Let me start by saying this game casts a spell over the player. The music, the unique remastered look and animations all really draw you in and make you relax to just whack enemies.
I enjoyed the game through all of its dated designs and dated gameplay. The game and story are good, I think both much better than Diablo 4. This game honestly is better than Diablo 4. However I do believe Diablo 3 is the ultimate Diablo experience currently. After playing 2, it makes so much sense where they went for Diablo 3.
Finding some of the exits and entrances in Diablo 2 really started to become annoying. Since inventory is such a pain, I really didn’t want to deal with it too much so picking up items outside of healing potions, the odd charm, and a weapon whose name and color looked like it could be an upgrade.
It’s a fun game but it’s not something to die by. But it absolutely shows how the Blizzard who made Diablo 2 had that special stuff and you can see why when this came out it was massively addicting.
I must say this, if Diablo 2 never existed and instead we got todays Diablo 3 and then they released Diablo 2 in 2012, I think people would say that Diablo 3 is a vastly superior game in almost every aspect except music.
Diablo 3 is fun but has a huge issue: itemization
It is all about 6 piece set item bonus, and damage scaling 20,000% here, 50,000% there etc. That is insane.
The design is really bad. It is fun, but no drop is special in D3, and 99,9999% of drops are charsi food.
Also, within 2 weeks the char build is almost done. Selffound.
Try that in D2R lol
You are a boomer for sure. Anyone who played D1 first and was around for D2 then D2 LOD will tell you, D3 was an absolute snore fest and was horribly designed. D4 took alot of stuff from D3 which pains us D2 Vets. No Trading ruins the entire game IMO, it gives nothing to chase and zero community experience. In D3 and D4 I never ever had a reason to party with anyone, kinda removes the entire point of ONLINE only.
EXACTLY, and its ALL solo self found because the new Blizzard just wants you to fall asleep while playing their games.
You are comparing d2 to a game where weapon damage determines your spell damage and your attack speed increases your spell casting times.
D3 and D4 both have very simplified mechanics that works the same for all characters, which is the reason they have very simplified items, which all feel the same and work almost the same for all classes
It’s just boring
I thank you for the overall sentiment. I’d like to point something, that I see as contradiction.
By all means, please. Do explain what you mean by “dated gameplay” when it comes to D2.
The basics of the gameplay of D2 and D4 are similar, yet different.
Both involve “you click in order to attack monsters and then they die”. I would argue, that the D2 gameplay is classic, not dated.
What ruins D4 is the overall context, which makes “you click on the monster and then it dies” satisfying in D2, yet dull and lame in D4 (and D3 to some extend).
Actually it doesn’t. It really doesn’t.
D3 is Diablo experience in name only…
It doesn’t make sense in the slightest they made D3 the way they did. It demonstrates, that they fundamentally didn’'t understand what the fanbase liked and enjoyed about D2. They made something for a casual crowd, rather than something, that would be appealing to the core fanbase.
Actually I apologize. Things are relative. D3 Vanilla, especially patch 1.07 and after were pretty decent.
RoS is Diablo in name only, where you run through the rifts at the speed of light.
That’s not Diablo, that’s an arcade game.
I mostly agree with this sentiment, but “arcade Diablo” was still better than pre-ROS D3 (and that’s completely ignoring the RMAH side of things).
However, LOD sees its spiritual succession not in D3/D4, but in Grim Dawn, PoE, Last Epoch (though this can also be seen as a cousin to D3), Torchlight 2, etc. A lot of the more casual ARPGs to come out look/feel a lot more like D3 than D2, especially with the 4 or 5 action skill bars, simplified mechanics/stats/itemization, simpler builds, hand-holding waypoint nonsense, etc.
What the OP misses in his analysis is the perspective of old school ARPG fans who grew up on the Diablo 1 & 2, Dungeon Siege, Baldur’s Gate (despite being turn-based), and their first MMO cousin in Phantasy Star Online. These are completely different in mindset and feel compared to the more casual offerings previously mentioned.
That’s exactly why I love Diablo 3. I love item sets. I love the massive power spikes you get that lets you push high rifts. You still chase certain legendaries but the process is quicker and you’ll get a piece you hunt for within a couple hours and that feels good. I’d rather it be faster than have a meaningless grind. I just want to experience full power, push to highest content, clear all content and move on. I don’t think that should be reserved to people that have time, but someone that can work efficiently and quickly utilizing skill and knowledge of the game. Not just time.
Diablo 2 feels like classic WoW. It’s a grind. I have zero intention of ever playing D2 again because I am done with these meaningless and extended grinds.
I did vanilla in 2004 and classic when it came out and it has it’s special spell but it’s too time consuming to get where you want and gameplay has 90% downtime. These old RPG grinds are awful.
I absolutely hate the argument “it’s a grind to really make you feel like you earned it.” No. That’s a time based repetitive grind in a game that requires pretty much zero skill. Diablo games do not require skill, it’s all gear checks. I guess Diablo 3 requires skill due to how set bonuses work and managing and tracking buffs.
Diablo 2? Whack until dead, go level if you can’t kill. Just time gated grinds without any skill behind it.
I find Diablo 2 incredibly relaxing and enjoyable but not something I’d play again.
Diablo 2 is not a game I would recommend to someone. Unless they are interested in just clearing the campaign and that’s it. But I got the game heavily discounted when I got diablo 3 on pc recently.
Diablo 4 is the worst game of the bunch. It’s slow, nothing feels satisfying, the gear all sucks.
I really really loved Diablo 3 gear because I can look at a piece and within 2-4 seconds I know if I need it or not. In Diablo 2 the inventory is so bad I never have room to pick up gear and most of the gear is trash anyway. Diablo 4 all the gear is trash but could have the rolls you need to upgrade it to legendary.
Diablo 3 is the simplest and most accessible and it makes sense, it feels good. I have played Diablo 3 across pc and console for over 300 hours which is an absolute insane amount of time for me.
I also vehemently disagree with this sentiment that Diablo 3 is an arcade game. It’s modern fun. You guys wanted Diablo 3 to be just like Diablo 2? Strange movement, just whacking things, no power in your spells or abilities, clearing out entire dungeons in 30 seconds? That sounds fun to me.
Granted Diablo 2 has it’s satisfying moments when I whipped my blessed hammers to destroy a room, that felt good. But not as good as getting a new record in a greater rift.
Diablo 4’s abilities have no satisfaction at all. There is no reward for killing in Diablo 4 like there is in Diablo 3 and 2. In 2 the reward of a health potion feels good, in 3 seeing an explosion of loot or melting a boss shows your build, in 4… well nothing, you’re not ever seeing the items you need and you’re not getting the gear you need and the reward in xp is awful. Diablo 2 is better than 4 by a mile.
So Nintendo can create Link’s Awakening but Breath of the Wild isn’t Diablo 3 to it? Breath of the Wild is incredible and is more zelda than any zelda game. Diablo 3 more Diablo. It feels and plays like a Diablo game with great classes, locations, voice acting. I find this hate towards 3 to be childish and unsupported. It’s pure video game fun.
I enjoy 3 a lot, but what people mean by it being “arcade” is that it’s simplified. There’s no real depth or choice to how you build. You just pick a set and all the things that belong with it. D2 has become more like that over time in a meta sense, but the builds were designed mostly by the players–not the paint-by-numbers design of the devs. That’s probably the key difference.
Fwiw, I agree with your disdain for the pointless grind in D2. It’s frustrating, stupid, skill-less, and unrewarding. The grind isn’t what makes D2 great. It being more open form with regard to builds, mechanics, itemization, etc is what people like about it. Unfortunately, it’s also the case that the game is largely “solved” due to its sheer age and the fact that even the recent changes only served to add a few things to the meta rather than define a new experience.
For my part, though, I’ve played both to absolute death and it’s hard to find reason to play either anymore. Maybe that’s enough to call both games great.
its probably so cool to play diablo 2 as the resurrected version for the very first time. d2:r looks exactly like how my 12 year old brain imagined it in 2001. when i press “g” to see the original version it’s wild how cool this game is. and the cinematics from 1999 somehow have aged insanely well as blizzard is known for.
yeah. the meta in diablo 2, and i think older games in general, was developed a lot by the players. i played diablo 2 on the day when patch 1.10 released from 1.09 and synergies/runewords/events were added and it was INSANE.
people were paying like their entire diablo 2 cache of savings for trang-ouls set just so they could turn into a vampire, even though it wasn’t a particularly great set. or ik/tals just to get the glow aura. then eventually over time people piece-mealed together builds and figured out what worked. even now in whatever patch we’re in, people are still min-maxing builds that could have existed in 1.10 but people never really tried.
it is interesting that they weren’t really at the aim of a developer making what they think would be a meta build as how newer games or MMOs tend to do.
THISSSSSSSSS!! I find the remastered graphics to be so unbelievably unique. I would hit g and go to and from legacy and even watched every legacy cinematic. The cinematics are incredible both then and now. Graphically it’s absolutely phenomenal.
This, soooo this!! I keep actually saying this to everyone. I don’t know how they managed to capture it so absolutely perfectly, I just know it makes me incredibly happy. Especially pressing G, then you realize how much your mind filled in the gaps back in the day.
I disagree to this point. I feel that this is one of the key ingredients to why this game has lasted so long, and why I eventually got tired of POE (though, that might be my second favorite). Defining a new experience, especially too often, ruins the game. We need some element of stability or expectation, while having decent character freedom and not being bound to very specific items to achieve goals.
It isn’t that I have a problem with stuff that has always worked continuing to. I just don’t feel it added enough new to feel like there’s much reason to play. However, to your point about PoE, the reason I quit that game and am loathe to return isn’t because it doesn’t have a lot of things I wish D2 had. It’s because every time something becomes “meta,” the devs insist on demolishing it and swinging the nerf-hammer through the entire shop. It gets to where nothing feels good to play–almost the opposite issue of D2.
100% agree with you, and lost the time available to be able to keep over after a good 8-9 years. While the last 2 or 3 years of POE was a slow decline and wish that it won’t be so bad next league, which it always was, and maybe worse.
What difficulty level did you finish?
The graphics in Legacy Mode D2R and Actual D2 are very different.
D2R Legacy Mode graphics are Terrible compared to actual D2.
There is certainly some passion in Grim Dawn, PoE, Last Epoch and games like that.
However, I have played PoE and I gotta tell ya: I see this game as a spiritual successor to Diablo 1.
I’d argue, that in many ways, PoE remains a worse game than D2.
I don’t know about that, tbph… for me RoS is too much of a departure and bajillion percent damage bonus on sets makes the whole thing rather dull.
I would have preferred if RoS fixed the fundamental problems with D3, which were bad itemization, lack of inherent character power through skill tree, spells should have been moved to their own stat (be it spell power or skill points, rather than being based on weapon dmg).
tl;dr: RoS should have been fixing what was broken, not take an entirely different direction.
Try Gen X. There is a generation in between you two even though most of you are ignorant of that fact. We also were not afraid of playing outside.