Tuesday 26 August 2014

Diablo III not a Good fit For PS Vita

Diablo III is apparently the sort of game that you either love or hate. There’s no in-between, and those who like the game are fast to grow addicted to it. The hack and slash is indeed visually gratifying and it gets so many things right that one has to be a true old-school Diablo nit-picker to find relevant chinks in its armor. 

While it may seem strange to most of the rank-and-file players and fans of the game, those truly addicted find the idea of being able to carry it around in their pockets extremely appealing. There’s just one problem with that: Diablo III isn’t available for the PS Vita, and even though there’s a way to play it on that platform, the game doesn’t lend itself well to the small screen. 

How do you play Diablo III on PS Vita? Simple: granted, you’ll need a PlayStation 4 for it but with the Remote Play feature, you’ll actually be able to play (on the PS4), using your PS Vita as a second screen. 

Now then, while the Remote Play experience is top-notch indeed, it is safe to say that Diablo III doesn’t work well with small screens. There’s a lot of reading involved in the game, and even those who aren’t interested in the story elements conveyed through text will want to see the stats of the weapons/items they pick up. The text on the PS Vita is so small though that it’s impossible to re-equip one’s character in a way that makes sense. 

The actual battles are great on the Vita though, so a solution to the conundrum would be to play on the PS Vita, to pick up loot there and then head to the TV to re-outfit the character after a while.

Obviously, this is too much of a hustle for reasonable, non-fanatic fans, so it’s not really practical at all. To top it all off, there are some control-issues on the Vita as well.

The bottom line: the game was never meant to be played on the Vita and as such, despite the outstanding and often-underrated performance of the platform, and despite the great game-play, the two just cannot be coupled in a practical way.

Philip Thalberg works for Gosugamers.net, the top community for eSports and legacy online gaming action.