Objective 5/10
Subjective 5/10

The game is fine, but it shows its age in the wrong ways.

Very nice progression and loot. Refreshingly witty writing. Love it. And yeah, 10 times better than diablo 4. Trully deserves description of "Hidden gem".

This one is a somewhat obscure ARPG, or Diablo-like if you prefer that has you play as monster hunter in a steampunk world, fighting both unholy monstrosities and mad science creations. Holds up well and has interesting ideas, but it's rather real short, admittedly.

This one's idea of innovating on classic clicking monsters till they die is introducing "rage" resource and powerups it fuels. The rage doesn't go down as in many games, instead it only collects from killing monsters, and you can use it to toggle boosts on your abilities - the whole system is arguably inelegant and clunky, takes getting used to, but you can apply up to three of same or whichever boost that you have unlocked same way you unlock abilities passive bonuses, reserving the rage - that gets expended on use of the ability, all while granting it pretty big boons, that also stack, like +50% extra damage, additional effects like stun or slow or weakening, extra splash damage area, you get a lot of versatility from one singular ability by unlocking it's boosts, though dedicated to that effect by default abilities will still beat it. Problem is, applying and removing these boosts is clunky, there's some additional features like auto-applying specific combo and etc but it doesn't fix the clunkyness. Another neat feature related to progression are the perks. Kinda like Torchlight fame you get it from a secondary XP bar of sorts, except instead of extra skill points it just gives you perks. and those are.... super varied? It's very much like Fallout 3 and New Vegas ones, all got flavour text, prerequisites (pretty sure tied to game's achievements?) to become available, and they range in quality from really paltry extra skill points and perks to ones with own mechanics like one allowing you a sort of free revive once in three minutes, or new inventory submenu for extra items. It's a nice way to add extra flair and customise experience to your own needs, I love it.

Another bit that is similar to Torchlight yet built upon is your follower, a ghost Katarina who now only has own skill tree, but also is a fleshed-out character who comments on situation, sometimes gives suggestions, but mostly snarks and cracks jokes, her dynamic with Van Helsing is fun, no other character including antagonist gets much screentime so her and protagonist are like only lasting characters - and only ones with good voice acting, admittedly, everyone else is ehhhhh or acceptable tops. No wait the friendly vampire is ok too I guess, as a character. I am not sure if this is based on like comics or what but the glimpse into the world is overall neat, if some parts like advertisement boards you can click on and freaking final boss are just pop culture reference spam. No really, he throws around one-liners and the two of the cast both remark how insufferable he is.

This feels like a great game done by a small team that knew what to deliver for a complete experience even if it's not the longest or most intricate, visuals are nice and so are the few music tracks you'll hear throughout the game. I don't know what went wrong for the sequels to this one to have worse and worse ratings, since here it's all nice and neat.

Really try it if you're itching for a somewhat different ARPG that's not the longest.