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?
Edit: Thanks for the answers, the community is alive! Based on you recommendations it looks like I’m going to give 2 resurrected a try.
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.
Also, if you dislike toxic gamers, consider turning off chat before you even start. I found myself put off the game by the tolerance of really bigoted things being said. Gameplay was fun, from what I remember…
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 played 1 through 3, including a bit of Resurrected. I definitely favour 2, though, having played it for probably thousands of hours.
I’d recommend any of them, 2 even more so, what’s with the release of Resurrected.
Diablo 1 has an almost old-school D&D feel to it, establishing many staples of the series, such as the itemization, the lore, the character stats and inventory management aspects, among others. It definitely feels a bit dated, but I’d recommend trying out DevilutionX (on GitHub) to mitigate that. It’s a project that adds many quality of life features and allows the game to feel a bit more of a modern experience, with larger resolutions, better and configurable controls, access to content that was cut from the original, and many other things.
Diablo 3 is the one I played the least, but I’d still say to give it a go. It’s more of an arcade experience, with combos, hordes of enemies, giant numbers on wearable loot and, as much as I could gather, a simpler experience all around. It’s probably the most hated entry on the series, but I still had loads of fun with it if only for lore reasons.
Diablo 2 is… well, Diablo 2. Depending on whether you play LoD (“Classic”, you could say), or Resurrected, it can be a very unbalanced game. Builds and classes are clearly better than others. Itemization is on its own level, being the best I’ve encountered in my entire life and the main reason why I keep coming back to it. It’s also why it’s such a grind of a game, which is not for everyone. Anyway, I definitely recommend 2 over the others, which is not to say that they are not good games.
As for plot… well, you can play all games without reading a single line of dialogue, but you can if you want and I like the games for that.
Edit for clarity: you don’t need to play the games in any order, as the plots are mostly self contained, but I do think it’s very rewarding to go through them and seeing the plot unfold. There are many iconic moments.
Diablo 2 is… well Diablo 2.
For real tho. It’s like trying to describe Zelda. It’s fuckin ZELDA bro.
I wouldn’t recommend going as far back as the first one. Diablo 2 Resurrected came out last year and is a good starting point for the series if you’re thinking about trying it out. I never got into 3, but so far 4 feels really good.
Thanks! I’ll look for resurrected then. If you don’t mind replying, what is with the massive appeal of the game?
You have to remember that this game came out a long time ago, it had many features at the time that set it above other games.
It had a good storyline, multiplayer, maps that would change every time you logged in (multiplayer), the ability to be powerful after spending a lot of time in the game (and if you saw anyone with a rare/cool looking armor you know they worked for it, there were no lootbox mechanics where you could just pay money for it). And of course… there is no cow level ;) The skill tree allowed for tons of different abilities and combos, or you could grind away at a single skill and become godly with it.
You may not recognize the appeal to the game now just because so many of the mechanics have been copied and implemented in countless other games since then.
If you’re into character progression, and loot, then you’ll love Diablo. The loot system is great and really draws you in to playing more.
The art and ambiance is also amazing, and from what I can tell Resurrected is pretty faithful to the original.
There are some rough parts (like stamina, chugging potions, etc) given the age.
Appeal of Diablo in general, or 2 specifically? For 2 specifically, it’s a lot of nostalgia. It was one of the most popular games when it came out and for years afterwards. A lot of the aspects of the game design still hold up really well even today, and still draw you in with trying to get more loot, trying a different build, etc.
I only ever played diablo 2, but I had a lot of fun playing it!
If you like action RPGs, diablo 2 is the game that made it into what the genre is today for the most part. It’s practically a perfect game from a fundamentals and gameplay standpoint (meaning it’s perfect at what it aimed to do and the impact it’s had, not that it’s without flaws). I have never been as into AARPGs as my friends, I burn out on them too quickly usually, and I don’t have the patience for the grind. But for people who like that style, it’s the OG. Its probably the first game I ever sunk more than 100 hours into, but those are rookie numbers for AARPG vets.
Diablo 1 is fantastic, but is very dated at this point. Partly because Diablo 2 improved on damn near everything.
Diablo 3 was…fine. I played through it twice when it launched and I’ve never touched it again. It was/is insanely popular but it wasn’t for me.
I haven’t played 4 and personally don’t plan to, but it seems like people really like it so far! I’m not against it by any means, I’m just not into the seasonal content type games, and I really prefer to play single player, and I play offline a ton. I can’t keep up with the grind or the time commitment, but wish the best for those that can and enjoy that game style.
Diablo 2, 3, and 4 are all great for their own reasons. Diablo 3 and 4 are more streamlined. However, the music for all of them is great, stay a while in listen, especially in the main town, Tristram. Torchlight 2 is also a classic and it has the same music composer who did Diablo 2, so it’s also excellent. If you want a game with more class depth but it’s about halfway between Diablo and Path of Exile, check out Last Epoch on Steam. It should be out of early access later this year and it is a very special game.
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!
Also curious about this. I’ve played torchlight and it’s similar and I enjoyed that
Diablo 3 and Torchlight II are really similar in my opinion. Both scratch the dungeon+area overworld play style that I really enjoy.
See, torchlight 1 had some og Diablo(1/2) developers. I don’t know about torchlight 2 cause it gets a bit crazy at the time that I drop the entire drop loot arpg/genre. (including Boardersland 2, any drop loot game basically. ) I just went back to Monster Hunter instead.
I never knew that. I’ve never played Diablo but have sunk countless hours in Torchlight, it’s one of my all time favourite games. It was also the gateway that lead me to Skyrim, my current addiction.
D2 (Not D2R) is also a lot like Torchlight II in some ways but because of its age it’s honestly rougher around the edges. D2’s got nice, streamlined, and somewhat easy to understand skill trees, a mix of overworld/dungeon areas, and really fun loot.
The few problems I have with D2 these days are: the lack of QoL features (no pet to pick up stuff for you and sell it) you have to use town portals to sell your junk. Combat in D2 usually boils down to spamming around 1-2 abilities, which is only fun because when you get powerful enough those abilities are super ultra powerful and make you feel like a god. The worst thing about D2 is that classes and builds really are unbalanced, but thankfully its actually a single player game like torchlight 2 so you can use mods, change the difficulty levels, and even cheat to your heart’s content.
If you like Torchlight II you should give D2 a try if you can stand the dark themes, it’s still a fantastic game that holds up well and plays great for casuals just as much as it does for hardcore players.
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
:D I know right? I didn’t pick up D3 at launch because of their store/always on DRM (which were two more legitimate concerns), but when I finally joined in after the first expansion I could not for the life of me understand the, “it’s too colorful” complaint.
Plus Whimsydale is bonkers awesome - slaying demon rainbow unicorns and teddy bears is a blast.
I’ve played 2 and it’s amazing. check out the reissue. Diablo 3 was fun. That’s about it.
I will say playing as the witch doctor was amazing fun as you got to throw jars of bees at things.
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.
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 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.
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/downloadHey thanks! I’m trying to go into the less hard core Diablo first, would you say diablo 1 is the best for that?
