all your skills and boosts. I beat the spider boss in Act I, but I had to dash around the screen to avoid getting hit while nicking away at her health. You also have to upgrade equipment as soon as you pick it up. I would stop in mid dungeon and check to see if any of it was better. Usually I'd wait 'til I got back to town. Better not wait in Hardcore though. It could mean your life.

I noticed little changes to the levels in Hardcore. There were new Events, new dungeons and enemies got more boosts, especially speed ones. I had one encounter with these large Cthulhuean beasts that were speed boosted. It was pretty funny to see these huge beasts zip around the screen, except that it made me dash like crazy to avoid them. I really like Hardcore. You have to pay close attention and work to improve your skills and equipment at every moment. It's an arcade-like experience for sure.

Once we finish Hardcore, there will be only one achievement left and that is the 5 million gold achievement. It accumulates across all your characters, so I may create another one just to grind for gold and experience its unique skills.

Next week, however, is retro weekend for me, so I'll be taking a little break from Diablo III. I figured this year I'd play retro games whenever there is some kind of holiday and next Saturday is Valentines Day. I rolled on my Retro Game Encounter Table and got the Shooter genre and then chose Metroid and Mega Man, which I will play on my Wii. Can't wait for that.

Happy algorithms!