I’ve never played any of the Diablos, or met anyone who has. But they are obviously popular for a reason. Are they worth going back to the first one?
I personally love the games; they provide a satisfying gameplay loop of murdering hoardes of enemies to get better equipment so you can kill even stronger enemies. Using new builds and discovering new attack combinations/synergies is a lot of fun as well!
Diablo 1 has a great atmosphere but is pretty lacking by modern game standards. If you decide to play it, I’d recommend adding the Hellfire expansion so you get an extra class and the ability to sprint.
Diablo 2 is brilliant and lets you party up with up to 7 people instead of the max of 4 in D3 and D4. It’s definitely a tougher game compared to the newer releases.
Diablo 3 is a fantastic game now that they’ve added the Adventure mode and rifts which make it way easier to tackle quests and grind for gear. It’s also almost limitless on its difficulty unless you invest hundreds of hours into a character.
I’ve been jamming on Diablo 4 since it came out, and it could work out to being the best in the series; however, it’s clear that it has a bit of growing to do. The skills are fun and fair though, and the five classes are diverse enough to give you plenty to chew on as you discover your preferred play style.
Obviously I love them, but I could see how others might find them repetitive. I’d snag D3 on sale (or it’s probably discounted now) and decide if you feel like D4 would be worth $70.
I never played 1 growing up, but I think d2 is pretty similar to 1 but improved on it a lot.
If you are going to play, I’d say play d3 or the d2 remake. D3 is nice due to quality of life improvements and you can switch skill trees at any time.
But I think d2 was more fun overall.
You should give Path Of Exile a shot. It’s very much like Diablo, but it’s free to play (just pay for cosmetics).
PoE is a fantastic game but for beginners learning builds and stuff can be challenging, if you aren’t afrai of guides or just want to piddle around without one for free you can really learn what the Diablo series is like.
It’s been a while for me, but I never used a guide when I played. If anything, that took the fun right out of it for me, because it felt like in order to properly play the game, I first had to grind the game.
To each their own of course, but for me the most fun was when I first played the campaign and the whole story and settings /enemies was new. Playing through the campaign again and again on higher difficulties never could hold my interest for long. But I know that’s the main draw for a lot of players.
As a warning, this game is wildly complex. I played up to the first boss and kept getting wiped immediately even though I would handle the mobs in the area.
Also a lot of people feel that it’s more free-to-try rather than free-to-play because of the inventory restrictions in the later game. Every new in-game activity currency they bring out is more incentive for you to buy inventory tabs. So maybe $30 USD investment to properly experience the game later down the line. Still cheaper than full price Diablo 4 but definitely worth keeping in mind.
I only ever played diablo 2, but I had a lot of fun playing it!
I’ve played them all, and I really like the feel of Diablo 2.
I tried Path of Exile, which sort of reminded me of Diablo 2, but the endgame loop was not for me.
Diablo IV is turning out to be surprisingly okay, and I’m curious where they’ll take it from here.
I’ve been meaning to try the series for about 20 years now, and just pulled the plug on Diablo IV. I’ve only done a couple of quests but I’m really enjoying it so far.
The gameplay feels relatively basic at the moment, but I realise there’s probably a lot of complexity I’ve not revealed yet. For now I’m having a great time just hitting mobs, finding better gear and exploring the over world.
I’ve also picked up Diablo 1 from GOG and am enjoying that - it feels even simpler, but is a lot of fun. I’m using the DevilutionX port which adds a lot of modern features to the game.
I’m playing both games mostly on my Steam Deck, and they play really well with the gamepad controls. IV looks fantastic too. I do intend to play some on my PC though, I need to justify that graphics card I told my wife I needed…
PS: first post on BeeHaw, it’s nice here!
Diablo 1 is a very different game than what comes next. It much more more slow paced and methodical. It has a tenseness to it thanks to the danger and how slow your character moves.
Diablo 2 basically defined the modern isometric action RPG genre. Many fans claim it is still the best entry in the genre and the game is good enough to back that up. It’s got a good balance of speed, action, build customization, and the campaign is fun to play through. You can play it either casually or min max a build. The only major criticism I have is that physical based builds tend to lack compared to magic/elemental builds until you learn your runewords and get decent gear (or twink your character out with gear from another character). Diablo 2 also got a really good looking remake recently.
I can’t speak for Diablo 3 or 4 too much. My experience with Diablo 3 was playing it on couch co-op with friends a few times. It was alright as a mindless beat em up but it didn’t really have any of that classic diablo 2 magic.
Diablo 4 I will probably wait for a deep sale to get. It is an online only game which means that it can be killed or made significantly worse like what Blizzard did with Overwatch. Unlike a single player game, with a game like this you can’t roll back your client version to a version you like if the devs screw the game up. Plus all of the reviews I have seen so far say it doesn’t really have anything over D2. Graphics wise D2 looks about just as good thanks to its recent remake, plus it’s not way too zoomed in like D4 is camera wise.
My overall suggestion - Get D2R on sale for like 13 bucks or something. If you like it then maybe get Diablo 4 later on when its the same price or less.
I played a lot of 1 and a shit ton of 2, but those were way back in the day.
Not so much 3 though, it just doesn’t click with me like the old ones did.
Yeah, but they aren’t fun if you run into cheaters. They’re a blast if you play with some of your friends. There are other similar games too, so I recommend you give the whole genre a shot.
I’ve played 2 and it’s amazing. check out the reissue. Diablo 3 was fun. That’s about it.
Having sunk tons of time into D3, I can say it’s worth a look. The paragon leveling system from D3/D4 is a clever way of rewarding players who keep playing well after the main 3 (or 4 with D3 DLC) acts. I think I was at Paragon level 1100 or so when I stopped playing.
The biggest complaint people had about D3 IIRC was it’s too colorful (something they poked fun at with the Whimsydale/rainbow goblin).
D2 was a favorite in college, but admittedly I never played outside of some lab parties.
D4 is shaping up to be a solid game, but this is patient gamers, so I don’t know if that counts.
Oh no, how dare a game known for its dark visuals make use of the whole spectrum lol. If that’s the highest critique then it’s gotta be the best dungeon crawler of all time
You’re in for a treat, start with Diablo 1.
Thanks to it’s color palette, it’s still very atmospheric, even today. There’s HD mod that not only makes it no hassle to run this on modern PC with higher resolution but also adds ton of content that was originally cut from the game. It even adds re-imagined cut content that was only just mentioned somewhere in-game or was planned for Diablo 1 but actually ended up being part of Diablo 2 later on. Purists will whine about too many balance/item changes, it’s worth it to try the game firsthand.
https://mod.diablo.noktis.pl/download
