The spaces in Diablo 2 are too fricking large. The landscapes look all the same and lack personality.
Diablo 2 would have been a better game if it was more RPG-y and less hack'n'slash'y. It's just a tedious skinnerbox. Diablo 1 has better atmosphere as well.
I completely agree. The music, atmosphere, and even gameplay are more enjoyable to me. I've replayed Diablo 1 a lot. I've beaten Diablo 2 maybe twice.
Diablo 1 to me is an experience. Diablo 2 is just an action game. It's apparent in the design immediately where in Diablo 1, your hero cautiously walks, sword at the ready to strike and shield in front of them. In two, your guy is hauling ass running into giant packs of demons. Just completely different tone to me.
Be honest here, do you really think that if they had the resources (and it could run on PCs of that time) to make Diablo 1 much larger in scale, they wouldn't have done it?
and better than 3 and 4 and immortal as well. was that supposed to be a debate or something? nothing ever recreated the feeling of D1 in arpg space to this day
I try 2 every so often but ultimately end up going back to 1/HF instead. I wish 2 retained the no-worry character building that 1 had, where you can eventually max out a character's stats and spells just through shrines and items.
And it has one of the best atmospheres I've ever seen in a game, not even kidding.
Tristram is one of the darkest towns in gaming. It has just lost a war started by a mentally ill tyrant and is on the brink of a demon invasion. One of the inhabitants is drunk 24/7 and lost his mind. The only boy in town instead of being in school is dealing in merchandise. Everything about the dungeon feels claustrophobic and dark. And don't get me started on the last dungeon level, hell. It is enough to give nightmares with
A good Diablo 2 would have given us more of the dark stuff. Maybe a bigger underworld and entire cities in hell or desolate, ruined cities and plagues and all that shit.
Instead we got fricking Arabia and Indonesia. Nobody is interested in that shit.
Diablo 2 is a product of what I call crunch-creativity, when you need to make as much as possible content in short time. So you don't filter ideas you take everything without thinking too much. Egypt, Aztecs, Connan? Hell yeah! It's a bigger-better but still inconsistent mess.
I like both games a lot, Diablo 1 I like more because it doesn't have a 'hell' mode so endgame doesn't exist in it whereas Diablo 2 nobody cares about the early game - and I like Hell way better than the Chaos Sanctuary and Throne of Destruction
>Diablo 1 I like more because it doesn't have a 'hell' mode so endgame doesn't exist in it
It has both Nightmare and Hell through multiplayer characters. When I wasn't playing online I was just chopping up mobs solo through a local game. It was very fun, very replayable.
I never got a chance to play much of D2 when I was younger so it's just me trying it solo these days. I might like it more than 1.
Vanilla Diablo absolutely had Nightmare and Hell difficulties, it was available in the multiplayer.
It technically also was in the single player, but they didn't offer it as an option for you to select, you had to trick the game by first making a LAN game set to Nightmare or Hell, and then go and start a new single player game, then it'd have that difficulty set.
diablo 2 should have been about you controlling the hero you played as that got corrupted in diablo 1, and you go around slaughtering people disguised as demons
Diablo 1 is definitely a cooler game, especially for its time of release. I remember seeing this game at a friend's house and being blown away by how good the graphics were and how cool the artstyle was. It was the coolest looking game I'd ever seen back in 1996.
On the other hand, it is a short game with relatively little actual replay value, which is strange for a roguelike type game.
>On the other hand, it is a short game with relatively little actual replay value, which is strange for a roguelike type game.
Not that little. There are 3 difficulties and 3 classes. To complete it would take at least 9 playthroughs.
I played D2 a lot as a kid, only played Diablo 1 for the first time last year but I have to say I also feel like it's a better game. I played it through Devilution X, but I played without QOL stuff for my first playthrough so I think I have a pretty good view of it. The atmosphere is just so good, and it feels like there's actual difficulty. I always felt like D2 was pretty easy. They're both great games though.
I think in overall atmosphere and gameplay innovation they're close to equal, relative to their release date and industry era.
However, D1 sure is underappreciated in today's world. Most Diablo-like players don't start with it and need convincing to even try it. >more unsettling and menacing, better conveys evil and negative emotions >game and physical media look more traditionally evil and satanic, like it and the enemies actively hate you, truly "grim and dark" >movement speed and enemy ruthlessness is crucial to the sense of dread and vulnerability >the ceaselessly descending dungeon crawl is kino
>Tristram and its denizens >the way it was developed as a deshackled turn-based game led to important innovations and a unique gamefeel >everything D2 did is building off of what was established by D1 (many exclude this line of thinking but it's def important)
>Most Diablo-like players don't start with it and need convincing to even try it.
This is kind of bizarre when you consider just how incredibly easy it is to drop into the game and grasp it right away, and how little time you need to invest into it to beat it. It's a very straightforward game which you can knock out in like two afternoons, but it's not so simple as to be bland, and it's an audiovisual feast.
I agree with all the rest of your points. Diablo 2 has its own gloom and evil, and its own gothicness, but it's not on the same oppressive and sinister level as the first game, it really is a very different feeling.
I'm glad for DevX's development, as that makes the game far more widely available and approachable, while at the same time you can play it with basically none of the added QoL stuff.
>Diablo 2 has its own gloom and evil, and its own gothicness, but it's not on the same oppressive and sinister level as the first game, it really is a very different feeling.
There was nothing as oppressive in Diablo 2 as those first few levels in Diablo 1 where I was ignorant of town portal scrolls. The rest of D1 was also not as oppressive.
>This is kind of bizarre when you consider just how incredibly easy it is to drop into the game and grasp it right away
its not as incredibly easy to find it, buy it, set it up and play it though unlike diablo 2 which had a very large supporting community till very recently and now that remastered version. as much as we like older games here, we know it can be a pain to play them sometimes, and all zoomers need is the minimal roadblock on their way to give up and go back to playing nikke buttsniffing or whatever on their phones
The spaces in Diablo 2 are too fricking large. The landscapes look all the same and lack personality.
Diablo 2 would have been a better game if it was more RPG-y and less hack'n'slash'y. It's just a tedious skinnerbox. Diablo 1 has better atmosphere as well.
Never played 2. 1 was good. Played like an A+ flash game from 2002
It was far ahead of its time
Do you make video games?
It blew my mind for example that items stayed where they are. EVERYWHERE in the entire game. This was 1996. And the replay value is insane.
1994's System Shock also did that.
1992's Ultima Underworld also, I think
The original did have way better atmosphere and is still pretty unsettling. 2 was good but focused more on gameplay and builds.
No, but it's a fricksight better than anything that came out after 2.
>make the game larger
>so large you need a run button to get around
>add stamina meter to constantly cuck the player
Unforgivable.
I completely agree. The music, atmosphere, and even gameplay are more enjoyable to me. I've replayed Diablo 1 a lot. I've beaten Diablo 2 maybe twice.
Diablo 1 to me is an experience. Diablo 2 is just an action game. It's apparent in the design immediately where in Diablo 1, your hero cautiously walks, sword at the ready to strike and shield in front of them. In two, your guy is hauling ass running into giant packs of demons. Just completely different tone to me.
Total gameplay too. In diablo 1 you have to use the terrain strategically, for example corners and chokepoints to efficiently kill monsters.
Their motto for diablo 2 was just: let's add trillion more monsters and it will be fine.
But the ridiculously vast landscapes are the biggest bullshit
Be honest here, do you really think that if they had the resources (and it could run on PCs of that time) to make Diablo 1 much larger in scale, they wouldn't have done it?
Diablo 1 was obviously imitating roguelikes and most of them don't do it.
It's not, but it's pretty good
and better than 3 and 4 and immortal as well. was that supposed to be a debate or something? nothing ever recreated the feeling of D1 in arpg space to this day
I try 2 every so often but ultimately end up going back to 1/HF instead. I wish 2 retained the no-worry character building that 1 had, where you can eventually max out a character's stats and spells just through shrines and items.
Facts. Diablo 2 is vomit. Diablo 1 is focused.
And it has one of the best atmospheres I've ever seen in a game, not even kidding.
Tristram is one of the darkest towns in gaming. It has just lost a war started by a mentally ill tyrant and is on the brink of a demon invasion. One of the inhabitants is drunk 24/7 and lost his mind. The only boy in town instead of being in school is dealing in merchandise. Everything about the dungeon feels claustrophobic and dark. And don't get me started on the last dungeon level, hell. It is enough to give nightmares with
A good Diablo 2 would have given us more of the dark stuff. Maybe a bigger underworld and entire cities in hell or desolate, ruined cities and plagues and all that shit.
Instead we got fricking Arabia and Indonesia. Nobody is interested in that shit.
i wish d1 had more interesting build stuff you could do
There are big mods for that
The Bard and Barbarian classes in Hellfire offer a bit more variety.
Diablo 2 is way better than Diablo 1.
Tried Diablo 1 again last week. It was bad. Going back to 2.
Diablo 2 is a product of what I call crunch-creativity, when you need to make as much as possible content in short time. So you don't filter ideas you take everything without thinking too much. Egypt, Aztecs, Connan? Hell yeah! It's a bigger-better but still inconsistent mess.
I like both games a lot, Diablo 1 I like more because it doesn't have a 'hell' mode so endgame doesn't exist in it whereas Diablo 2 nobody cares about the early game - and I like Hell way better than the Chaos Sanctuary and Throne of Destruction
>Diablo 1 I like more because it doesn't have a 'hell' mode so endgame doesn't exist in it
It has both Nightmare and Hell through multiplayer characters. When I wasn't playing online I was just chopping up mobs solo through a local game. It was very fun, very replayable.
I never got a chance to play much of D2 when I was younger so it's just me trying it solo these days. I might like it more than 1.
>nightmare and hell
only in Hellfire, which is not an official expansion, so it doesn't have additional difficulties
Vanilla Diablo absolutely had Nightmare and Hell difficulties, it was available in the multiplayer.
It technically also was in the single player, but they didn't offer it as an option for you to select, you had to trick the game by first making a LAN game set to Nightmare or Hell, and then go and start a new single player game, then it'd have that difficulty set.
diablo 2 should have been about you controlling the hero you played as that got corrupted in diablo 1, and you go around slaughtering people disguised as demons
Diablo 1 is definitely a cooler game, especially for its time of release. I remember seeing this game at a friend's house and being blown away by how good the graphics were and how cool the artstyle was. It was the coolest looking game I'd ever seen back in 1996.
On the other hand, it is a short game with relatively little actual replay value, which is strange for a roguelike type game.
>On the other hand, it is a short game with relatively little actual replay value, which is strange for a roguelike type game.
Not that little. There are 3 difficulties and 3 classes. To complete it would take at least 9 playthroughs.
They're two different games. Diablo 1 is practically a real-time roguelike (minus permadeath), while 2 is an action RPG.
>minus permadeath
Diablo 1 doesn't autosave, so if you play the game without manually saving, it effectively does.
Didn't think about that. It's been a while since I've played it.
I played D2 a lot as a kid, only played Diablo 1 for the first time last year but I have to say I also feel like it's a better game. I played it through Devilution X, but I played without QOL stuff for my first playthrough so I think I have a pretty good view of it. The atmosphere is just so good, and it feels like there's actual difficulty. I always felt like D2 was pretty easy. They're both great games though.
I think in overall atmosphere and gameplay innovation they're close to equal, relative to their release date and industry era.
However, D1 sure is underappreciated in today's world. Most Diablo-like players don't start with it and need convincing to even try it.
>more unsettling and menacing, better conveys evil and negative emotions
>game and physical media look more traditionally evil and satanic, like it and the enemies actively hate you, truly "grim and dark"
>movement speed and enemy ruthlessness is crucial to the sense of dread and vulnerability
>the ceaselessly descending dungeon crawl is kino
>Tristram and its denizens
>the way it was developed as a deshackled turn-based game led to important innovations and a unique gamefeel
>everything D2 did is building off of what was established by D1 (many exclude this line of thinking but it's def important)
>Most Diablo-like players don't start with it and need convincing to even try it.
This is kind of bizarre when you consider just how incredibly easy it is to drop into the game and grasp it right away, and how little time you need to invest into it to beat it. It's a very straightforward game which you can knock out in like two afternoons, but it's not so simple as to be bland, and it's an audiovisual feast.
I agree with all the rest of your points. Diablo 2 has its own gloom and evil, and its own gothicness, but it's not on the same oppressive and sinister level as the first game, it really is a very different feeling.
I'm glad for DevX's development, as that makes the game far more widely available and approachable, while at the same time you can play it with basically none of the added QoL stuff.
>Diablo 2 has its own gloom and evil, and its own gothicness, but it's not on the same oppressive and sinister level as the first game, it really is a very different feeling.
There was nothing as oppressive in Diablo 2 as those first few levels in Diablo 1 where I was ignorant of town portal scrolls. The rest of D1 was also not as oppressive.
>This is kind of bizarre when you consider just how incredibly easy it is to drop into the game and grasp it right away
its not as incredibly easy to find it, buy it, set it up and play it though unlike diablo 2 which had a very large supporting community till very recently and now that remastered version. as much as we like older games here, we know it can be a pain to play them sometimes, and all zoomers need is the minimal roadblock on their way to give up and go back to playing nikke buttsniffing or whatever on their phones
There ain't no remastered version, there's just a re-release on GOG which is patched for modern machines
It has great humor as well, that's one of the most overlooked aspects.
>restore fountain quest
>"you're drinking WATER?"
My little sister and I used to quote that back and forth.