@@stefantorpeda yea I thought so too about the feel. Diablo 2 was a bit scary in the monastery in the prison and catacombs but the rest just didn't feel the same. Diablo 4 is good though. I'm enjoying it right now. It's a great action game.
The first act captured that feeling well, though not as effectively as D1. The rest became globe-trotting flavour. I get that they were trying to grow the franchise into something epic, but it lost a big part of its identity along the way.
@@HeyBlondieGamer IMO Act 1 was dull. The cemetery was cool, the prison of the monastery was slightly scary as a kid but the rest wasn't fun. D2's environments are not fun nor scary.
I just realised Cains famous line "Stay a while and listen" is actually encouraging you to talk to the townsfolk as they all have a lot of different dialogue for different quests.
It's both weird and awesome to see a RUclipsr with less than 1k subscribers making better content than a lot of 500k youtubers make. Your channel is still young, but the quality is undeniable. You've earned yourself a new subscribers with that amazing analysis, and I'm eager to see what's next for this channel
Thank you so much, comments like this mean the world to me! I write about the sort of things which interest **me** about video games, things which often pass without comment but which undeniably contribute to the experience. I appreciate the support 👍
I think people have romanticized the "smaller tuber with low skills -> now bigger with better skills" thing. I mean there is truth to it, of course, but its become exaggerated. If you see a good video from someone with very few subs, then really, your early - enjoy the ride.
I’m oblivious to whatever social movements are happening around the microcosm of longform content creation for games. I like making videos about interesting games, and I’m happy that people are sticking around for the ride.
Came here after Indigo's recommendation... guess I'll stay awhile and listen more! Please consider making a similar analysis of Diablo 2 Lords of Destruction.
When I first got this game, it ran so slow the characters footsteps matched a ticking clock!!! But me and my friends would be glued to the screen as if every single monster was a huge deal and it actually felt intimidating and scary! That is an awesome achievement for a video game.
The initial design of the game was going to be turn based roguelike and midway through they decided to go real time. Probably why footsteps and slow movement is a thing.
@@HeyBlondieGamer People often attribute that to novelty with it being a new experience at the time, and everything that came after not having that. I have always disagreed with that. Even Diablo 2, which is often praised as the best game, pretty much ditched 80% of what made the original great. None of the characters matter in D2, they fleshed out too much of the story and spent too much time telling you instead of showing you/letting you experience it through gameplay and meaningful characters in the world. There was also a lot less dungeon crawling, and mapping on the overworld just doesn't have the same feel. Where D1 was a masterpiece in many ways, D2 was the beginning of the divergence from a dungeon crawling arpg toward the more recent action-multiplayer online rpg. D4 has the aesthetic, but the tone only exists in a few cutscenes and they aren't representative of the game. It's kind of a shame, I was hoping they'd go back to the roots more with it. Dark Souls has more in common with Diablo 1 than D3 and D4, too bad they didn't veer more in that direction.
There is a Beelzebub mod that takes the hidden files of what would have been the original game and brings them to light. A more fleshed out game experience so I hear.
Yes, I've heard a lot of good things about Beezlebub. I might check it out at some point. Or perhaps Blizzard will give it the 'Resurrected' treatment...
@@HeyBlondieGamer The current company would without a doubt treat it like it does not exist. Revamped would be nice but meh. As long as they do not disrespect the original vision and leave monster uncensored, especially the succubi. Otherwise, I leave it in the hands of indie developers to revitalize this lost property. The game itself taught me patience growing up. I remember starting a game over once with the Sorcerer to find more book drops to prepare for Diablo. It was not easy I recall. With the mod, I hear you get 25 quests without having to play multiple rounds to find ones you missed out on previously. I want to say they modded it more like D2 engine where you no longer can save on point where you left off. Dungeons do randomize and the inclusion of way-points can make it easier to keep tabs of where you have to go next. I want to say each level of the labyrinth has a quest(s). I do wish to know more of what the lore would have been for D2 prior to scrapping.
I’ve noticed that Blizzard flatly pretend that D1 doesn’t exist. They even misbranded some D1 artwork as D2 recently on Twitter. I’m glad that GOG was able to secure D1 and add it to the library. And, of course, it lives on in the modding community.
@@HeyBlondieGamer Beelzebub is amazing. Its quite hard on the later difficulties but the struggle really fits into d1 atmosphere.(I mean d1 characters are just skilled warriors not some nephalems with god like powers,so it makes sense for them to struggle with forces of hell)
I think you’ve hit on a really good point! The characters in D1 are human, nothing more. Their mortality adds to the grim feel of crawling under the earth.
Diablo 1 (and some other early Blizzard titles) are the perfect encapsulation of the phrase: “Less is more” These older games had inferior technology, but they made up in storytelling, music, atmosphere. Things that later Blizzard games were never able to recapture. The player was thrown into a world where you didn’t have all these flashy spells and explosions, overblown character armor and outfits, exposition heavy villains and fourth wall breaking auction houses and microtransaction shops. The manuals made the heavy lifting in terms of world building and lore, but that allowed the player to create these worlds and characters with their imagination too, letting then feel like they had a bigger investment. Some people here have mentioned how Dark Souls feels like a Diablo game in terms of its atmosphere and lore and I agree completely, its the closest Diablo game that isn’t one.
Imagination is the key component, and you’re spot: less is more. Is it a sign of the times that we (collectively as an audience) have lost our ability to imagine?
The thing about the earlier levels is that they gave you more options. In the dungeon, you have plenty of obstacles and even the bars that allow you to potentially cheese the Butcher. In the catacombs, there's no more bars and everything is sectioned off into rooms with doors. In the caves, there's little to no cover left and only occasionally you will find a door with a fence that could be used strategically. In hell, there is nothing but open rooms and corridors with little to no options for strategy left, save for hiding around a corner. It is meant to make not just the enemies, but also the environment you fight in, more difficult. As I see it, it makes combat less strategic as well and, with how much more challenging the enemies are down there, having less strategic options makes it a slog.
Lol.. ok. Putting more thought into this trash game than the developers. No strategy in the game whatsoever. Guess the little gaming community brains wouldn’t see that though.
Yet you took the time to read the replies *and* comment… I don’t humour surface-level rage-bait NPC comments here. Explain your stance. Provide examples. Be specific. Unless your thoughts are as vague as your platitudes.
If you think Diablo has slow movement or gameplay - you should've tried playing it in the 90s on an old 486DX2 66MHz processor (Pentium 60 was the minimum requirement for game) - the characters moved at half the speed showcased in the video - for me personally it added to the atmosphere - you were slowly exploring a scary dungeon - the intended speed is unnatural. The sword in the intro for me is the same as the ending - something added by the Blizzard cinematic guys and not talked over with the actual game devs either due to lack of contact, or just plain wanted to add something of their own to the game. Game has unique swords that can be found - someone thought a magic sword would be needed to slay diablo, and just animated it. Back in the 90s I also wondered what is this sword, but after learning that cinematics were made without David Breviks consult - I think they just added it for no reason. For the end gameplay it differs from play to play. You can have late stage with only knights and serpents - and this is great for all classes. I first played a Rogue character - and I really had no trouble with any of the late game enemies, excect of course for Diablo which still was quite a challenge to beat at mid 20th level. For my Warrior run - I was level 32 and Diablo was basically a pushover. Only many years later I tried to play as a Mage, since all my friends spoiled him as being overpowered and I have to agree . Overall, a great video. I love Diablo 1 more than any other game and I feel the music, the atmosphere of Dread, and even the art design was near perfect for such a game, and has not been matched to this day.
Wow, it ran even slower in the day?! That must have felt glacial, but as you said it augmented the atmosphere and tension which I'm all for. From a storytelling perspective, the sword is made to feel important by being given a lot of emphasis. I kind of like the mystery that surrounds it now, it was almost a shame to shatter the illusion by digging through old articles for the truth. My second run was with a warrior and it was a cakewalk, Diablo went down on the first attempt. The spawn rates for magic gear needed a tweak to have them appear a little more often. Mods like Belzebub balance some of these issues and have done a good job retaining player interest in D1. Thanks for the comment, it was a great read!
@@HeyBlondieGamer even the loading the game was slow. ( for my pc back then at least) Can't remember how long it took to load a stage/level but it was a while.
I had a 486 dx2 133. it actually ran almost as good as a pentium but definitely not quite there. My bud had a pentium 90mhz and omg it ran so good in comparison. I think you are right about the slowness adding to the atmosphere, was an amazing experience.
@@DennisDJSaklak It depends - for some arcade ports like Street Fighter 2 or old classics like Settlers or Cannon Fodder 2 - Amiga was the better choice, because it had much better sounds and less visible pixels - it looked smooth and nice. But for more "modern" games like Diablo or Doom - which required more force to render better textures - those were impossible to port to the poor Amiga. The 486 was the middle ground - it could play games as well or better, but with less detail and much worse sounds (even if you had a sound blaster, or even any dedicated sound card, amiga games still had better sounds and music), and at first, my 486 didn't have dedicated sound, so I spent months listening to pc speaker - it was fine in wolfenstein 3D, but terrible in doom 2.
The Diablo book Legacy of Blood really fleshes out lots of nooks and crannies of the D1/D2 era lore. It was written in 2001 by R.A. Knack of Dragonlance fame and is a great piece even for people who have no background in Diablo
I wouldn’t let modern Blizz anywhere near this game. The original cast are long gone, and if Blizz finally remember it exists and remaster/remake it, I have little hope for the end result.
Diablo 1 had so much good atmosphere that was genuinely scary. Diablo 2 felt more story focused with the quests being strictly linear. I liked how in the first one sometimes you would just stumble on a quest. Like gharbad the weak.
It took me 20 years to figure out you could start a new game with the same character. That made it a bit easier to beat the game if you got stuck or ran out of gold.
I believe that's how you are supposed to play the game, at least one soft reset each run as you go to each tier of location, as the difficulty jump can feel insurmountable especially when playing a sorcerer. Also, the town square is also useful as a bank to store extra scrolls, potions, gear and cash during a run.
I don’t believe that it was designed with mandatory restarts in mind. That wasn’t stated by David Brevik as a deliberate design mechanism in any of the literature that I read/watched.
Mage was the most op class in the game and you could buy almost every spell from Adria since her stock would reset every town visit or game load. There was only 3 two-handed weapons in the game outside of axes (which all were two-handed) and one was named Two-handed Sword it would be nice for it to be indicated in shops but unless you didnt pay any attention to the item system you would never be mistaken. If you move diagonally you can dodge most attacks since you move slightly faster. Great take on the atmosphere.
My first run confirmed that statement, but the second run was a grind. Most definitely because of my lack of knowledge about the internal workings. I did notice that diagonal movement caused some hit detection issues with enemies too, so I guess it’s not just confined to player movement.
If you're interested in a more refined experience while keeping the original flavour, check out the following mods: Belzebub:- New monsters, spells, and items, improved resolution. diablo-hd-belzebub.en.uptodown.com/windows#:~:text=Diablo%20HD%20%2D%20Belzebub%20is%20a,it%20to%20more%20modern%20screens.&text=It's%20necessary%20to%20have%20Diablo,order%20to%20use%20this%20mod. DevilutionX:- Source port, engine improvements, bug fixes, quality of life improvements. github.com/diasurgical/devilutionX
This video was absolutely fantastic! Thank you so much for a walk down memory lane, lol. You were very thorough and it was cool to see the old drawings that were in the game manual.
Thank you so much! 🙏 It was a blast for me too. Old Blizzard manuals had so much charm (check out D2 and Warcraft 1/2). I miss the time when games included them.
Hell of a review. Thanks for taking me back to the good old days. For some, D1 was just a passing phase. For me it defined about a decade of my life, and led to meeting some of the best friends I ever had. This review made me pause on my season 25 Crusader and dust off D1 and D2 for a quick stroll. :) DSF family... I miss you guys! ❤
It’s amazing how many people still remember this game fondly. It makes me happy and hopeful that we can still have nice things in our gaming libraries in the future.
I've long been interested in Diablo 1 for its restraint compared to 2 and 3 and its sad, but believable ending. I came to this video expecting a cursory look over the story and then deep dive into the game mechanics (like most game videos do), but I was overjoyed when I saw that the Tristram section of the video wasn't an analysis on buying items, but a treasure trove of character backstories and exploration of the game's themes and mood! That you dedicated most of the rest of the video to things like the game's ending (and the complex situation in which it was made) and the PHONEBOOK of pre-game lore was a joy and an eye opener to me that the wider story of the Great Conflict, Dark Exile, etc wasn't pulled out of nowhere in Diablo 2 as I thought, but present in the story since Day 1 (this actually improves my opinion of Diablo 2, as I now know it didn't just complicate a previously-simple story with a bunch of weird additions, but acted on the set-up of this game's ending). Thank you very much for shedding light on this series starter and pioneer in gaming and keeping us story-buffs in mind!
I also used to think like that! I was pleasantly surprise - after GoG's launch of Diablo 1 - that many of the quests and characters of Diablo 2 were almost in D1.
@@joaocaju3061 So strange that they made so many quests for D1, like fully completing them and everything, and then didn't include them in the final release. Must have been a very good reason to cut all of that content they already went to the trouble of coding and voice acting...
@@HeyBlondieGamer There's an interesting thought. I'm so used to things being cut just for reasons like budget, runtime or release dates that I never considered that there are also artistic reasons for cutting content. Would be nice if that was the reason they did what they did rather than being forced to do so.
In many ways Diablo feels like a distillation of design choices. The only other reason might be that they were imbalanced for the inclusion of classes, or were built so heavily on the Warrior archetype that it wasn’t possible to change them before release.
This is an excellent breakdown of Diablo that covers everything so elegantly! I was hooked from the moment you started analyzing Tristram and its inhabitants, the overview of just how scarred they were from all of the preceding events was awesome! This is good stuff. Defintely looking forward to seeing what else you've got cooking up!
I'm glad you enjoyed it. We can sometimes be guilty of taking characters at face value. It was fun to get into the bones of the setting and reveal the humanity.
This was easily my best hour spent in any game review. Loved every moment of it. Your attention to detail, your voice and thorough explanations really captivated me. This was honestly a superb watch.
Something I didn't think of until seeing Albrecht's final cutscene again is that by Diablo 3, the Warrior/Dark Wanderer is Leoric's other son and Albrecht's brother. In addition to the threat of death the Cathedral posed, the horror of seeing demons display human bodies like artwork and the tragedy of knowing his own father was corrupted by Diablo and became the Skeleton King, finally reaching the end of the terrors only to find the brother he intended to save dying must have been unimaginable for Aiden. While Diablo's influence doubtless manipulated him into taking his Soul Stone into his own head, part of me also thinks that Aiden was so desperate to make all of the pain his family felt and succumbed to "worth something" that he'd have taken the Soul Stone in the hopes of "vanquishing Diablo forever" even without the Hell Lord's manipulation (or that his emotional state made it even easier for Diablo to manipulate him than it would normally be). In that light, Diablo's victory in this game is BEYOND Machiavellian and makes all the more sense. Either that, or his already-good plan just got a perfect ingredient he didn't even need, heh heh.
That’s an interesting thought. Not something that Blizzard would have known at the time, but a neat way of narratively wrapping motivations into a tight package for later titles. I still love the idea that Diablo’s insidious influence has ever so subtlety corrupted the intention of Warrior and subverted his purpose for wicked ends. No purity is too pure, no heart too kind that can’t be bent before an evil will. But then, perhaps I’ve observed the fallibility of mankind too often to believe that such purity exists 😂
Resources aren't really finite, you can always restart the game with the same character to farm books, potions and such. Depending on your level, the shortcuts will be open right away too. In fact it almost feels like you have to do it because it's very rare that you'll get proper loot just by relying on RNG alone. There's also a big standalone gameplay mod called The Hell which addresses a lot of the shortcomings, but changes are vast, adding lots of new classes, unique items, maps, and so on. It has its own direction on a lot of things, yet still retaining the original spirit without going too far like MedianXL for example. Another mod is called Belzebub (and its multiplayer successor Tchernobog), which positions itself as an "HD overhaul", improving the resolution, restoring cut content such as quests and dialogue lines, adding map waypoints like in D2 and so on. It's worth checking out just to see how the original quests were supposed to play out, for example Butcher's quest had its own separate map that you had to portal into. There are several lore videos you can find on youtube that use the mod.
That’s an interesting point about almost feeling like it encourages you to start over. I’d be curious to hear Brevik’s take on this. I think the original intent was to be able to replay the campaign like an endless adventure, but I could certainly see restarts factoring into this design philosophy. You’re right about RNG not always delivering what’s needed. Many have pointed out Belzebub, which looks good. The Hell sounds interesting too, I’ll check it out. Cheers!
Thanks for checking out the video! Cheers for the feedback, I've been focusing more on sound mixing and audio levels in the more recent vids but there's always room to improve.
@@HeyBlondieGamer You're off to a good start. It took me about 3-4 years to figure out the best audio setup for my voice/video style. My suggestion is to use a bit of compression, EQ and noise gate to get clean audio, record in a room with a lot of padding (or make a booth out of moving blankets or other soft materials like I did), and get your voice to as close as 0db as possible, and while you're talking, the music should be about -20db or lower, give or take depending on the softness or harshness of the song.
Thanks mate, this is great advice! It took a couple of videos to realize that I’d need to carefully mix the audio. I’m not an audio engineer, video editor, or graphic designer and I’m learning by the seat of my pants. Great tip about voice and music audio levels, I couldn’t find consistent advice about this when I searched online. I already noise gate the mic because it picks up my PC, but I’ll be the first to admit I barely have a passing knowledge of what I’m doing :p
Coincidentally, I just bought the GOG version of Diablo 1 + Hellfire and replayed it last week. Loved this game as a child but never was able to finish it, and now I can finally say I've beaten it as the Rogue. It's super simple in concept but massively addicting, I'd even say I prefer the simplified gameplay to Diablo 2 in some ways. Maybe I am just a sucker for roguelike-ish games, as it has just enough randomness (and consistency) to keep you coming back for another playthrough. The only real flaw is how slow you move, but that serves to amp up the tension - especially if you're playing as the Warrior and you round a corner and see a huge mob of projectile-spitting demons waiting for you.
@@HeyBlondieGamer Definitely...the monsters in D2 feel threatening (doubly so for the champions and uniques) but nothing can top the tension and strategy that goes into each encounter of D1 in the lower levels of the dungeon, especially if you're playing 'hard mode' aka the Warrior.
This video was an instant subscribe. Amazing quality and a thorough look at one of my all time favorites. I was 11 when it came out and initially I only got a demo of it. If memory serves it only went as far as the Butcher/Skeleton king questline, but boy, did it stain my tighty whiteies.
39:42 I mean... "diablo" is the literal Spanish word for devil. The mountain in California that he named the series after was itself named by Spanish speakers. So I wouldn't really say it's scrapped when the villain is named Devil and you fight him in Hell.
That comment was about the ‘traditional’ catholic depiction of the devil. Diablo fills the role of Hell’s Overlord, but he is a God among Gods, not a stand-alone entity. It’s a fantasy interpretation with healthy embellishment and expansion upon the concept of Hell. The initial concept was always going to change somewhat when applied to a fantasy setting.
Play it cause it's the best game of it's kind. It's basically perfect with all the limitations it has. And once they removed those limitations, the genre became grind fest
The only path back is through indie devs who are basically retreading the early footsteps of our gaming forebears, and who must work within (financial) limitations.
What a marvelous review and analysis. I was 15 when this game came out and me and my friends played it over and over. You really nailed that point with that grim and despaired atmosphere. 👍👍
The most important (IMHOtep) quality of life improvement from Hellfire was not mentioned -- Search! It's the Monk's default ability but it seems you can learn it from a spellbook or scroll. Being able to have all the items dropped on the ground highlighted and appear on the minimap is huge and probably very necessary in those vomit colored expansion levels.
Great video! I always loved reading and re-reading the Diablo manual. It gave just enough lore to be detailed but left enough room for you to wonder. The artwork in early bizzard games like Starcraft, WC2 and Diablo was amazing. Do one for Diablo 2 next!!
I used to love reading the manuals cover to cover too. The artwork was incredible, chock full detail and expression. Blizzard’s art was instantly recognizable. It’s amazing how much effort went into lore which had no impact on gameplay or the immediate story.
Just finished Diablo 2 resurrected for the first time and planning to play Diablo 3 for the second time. I was looking for info about their ancestor :) Great video. I was totally hooked by Diablo 2 by the way! But my advice, NEVER PLAY IT ON SWITCH, as it’s a super lame and bugged port.
D1 has plenty of lore to sink your teeth into! I’ll give the remaster a play at some point, sounds like a lot of people are enjoying it. Thanks for taking the time to comment 🤘
Amazing video, glad people are still giving this gem a look. What I was disappointed in finding though is the lack of mention of the Diablo 1 HD mod which brings back cut content, expands with new quests, and brings all mentioned quality of life updates alongside a Diablo 2 handling of death and monster respawns. Seriously, if you want a fantastic 1st or 95th go at the old D1 game, don't forget to look into the mod first, it's free and made by a dedicated team of Polish nerds.
I love the Original Diablo. Even the Lore of D2 and D3 would be nothing without it, Mephisto, Baal, Azmodan, Izual, everyone got set up in D1. Only Dark Souls got me the same feels as this one. If you want to relive the original, I highly recommend the Original at GOG or try out the DevilutionX Mod. If you more like D2 Mechanics/Gameplay the Belzebub Mod would suit you more.
This game is phenomenal, I do not care what people say about it. Thank you for reviewing this classic game you are spot on with the atmosphere aspect! God I remember the first time seeing the butcher it scared the hell out of me! But once I beat him I thought it wouldn’t get scary, boy I was wrong! That’s what makes this game great! The catacombs soundtrack with the crying background noise really made you feel isolated, then the caves with the lighting demons! But by far the most scariest is hell. The fact that hell is depicted differently and gruesomely is petrifying and the fact that acid dogs, corrupt knights balrogs succubus and evil sorcerers is anxiety fuel. And the ending to this day still gives me the creeps. Fun fact: there was a cut-scene with the butcher but it was cut out due to being too graphic.
That moment stepping over the cathedral threshold, bathed in blood red light, the chill twilight air kissing the hairs of the neck. The utterance as the warrior sets foot in this foreboding place and voices what the player sees, knows, and dreads: “The sanctity of this place has been *fouled*.”
Best diablo game of Them all , then i dont Care about the New graphics in diablo 2 remake and diablo 3 the graphic cant save the game only ,., diablo 1 hellfire has so much charme than the other games dont have . And more difficult to defeat bosses which is Good
I love Diablo 1 (it's my favorite Diablo game and I've been playing quite a lot) but it has a very serious flaw: the Sorcerer is orders of magnitude more powerful than the other two classes when it comes to PvE. He has easier access to spells (and spells clean almost every level way more easily than melee weapons or bows), and is less dependent on itens (and even those itens on which an overpowered Sorcerer depends are way easier to obtain -- I have a stockpile of Dreamflanges, good luck trying to get a single Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac). His major problem should be triple immunes, but you can Civerb their asses back to hell or, even easier, Apocalypse them to oblivion. Not fair...
Great Video and Lore aspects. But I just played through it after Decades with the Warrior and it was atrocious... Attacks missing, slow grid based movement ect. BUT the Athmo is STILL Top Notch and that 1st dungeon Theme!!
Brevick says in a GDC talk that the cutscene people made the ending without his consent. The souldstone and taking it for the character player wasn't his idea and not what he wanted. He said in time he learned to like it.
I watched that video. I’m glad he warmed to the idea over time. A large part of the fatalistic feel of the Diablo series stems from the ending of the first game which broke the archetypical “hero saves the day” afterparty. Thanks for stopping to comment! 👍
@@HeyBlondieGamer The hopelessness is such a present feeling in the series, even in Diablo 2, when you feel like aimless following the Dark Wanderer's path of destruction. Seeing how much powerless the narrative pictures your character is one of the reason why the main intro song from Diablo 2's experience is a powerful experience for me (it is the first non gothic, "heroic" theme).
I also miss old manuals, you see, my favorite games back then when this was released used to be first person shooters, and the manuals had story-background... in FPS's! So nostalgic.
The amount of worldbuilding and information that Blizzard North supplied in the D1 manual was above and beyond what was required, but it grounded the world and the struggle. Such care and attention to detail. I have a box of original game manuals which I could never bring myself to throw away.
@@HeyBlondieGamer hey mate. It's not that. it's that it scales insanely in the late game, past the levels you can reach in the campaign. In multiplayer Hell difficulty, the game can't really be finished until well over level 35 or 40. You get instantly respawning monsters so this is achievable. At this level, the sorcerer has level 17+ spells and thousands of mana. This means mana shield makes him tougher than the strongest warrior, and he doesn't have to risk getting caught by dangerous packs of monsters as he can fight from off screen. He also has the highest damage in the game by far - melee damage stops scaling but magic goes up with intellect and spell level. It gets to a point where a sorcerer can't even party with a warrior as the splash damage from a stray fireball will accidentally kill him instantly. The sorcerer ends maybe 20 times as powerful as the other classes! There is a lot of replayability in the MP higher difficulties but the balance is very out of whack! There are many rare items that are only available in multiplayer that help create this balance issue.
In Griswold’s defense, the sword he makes with that anvil was unlike anything I’ve ever gotten before up to that point. I would have used it to kill Diablo if I didn’t find something better.
1:02:43 Oh god, I remember this. When the game released there were no wikis, blogs, or whatever to document that stuff, so most of what I remember is from word of mouth and seeing what the game magazines wrote back then, but apparently the cinematic shows the "Diablo's sword," the ultimate weapon for the warrior that dropped upon Diablo's death. Supposedly the item still exists in the game, you just need some hacking software to add it into your inventory. I even seen some screenshots of player's inventories "proving" the existence of the sword. Looking back at now, I guess it could be possible? Since they were building the game around the warrior character, it would make sense to reward the completion of the game with a sword... and then they removed it once they added more classes.
If they were sticking with a single warrior class, it would have made sense to include a special sword for the final battle with Diablo. I love the mystique that rose around it.
Check out the Belzebub mod. It includes a lot of original cut content and expanded mechanics, some taken from D2. These content pieces never feel out of touch with the look and feel of the original game and you can play it on HD. Ad over ;)
I remember playing Diablo 1 with my brother ,he was so into it but I loved d2 when it came along - probably because i was finally old enough to understand the game 😂 so many amazing games in the 1990s .
Actually have the original PC CD copy of Diablo 1 for Windows 95, surprisingly it actually works beautifully on modern hardware so if you're ever looking for the original PC release you can easily play Diablo 1 on Windows 10 or 11 without any additional tinkering or mods. Sadly its just the original CD in its case though don't have the full in box copy of the pc version dont even want to know how much that costs now...
@@HeyBlondieGamer looked it up and a standard pc copy of Diablo 1 isn't that expensive either about same price as the GOG version, the catch though is its only cheap if you're just after an original cd case and disc its the complete copies with manual that get expensive which means I don't have the manual sadly 😂 just the disc and the cd case which simply has an ad for other games or products at the time
I've long been interested in Diablo 1 for its restraint compared to 2 and 3 and its sad, but believable ending. I came to this video expecting a cursory look over the story and then deep dive into the game mechanics (like most game videos do), but I was overjoyed when I saw that the Tristram section of the video wasn't an analysis on buying items, but a treasure trove of character backstories and exploration of the game's themes and mood! That you dedicated most of the rest of the video to things like the game's ending (and the complex situation in which it was made) and the PHONEBOOK of pre-game lore was a joy and an eye opener to me that the wider story of the Great Conflict, Dark Exile, etc wasn't pulled out of nowhere in Diablo 2 as I thought, but present in the story since Day 1 (this actually improves my opinion of Diablo 2, as I now know it didn't just complicate a previously-simple story with a bunch of weird additions, but acted on the set-up of this game's ending). Thank you very much for shedding light on this series starter and pioneer in gaming and keeping us story-buffs in mind!
I'm interested in game mechanics insofar as they complement storytelling or affect the experience for better or worse. Diablo's characters and narrative are far too interesting to NOT cover, but even I was surprised how they held my imagination hostage and demanded a recount. I focus on narrative, characters, and the gameplay experience in my analysis videos as these components often hold that indelible spark which players struggle to put into words when pressed about why a game is good or bad. We all have a fair idea of what bad game systems look and feel like, but defining thematic or narrative inconsistencies can be much harder to nail down. It *all* affects the experience. I'm glad the video spoke to you, and I appreciate you taking the time to comment!
@@HeyBlondieGamer At the risk of this comment being either too late or too irrelevant, the view on games you just described really speaks to me, as I've always cared a lot about stories in games and get annoyed when commentators treat it like a small piece of the puzzle. I think I might just have to subscribe to see more stories in games.
Spotting the difference between one-handed and two-handed weapons is actually very easy. Swords and maces are one-handed, while axes and bows are two-handed. The only exception is the great sword, which has 10-20 damage. So any sword with 10-20 damage is a great sword. It may have been more obvious to kid me, because I had not previously been taught by other games that it could be any other way.
From memory there were some weapons which also used a different image to their weapon type which kinda muddied the waters. It could have been more streamlined.
They didn’t really have the authority, but they believed in their vision enough to ignore Brevik’s instruction and craft a better ending. As much as don’t condone that behaviour, you can’t argue with the result.
Diablo 1 is in my mind the best of its kind. While Diablo 2 is technically a superior game, the contained and oppressive atmosphere of D1 has never once been recaptured in any other game of its kind. Unfortunately many games in this style that came after focus too much on the power creep side of things and not on the things that can really leave an impression over two decades later. In many games like this, a sword is to increase your power and make your character stronger. In Diablo 1, a sword felt like something you used to try and stand a chance.
It's possible that this feeling of being underpowered stems from the turn-based system under the hood. Getting surrounded in D1 feels punishing and deadly because you needed to ensure you were never in a position where you could be overwhelmed. There are abilities in later titles specifically aimed at creating this scenario, however. That sense of tension and danger evaporate.
I wish the future games kept the Diablo 1 tone... visual, musical and storytelling style. Diablo 2 was a big jump in power fantasy and magic. Diablo 3 was to diablo 2 what WoW legion was to WoW classic I wouldn't be so sad if there was something else out there trying to do a world like the original diablo, or even diablo 2 for that matter.
What a fantastic video, as someone who started on Diablo 2, I didn't know a lot of these backstories. So much interesting information and view points, keep up the great work!
There’s a link to the GOG page in the description, and people in the comments here have suggested a bunch of great mods if you want an updated experience 😊
I love the atmosphere of this game. First played five years ago, blind. I like the gameplay aswell, I play it once every year or so as a sorcerer. During the night in a dark room preferably. There is something that modern games can't capture. Maybe It's suggestion, maybe the uneasy feeling of strange eerie enviroment, or unability to move fast and knowing that once you are badly caught, you are doomed. My favourite book: I can see what you see not, visions milky, then eyes rot when you turn, they will be gone, whispering their hidden song. Then you see whan cannot be, shadow move where light should be? out of darkness out of mind, cast down, into the halls of the blind.
Atmospherically Diablo 1 is my favourite... Diablo 2 did it well better in items and skill tree, but quests and atmosphere suffered already... sind diablo 3 the francise is dead to me... there is nothing left Diablo made it to an individual expirience.
I laughed so hard at 37:00 when you said the cover art should have been a massive fucking clue, I don’t why, everything before that is just so serious until you drop that line lmao
Just listen to the sounds in this game. They melt perfectly with the gameplay. The door opening the creepy eerie atmosphere everything is so unique in diablo 1, except the differencies between the pc and ps1 version
The simple horror and damage of the Tristram townsfolk is so intriguing. After seeing the Diablo 4 beta story. It simply doesn't capture it. It's like they are trying so hard to be dark that it shoots right past the goal. Adrea should never have been a villain in d3. She was so much more intriguing as a simple witch. D1 holds so much magic and imagination. That's what makes it so fascinating. Blizzard north was so metal back then. I feel like Dark Souls and even Bloodborne pulled a ton from the tone of Diablo 1.
I haven’t seen much of D4, and I can’t see myself supporting Blizzard or this product, not anytime soon. That said, storytelling in current games trips over itself to define every character clearly and give them a concrete role in the world. This is a mistake. The unanswered questions are always more potent, but characters have to be written in a way that invites reflection and curiosity. Paint too much of the picture and there’s nothing left for the imagination to grasp. I should watch more of the D4 trailers to get a feel for what they’re aiming at.
@@HeyBlondieGamer you got it exactly right! It's a guidance of imagination that counts! They lost that after Blizzard North shut down. Even with the dark graphics of D4, the story hasn't got that imagination. Fromsoftware has it, it's the "here is the world post event and your character is now in that world" the depth that this gives is immeasurable. Blizzard is a pretty terrible company atm. They have done terrible things. I will be playing D4 but this is probably my last chance for them. And so far it definitely looks like my last chance.
@@HeyBlondieGamer actually d4 is looking to be pretty fun. I played about 15 hours and they did a good job with story so far. It's a little surprising 😅
OG games are the best games, back when developers werent corrupt money grinders all stammering around for our attention and disposable income, games were sold in a more or less, complete state, and DLC's cost a small fraction of the actual game price. It was truely the greatest era for gaming. What we have now is half assed, money grabs, poorly put together, rushed to market after having chopped up the final product, so that DLCs could be sold later, without any additional development. -e I cannot stand the current era of gaming. I am so glad i kept all my old consoles and games from the old days.
This is why AAA will eventually fall. The business model is outdated, and indie studios offer great experiences for a fraction of the price. The competition is steep now, and the big studios haven’t recognized the danger.
Capitalism & an unbiased Free Market created Diablo & no one should mind others profiting off great creations. It's not the profit that bothers me it's the lack of passion creators have for there creations & there Motivations or Agendas in mind when making these Games. Leftist political agendas have infected everything. It's not just Games its Sports & Entertainment realm & even Comic Book characters. The Mainstream Media plays a huge rule in this because they've all been infected & they promote agendas by lobbying for funding for Games no one wants. This is why there's many Game Developers that don't even like Gaming. They've either made it in because of Gender or Ethnicity. If the Gaming Realm was left to pure Capitalism & the Free Market you'd see Games being made the way they were in the 1990s & early 2000s.
The Diablo Analysis is by far the most watched video even though the Dusk video was the first one for the Channel. Cheers, I'm happy to see people enjoying it!
I want a Diablo 1 Resurrection more than any other game.
It's the only masterpiece for it's time in the series. I like Diablo 2 but I remember being disappointed a bit when it came out.
@@stefantorpeda yea I thought so too about the feel. Diablo 2 was a bit scary in the monastery in the prison and catacombs but the rest just didn't feel the same. Diablo 4 is good though. I'm enjoying it right now. It's a great action game.
The first act captured that feeling well, though not as effectively as D1. The rest became globe-trotting flavour. I get that they were trying to grow the franchise into something epic, but it lost a big part of its identity along the way.
@@HeyBlondieGamer IMO Act 1 was dull. The cemetery was cool, the prison of the monastery was slightly scary as a kid but the rest wasn't fun. D2's environments are not fun nor scary.
Please diablo please
I just realised Cains famous line "Stay a while and listen" is actually encouraging you to talk to the townsfolk as they all have a lot of different dialogue for different quests.
They all have something to say about most of the quests you receive, it’s pretty cool.
As a kid, I thought Cain was so annoying. Just wanting us to talk to him all the time... But this makes more sense! 😆😊
It was a minor attention to detail which made the world feel more reactive and real.
everyone has iconic line
yeah no kiddin.. thats usually what "stay awhile and listen" means..
This is a crime against humanity that you don't have more viewers/subscribers! This is excellent work, my man!
Thanks, mate! Comments like this make it all worthwhile.
Thanks for sharing this indigo gaming. Hey blondie you have a new subscriber o7
@@kingdunlap741 Welcome, and thanks for checking out the channel!
I give him a sub right now. My only suggestion for this video was maybe a border on the outside of the 4:3 aspect ratio of the oldschool game.
I’ll keep it in if for future videos. Thanks for watching!
It's both weird and awesome to see a RUclipsr with less than 1k subscribers making better content than a lot of 500k youtubers make. Your channel is still young, but the quality is undeniable. You've earned yourself a new subscribers with that amazing analysis, and I'm eager to see what's next for this channel
Thank you so much, comments like this mean the world to me!
I write about the sort of things which interest **me** about video games, things which often pass without comment but which undeniably contribute to the experience.
I appreciate the support 👍
I think people have romanticized the "smaller tuber with low skills -> now bigger with better skills" thing. I mean there is truth to it, of course, but its become exaggerated.
If you see a good video from someone with very few subs, then really, your early - enjoy the ride.
I’m oblivious to whatever social movements are happening around the microcosm of longform content creation for games. I like making videos about interesting games, and I’m happy that people are sticking around for the ride.
Came here after Indigo's recommendation... guess I'll stay awhile and listen more! Please consider making a similar analysis of Diablo 2 Lords of Destruction.
“I know of many myths and legends that may contain answers to questions that may arise in your journeys into the Labyrinth.”
It’s not off the cards…
When I first got this game, it ran so slow the characters footsteps matched a ticking clock!!! But me and my friends would be glued to the screen as if every single monster was a huge deal and it actually felt intimidating and scary! That is an awesome achievement for a video game.
Diablo had a fearsome but well-deserved reputation. I miss the days when games had you on the edge of the, seat like you describe.
@@HeyBlondieGamer The game Signalis was really tense.
I hear great things about Signalis. I should play that sometime.
The initial design of the game was going to be turn based roguelike and midway through they decided to go real time. Probably why footsteps and slow movement is a thing.
@@HeyBlondieGamer People often attribute that to novelty with it being a new experience at the time, and everything that came after not having that. I have always disagreed with that. Even Diablo 2, which is often praised as the best game, pretty much ditched 80% of what made the original great. None of the characters matter in D2, they fleshed out too much of the story and spent too much time telling you instead of showing you/letting you experience it through gameplay and meaningful characters in the world. There was also a lot less dungeon crawling, and mapping on the overworld just doesn't have the same feel. Where D1 was a masterpiece in many ways, D2 was the beginning of the divergence from a dungeon crawling arpg toward the more recent action-multiplayer online rpg. D4 has the aesthetic, but the tone only exists in a few cutscenes and they aren't representative of the game. It's kind of a shame, I was hoping they'd go back to the roots more with it. Dark Souls has more in common with Diablo 1 than D3 and D4, too bad they didn't veer more in that direction.
There is a Beelzebub mod that takes the hidden files of what would have been the original game and brings them to light. A more fleshed out game experience so I hear.
Yes, I've heard a lot of good things about Beezlebub. I might check it out at some point. Or perhaps Blizzard will give it the 'Resurrected' treatment...
@@HeyBlondieGamer The current company would without a doubt treat it like it does not exist. Revamped would be nice but meh. As long as they do not disrespect the original vision and leave monster uncensored, especially the succubi. Otherwise, I leave it in the hands of indie developers to revitalize this lost property. The game itself taught me patience growing up. I remember starting a game over once with the Sorcerer to find more book drops to prepare for Diablo. It was not easy I recall. With the mod, I hear you get 25 quests without having to play multiple rounds to find ones you missed out on previously. I want to say they modded it more like D2 engine where you no longer can save on point where you left off. Dungeons do randomize and the inclusion of way-points can make it easier to keep tabs of where you have to go next. I want to say each level of the labyrinth has a quest(s). I do wish to know more of what the lore would have been for D2 prior to scrapping.
I’ve noticed that Blizzard flatly pretend that D1 doesn’t exist. They even misbranded some D1 artwork as D2 recently on Twitter. I’m glad that GOG was able to secure D1 and add it to the library. And, of course, it lives on in the modding community.
@@HeyBlondieGamer Beelzebub is amazing. Its quite hard on the later difficulties but the struggle really fits into d1 atmosphere.(I mean d1 characters are just skilled warriors not some nephalems with god like powers,so it makes sense for them to struggle with forces of hell)
I think you’ve hit on a really good point! The characters in D1 are human, nothing more. Their mortality adds to the grim feel of crawling under the earth.
Diablo 1 (and some other early Blizzard titles) are the perfect encapsulation of the phrase:
“Less is more”
These older games had inferior technology, but they made up in storytelling, music, atmosphere. Things that later Blizzard games were never able to recapture.
The player was thrown into a world where you didn’t have all these flashy spells and explosions, overblown character armor and outfits, exposition heavy villains and fourth wall breaking auction houses and microtransaction shops.
The manuals made the heavy lifting in terms of world building and lore, but that allowed the player to create these worlds and characters with their imagination too, letting then feel like they had a bigger investment.
Some people here have mentioned how Dark Souls feels like a Diablo game in terms of its atmosphere and lore and I agree completely, its the closest Diablo game that isn’t one.
Imagination is the key component, and you’re spot: less is more.
Is it a sign of the times that we (collectively as an audience) have lost our ability to imagine?
Pepperidge Farm remembers
The thing about the earlier levels is that they gave you more options.
In the dungeon, you have plenty of obstacles and even the bars that allow you to potentially cheese the Butcher.
In the catacombs, there's no more bars and everything is sectioned off into rooms with doors.
In the caves, there's little to no cover left and only occasionally you will find a door with a fence that could be used strategically.
In hell, there is nothing but open rooms and corridors with little to no options for strategy left, save for hiding around a corner.
It is meant to make not just the enemies, but also the environment you fight in, more difficult. As I see it, it makes combat less strategic as well and, with how much more challenging the enemies are down there, having less strategic options makes it a slog.
Great observation, I agree with this. The tactical options dry up the further down the player goes.
Lol.. ok. Putting more thought into this trash game than the developers. No strategy in the game whatsoever. Guess the little gaming community brains wouldn’t see that though.
Yet you took the time to read the replies *and* comment…
I don’t humour surface-level rage-bait NPC comments here. Explain your stance. Provide examples. Be specific. Unless your thoughts are as vague as your platitudes.
@@HeyBlondieGamer EXACTLY! i cant stand when people just Rage and give no actual facts, or reasons for their rage.
@@bradcallahan3546 It was made in 97, you cant judge it by 2024 standards when gaming was only a child back then. What a brainless take dude
If you think Diablo has slow movement or gameplay - you should've tried playing it in the 90s on an old 486DX2 66MHz processor (Pentium 60 was the minimum requirement for game) - the characters moved at half the speed showcased in the video - for me personally it added to the atmosphere - you were slowly exploring a scary dungeon - the intended speed is unnatural.
The sword in the intro for me is the same as the ending - something added by the Blizzard cinematic guys and not talked over with the actual game devs either due to lack of contact, or just plain wanted to add something of their own to the game. Game has unique swords that can be found - someone thought a magic sword would be needed to slay diablo, and just animated it. Back in the 90s I also wondered what is this sword, but after learning that cinematics were made without David Breviks consult - I think they just added it for no reason.
For the end gameplay it differs from play to play. You can have late stage with only knights and serpents - and this is great for all classes. I first played a Rogue character - and I really had no trouble with any of the late game enemies, excect of course for Diablo which still was quite a challenge to beat at mid 20th level. For my Warrior run - I was level 32 and Diablo was basically a pushover. Only many years later I tried to play as a Mage, since all my friends spoiled him as being overpowered and I have to agree .
Overall, a great video. I love Diablo 1 more than any other game and I feel the music, the atmosphere of Dread, and even the art design was near perfect for such a game, and has not been matched to this day.
Wow, it ran even slower in the day?! That must have felt glacial, but as you said it augmented the atmosphere and tension which I'm all for.
From a storytelling perspective, the sword is made to feel important by being given a lot of emphasis. I kind of like the mystery that surrounds it now, it was almost a shame to shatter the illusion by digging through old articles for the truth.
My second run was with a warrior and it was a cakewalk, Diablo went down on the first attempt. The spawn rates for magic gear needed a tweak to have them appear a little more often. Mods like Belzebub balance some of these issues and have done a good job retaining player interest in D1.
Thanks for the comment, it was a great read!
@@HeyBlondieGamer even the loading the game was slow. ( for my pc back then at least) Can't remember how long it took to load a stage/level but it was a while.
I had a 486 dx2 133. it actually ran almost as good as a pentium but definitely not quite there. My bud had a pentium 90mhz and omg it ran so good in comparison. I think you are right about the slowness adding to the atmosphere, was an amazing experience.
Back in those days, you were better off with a commodore Amiga instead of a 486 , hehehehe
@@DennisDJSaklak It depends - for some arcade ports like Street Fighter 2 or old classics like Settlers or Cannon Fodder 2 - Amiga was the better choice, because it had much better sounds and less visible pixels - it looked smooth and nice. But for more "modern" games like Diablo or Doom - which required more force to render better textures - those were impossible to port to the poor Amiga. The 486 was the middle ground - it could play games as well or better, but with less detail and much worse sounds (even if you had a sound blaster, or even any dedicated sound card, amiga games still had better sounds and music), and at first, my 486 didn't have dedicated sound, so I spent months listening to pc speaker - it was fine in wolfenstein 3D, but terrible in doom 2.
The question is not "Why", the true question is "HOW".
The Diablo book Legacy of Blood really fleshes out lots of nooks and crannies of the D1/D2 era lore. It was written in 2001 by R.A. Knack of Dragonlance fame and is a great piece even for people who have no background in Diablo
I wouldn’t mind reading it. Perhaps I’ll get lucky and find a copy online.
- Brilliant, unflinchingly dark atmosphere
- excellent production values
- outstanding soundtrack
I'm only ever annoyed by no running option.
Mind-blowing that we still haven't got a remake of this game. Blizzard is long dead anyway.
I wouldn’t let modern Blizz anywhere near this game. The original cast are long gone, and if Blizz finally remember it exists and remaster/remake it, I have little hope for the end result.
Diablo 1 had so much good atmosphere that was genuinely scary. Diablo 2 felt more story focused with the quests being strictly linear. I liked how in the first one sometimes you would just stumble on a quest. Like gharbad the weak.
This is one of the best videos I've ever watched on RUclips, and it's a shame that you don't have a hundred thousand followers because of it.
Thank you, so glad you enjoyed it!
Think that’s resolved now
You naming your sorcerer Xardas put a huge smile on my face. That's exactly what I do for most mage characters I play.
"come to the hallway, you'll love it here"
- The hallway filled with acid beasts
It took me 20 years to figure out you could start a new game with the same character. That made it a bit easier to beat the game if you got stuck or ran out of gold.
Oof! That makes it replayable, even with a soft-lock.
I believe that's how you are supposed to play the game, at least one soft reset each run as you go to each tier of location, as the difficulty jump can feel insurmountable especially when playing a sorcerer. Also, the town square is also useful as a bank to store extra scrolls, potions, gear and cash during a run.
I don’t believe that it was designed with mandatory restarts in mind. That wasn’t stated by David Brevik as a deliberate design mechanism in any of the literature that I read/watched.
Holy shit! I grew up right under Mt. Diablo in that exact area, I'm shocked that was the inspiration. What a weird coincidence.
Mage was the most op class in the game and you could buy almost every spell from Adria since her stock would reset every town visit or game load. There was only 3 two-handed weapons in the game outside of axes (which all were two-handed) and one was named Two-handed Sword it would be nice for it to be indicated in shops but unless you didnt pay any attention to the item system you would never be mistaken. If you move diagonally you can dodge most attacks since you move slightly faster. Great take on the atmosphere.
My first run confirmed that statement, but the second run was a grind. Most definitely because of my lack of knowledge about the internal workings.
I did notice that diagonal movement caused some hit detection issues with enemies too, so I guess it’s not just confined to player movement.
My fighter with the godly plate of the whale and maxed out chain lighting curbed stomped everything. Most op in my opinion.
@@kato1kalin godly plate wasn’t a legit item though
If you're interested in a more refined experience while keeping the original flavour, check out the following mods:
Belzebub:- New monsters, spells, and items, improved resolution.
diablo-hd-belzebub.en.uptodown.com/windows#:~:text=Diablo%20HD%20%2D%20Belzebub%20is%20a,it%20to%20more%20modern%20screens.&text=It's%20necessary%20to%20have%20Diablo,order%20to%20use%20this%20mod.
DevilutionX:- Source port, engine improvements, bug fixes, quality of life improvements.
github.com/diasurgical/devilutionX
Excellent stuff! Loved the video, definitely put your channel on my radar.
Cheers, I'm glad you enjoyed it!
The algorithm is the only thing keeping you from thousands of subs. This is genuinely top tier stuff!
I appreciate that, thank you! 🤘
I've had more fun playing Diablo 1 in multiplayer mode alone and trying to conquer the dungeons than I've had playing Diablo Immortal, 'nuff said.
This video was absolutely fantastic! Thank you so much for a walk down memory lane, lol. You were very thorough and it was cool to see the old drawings that were in the game manual.
Thank you so much! 🙏
It was a blast for me too.
Old Blizzard manuals had so much charm (check out D2 and Warcraft 1/2). I miss the time when games included them.
Hell of a review. Thanks for taking me back to the good old days. For some, D1 was just a passing phase. For me it defined about a decade of my life, and led to meeting some of the best friends I ever had. This review made me pause on my season 25 Crusader and dust off D1 and D2 for a quick stroll. :)
DSF family... I miss you guys! ❤
It’s amazing how many people still remember this game fondly. It makes me happy and hopeful that we can still have nice things in our gaming libraries in the future.
I've long been interested in Diablo 1 for its restraint compared to 2 and 3 and its sad, but believable ending. I came to this video expecting a cursory look over the story and then deep dive into the game mechanics (like most game videos do), but I was overjoyed when I saw that the Tristram section of the video wasn't an analysis on buying items, but a treasure trove of character backstories and exploration of the game's themes and mood! That you dedicated most of the rest of the video to things like the game's ending (and the complex situation in which it was made) and the PHONEBOOK of pre-game lore was a joy and an eye opener to me that the wider story of the Great Conflict, Dark Exile, etc wasn't pulled out of nowhere in Diablo 2 as I thought, but present in the story since Day 1 (this actually improves my opinion of Diablo 2, as I now know it didn't just complicate a previously-simple story with a bunch of weird additions, but acted on the set-up of this game's ending).
Thank you very much for shedding light on this series starter and pioneer in gaming and keeping us story-buffs in mind!
I also used to think like that! I was pleasantly surprise - after GoG's launch of Diablo 1 - that many of the quests and characters of Diablo 2 were almost in D1.
@@joaocaju3061 So strange that they made so many quests for D1, like fully completing them and everything, and then didn't include them in the final release. Must have been a very good reason to cut all of that content they already went to the trouble of coding and voice acting...
It may have been a design choice, perhaps they felt that it diluted the experience past the original vision.
@@HeyBlondieGamer There's an interesting thought. I'm so used to things being cut just for reasons like budget, runtime or release dates that I never considered that there are also artistic reasons for cutting content. Would be nice if that was the reason they did what they did rather than being forced to do so.
In many ways Diablo feels like a distillation of design choices.
The only other reason might be that they were imbalanced for the inclusion of classes, or were built so heavily on the Warrior archetype that it wasn’t possible to change them before release.
What a great documentary! A lot of love and effort went into this, and I appreciate the thorough attention to detail.
Thank you so much, thats greatly appreciated! ❤️
This is an excellent breakdown of Diablo that covers everything so elegantly! I was hooked from the moment you started analyzing Tristram and its inhabitants, the overview of just how scarred they were from all of the preceding events was awesome! This is good stuff. Defintely looking forward to seeing what else you've got cooking up!
I'm glad you enjoyed it. We can sometimes be guilty of taking characters at face value. It was fun to get into the bones of the setting and reveal the humanity.
This was easily my best hour spent in any game review. Loved every moment of it. Your attention to detail, your voice and thorough explanations really captivated me. This was honestly a superb watch.
Thank you so much, that’s very kind of you to say 🙏
Something I didn't think of until seeing Albrecht's final cutscene again is that by Diablo 3, the Warrior/Dark Wanderer is Leoric's other son and Albrecht's brother. In addition to the threat of death the Cathedral posed, the horror of seeing demons display human bodies like artwork and the tragedy of knowing his own father was corrupted by Diablo and became the Skeleton King, finally reaching the end of the terrors only to find the brother he intended to save dying must have been unimaginable for Aiden. While Diablo's influence doubtless manipulated him into taking his Soul Stone into his own head, part of me also thinks that Aiden was so desperate to make all of the pain his family felt and succumbed to "worth something" that he'd have taken the Soul Stone in the hopes of "vanquishing Diablo forever" even without the Hell Lord's manipulation (or that his emotional state made it even easier for Diablo to manipulate him than it would normally be).
In that light, Diablo's victory in this game is BEYOND Machiavellian and makes all the more sense. Either that, or his already-good plan just got a perfect ingredient he didn't even need, heh heh.
That’s an interesting thought. Not something that Blizzard would have known at the time, but a neat way of narratively wrapping motivations into a tight package for later titles.
I still love the idea that Diablo’s insidious influence has ever so subtlety corrupted the intention of Warrior and subverted his purpose for wicked ends. No purity is too pure, no heart too kind that can’t be bent before an evil will. But then, perhaps I’ve observed the fallibility of mankind too often to believe that such purity exists 😂
Honestly if this game had active servers still I would go back and play it again. OG Multilayer was dope. I would love if they remastered D1.
Perhaps enterprising fans will tackle this project one day (we can hope!).
Resources aren't really finite, you can always restart the game with the same character to farm books, potions and such. Depending on your level, the shortcuts will be open right away too. In fact it almost feels like you have to do it because it's very rare that you'll get proper loot just by relying on RNG alone.
There's also a big standalone gameplay mod called The Hell which addresses a lot of the shortcomings, but changes are vast, adding lots of new classes, unique items, maps, and so on. It has its own direction on a lot of things, yet still retaining the original spirit without going too far like MedianXL for example.
Another mod is called Belzebub (and its multiplayer successor Tchernobog), which positions itself as an "HD overhaul", improving the resolution, restoring cut content such as quests and dialogue lines, adding map waypoints like in D2 and so on. It's worth checking out just to see how the original quests were supposed to play out, for example Butcher's quest had its own separate map that you had to portal into. There are several lore videos you can find on youtube that use the mod.
That’s an interesting point about almost feeling like it encourages you to start over. I’d be curious to hear Brevik’s take on this. I think the original intent was to be able to replay the campaign like an endless adventure, but I could certainly see restarts factoring into this design philosophy. You’re right about RNG not always delivering what’s needed.
Many have pointed out Belzebub, which looks good. The Hell sounds interesting too, I’ll check it out. Cheers!
What does “RNG” stand for?
Random Number Generator. A dice roll to determine an outcome.
This is when Blizzard become from a small company to a big known company. Diablo 1 and Warcraft 2 are the master pieces.
indigo sent me here also please turn up your audio (try using a compressor maybe) it is very quiet compared to most videos
Thanks for checking out the video! Cheers for the feedback, I've been focusing more on sound mixing and audio levels in the more recent vids but there's always room to improve.
@@HeyBlondieGamer cool,i will definitely have to check those out then :)
@@HeyBlondieGamer You're off to a good start. It took me about 3-4 years to figure out the best audio setup for my voice/video style. My suggestion is to use a bit of compression, EQ and noise gate to get clean audio, record in a room with a lot of padding (or make a booth out of moving blankets or other soft materials like I did), and get your voice to as close as 0db as possible, and while you're talking, the music should be about -20db or lower, give or take depending on the softness or harshness of the song.
Thanks mate, this is great advice! It took a couple of videos to realize that I’d need to carefully mix the audio. I’m not an audio engineer, video editor, or graphic designer and I’m learning by the seat of my pants.
Great tip about voice and music audio levels, I couldn’t find consistent advice about this when I searched online. I already noise gate the mic because it picks up my PC, but I’ll be the first to admit I barely have a passing knowledge of what I’m doing :p
Coincidentally, I just bought the GOG version of Diablo 1 + Hellfire and replayed it last week. Loved this game as a child but never was able to finish it, and now I can finally say I've beaten it as the Rogue.
It's super simple in concept but massively addicting, I'd even say I prefer the simplified gameplay to Diablo 2 in some ways. Maybe I am just a sucker for roguelike-ish games, as it has just enough randomness (and consistency) to keep you coming back for another playthrough. The only real flaw is how slow you move, but that serves to amp up the tension - especially if you're playing as the Warrior and you round a corner and see a huge mob of projectile-spitting demons waiting for you.
Enemies feel more potent than in later games. Getting swarmed often results in death in D1, and that fatalism has a dark charm.
@@HeyBlondieGamer Definitely...the monsters in D2 feel threatening (doubly so for the champions and uniques) but nothing can top the tension and strategy that goes into each encounter of D1 in the lower levels of the dungeon, especially if you're playing 'hard mode' aka the Warrior.
Diablo 1 is my favorite close to second
Outstanding video! Easily worth a sub alone, however, excited to see what's next.
Thank you, I’m glad that you enjoyed it!
what a masterful analysis!
This video was an instant subscribe. Amazing quality and a thorough look at one of my all time favorites. I was 11 when it came out and initially I only got a demo of it. If memory serves it only went as far as the Butcher/Skeleton king questline, but boy, did it stain my tighty whiteies.
Haha, cheers!
It’s surprising how replayable the demo was.
39:42 I mean... "diablo" is the literal Spanish word for devil. The mountain in California that he named the series after was itself named by Spanish speakers. So I wouldn't really say it's scrapped when the villain is named Devil and you fight him in Hell.
That comment was about the ‘traditional’ catholic depiction of the devil. Diablo fills the role of Hell’s Overlord, but he is a God among Gods, not a stand-alone entity. It’s a fantasy interpretation with healthy embellishment and expansion upon the concept of Hell.
The initial concept was always going to change somewhat when applied to a fantasy setting.
Play it cause it's the best game of it's kind.
It's basically perfect with all the limitations it has. And once they removed those limitations, the genre became grind fest
There’s a lot to be said for a focused design and consistently dark theme.
This is a good way to put it. Opens up too much now.
The only path back is through indie devs who are basically retreading the early footsteps of our gaming forebears, and who must work within (financial) limitations.
Atmosphere from Diablo 1 is unmatched! Graphics, music, dialogue! By far better than 2, 3 and future 4!
Very curious to see how 4 lands but I'm holding my optimism in check.
@@radattk3145 D1 is greatest!
This game also holds the record for the fastest install ever for those of you who owned a CD of the original.
A record never to be broken as games ballooned in size with the adoption of the CD XD
Probably because it installed next to nothing from the cd which is why it checked to make sure the cd was in the PC.
What a marvelous review and analysis. I was 15 when this game came out and me and my friends played it over and over. You really nailed that point with that grim and despaired atmosphere. 👍👍
The most important (IMHOtep) quality of life improvement from Hellfire was not mentioned -- Search! It's the Monk's default ability but it seems you can learn it from a spellbook or scroll. Being able to have all the items dropped on the ground highlighted and appear on the minimap is huge and probably very necessary in those vomit colored expansion levels.
That sounds pretty handy. It shouldn't be seen as a justification for the messy colour palette, but definitely a great standalone feature.
Great video! I always loved reading and re-reading the Diablo manual. It gave just enough lore to be detailed but left enough room for you to wonder.
The artwork in early bizzard games like Starcraft, WC2 and Diablo was amazing.
Do one for Diablo 2 next!!
I used to love reading the manuals cover to cover too. The artwork was incredible, chock full detail and expression. Blizzard’s art was instantly recognizable. It’s amazing how much effort went into lore which had no impact on gameplay or the immediate story.
This game was so amazing I am addicted to the Diablo series of games
The power of a strong first impression 👍
Just finished Diablo 2 resurrected for the first time and planning to play Diablo 3 for the second time.
I was looking for info about their ancestor :)
Great video. I was totally hooked by Diablo 2 by the way! But my advice, NEVER PLAY IT ON SWITCH, as it’s a super lame and bugged port.
D1 has plenty of lore to sink your teeth into!
I’ll give the remaster a play at some point, sounds like a lot of people are enjoying it.
Thanks for taking the time to comment 🤘
Short answer: because it's an awesome game, even in 2021.
In fact, I prefer D1 over D3 ;)
Can’t argue with that :)
Amazing video, glad people are still giving this gem a look. What I was disappointed in finding though is the lack of mention of the Diablo 1 HD mod which brings back cut content, expands with new quests, and brings all mentioned quality of life updates alongside a Diablo 2 handling of death and monster respawns. Seriously, if you want a fantastic 1st or 95th go at the old D1 game, don't forget to look into the mod first, it's free and made by a dedicated team of Polish nerds.
I love the Original Diablo. Even the Lore of D2 and D3 would be nothing without it, Mephisto, Baal, Azmodan, Izual, everyone got set up in D1.
Only Dark Souls got me the same feels as this one.
If you want to relive the original, I highly recommend the Original at GOG or try out the DevilutionX Mod. If you more like D2 Mechanics/Gameplay the Belzebub Mod would suit you more.
I need to add a Divx or Belzebub run to my casual play list.
This game is phenomenal, I do not care what people say about it. Thank you for reviewing this classic game you are spot on with the atmosphere aspect! God I remember the first time seeing the butcher it scared the hell out of me! But once I beat him I thought it wouldn’t get scary, boy I was wrong! That’s what makes this game great! The catacombs soundtrack with the crying background noise really made you feel isolated, then the caves with the lighting demons! But by far the most scariest is hell. The fact that hell is depicted differently and gruesomely is petrifying and the fact that acid dogs, corrupt knights balrogs succubus and evil sorcerers is anxiety fuel. And the ending to this day still gives me the creeps.
Fun fact: there was a cut-scene with the butcher but it was cut out due to being too graphic.
That moment stepping over the cathedral threshold, bathed in blood red light, the chill twilight air kissing the hairs of the neck.
The utterance as the warrior sets foot in this foreboding place and voices what the player sees, knows, and dreads:
“The sanctity of this place has been *fouled*.”
Best diablo game of Them all , then i dont Care about the New graphics in diablo 2 remake and diablo 3 the graphic cant save the game only ,., diablo 1 hellfire has so much charme than the other games dont have . And more difficult to defeat bosses which is Good
I love Diablo 1 (it's my favorite Diablo game and I've been playing quite a lot) but it has a very serious flaw: the Sorcerer is orders of magnitude more powerful than the other two classes when it comes to PvE. He has easier access to spells (and spells clean almost every level way more easily than melee weapons or bows), and is less dependent on itens (and even those itens on which an overpowered Sorcerer depends are way easier to obtain -- I have a stockpile of Dreamflanges, good luck trying to get a single Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac). His major problem should be triple immunes, but you can Civerb their asses back to hell or, even easier, Apocalypse them to oblivion. Not fair...
I found this to be true early-game, but crappy RNG brought progress almost to a grinding halt in the late game. Perhaps I was really unlucky.
You have the prose of a poet. I'm definitely going to check out more of your videos.
Thank you, that's a very generous thing to say to this humble servant of the pen 🙏
Excellent video.
"..haunting and despondent but with a daring, plucky dash of hope"
Thank you, my friend 🤘
Great Video and Lore aspects.
But I just played through it after Decades with the Warrior and it was atrocious... Attacks missing, slow grid based movement ect.
BUT the Athmo is STILL Top Notch and that 1st dungeon Theme!!
The atmosphere and oppressive sense of peril is what keeps people returning.
Brevick says in a GDC talk that the cutscene people made the ending without his consent. The souldstone and taking it for the character player wasn't his idea and not what he wanted. He said in time he learned to like it.
I watched that video. I’m glad he warmed to the idea over time. A large part of the fatalistic feel of the Diablo series stems from the ending of the first game which broke the archetypical “hero saves the day” afterparty.
Thanks for stopping to comment! 👍
@@HeyBlondieGamer The hopelessness is such a present feeling in the series, even in Diablo 2, when you feel like aimless following the Dark Wanderer's path of destruction.
Seeing how much powerless the narrative pictures your character is one of the reason why the main intro song from Diablo 2's experience is a powerful experience for me (it is the first non gothic, "heroic" theme).
The more we talk about D2, the more I want to cover it. 😝
Still playing D1 vanilla + hd mod - great game!
Terribly underrated video, instant subscription!
Thank you so much 🙏
Try the HD mod, it restores lost content and makes the game playable on modern systems
Is that the mod with coloured lighting? It does look pretty cool.
I also miss old manuals, you see, my favorite games back then when this was released used to be first person shooters, and the manuals had story-background... in FPS's! So nostalgic.
The amount of worldbuilding and information that Blizzard North supplied in the D1 manual was above and beyond what was required, but it grounded the world and the struggle. Such care and attention to detail.
I have a box of original game manuals which I could never bring myself to throw away.
The hilarity of anyone who spent most of their time on multiplayer hearing how underpowered the Sorceror is!! :D
I can imagine. XD
The Sorcerer would shine in a party.
@@HeyBlondieGamer hey mate. It's not that. it's that it scales insanely in the late game, past the levels you can reach in the campaign. In multiplayer Hell difficulty, the game can't really be finished until well over level 35 or 40. You get instantly respawning monsters so this is achievable. At this level, the sorcerer has level 17+ spells and thousands of mana. This means mana shield makes him tougher than the strongest warrior, and he doesn't have to risk getting caught by dangerous packs of monsters as he can fight from off screen. He also has the highest damage in the game by far - melee damage stops scaling but magic goes up with intellect and spell level.
It gets to a point where a sorcerer can't even party with a warrior as the splash damage from a stray fireball will accidentally kill him instantly.
The sorcerer ends maybe 20 times as powerful as the other classes!
There is a lot of replayability in the MP higher difficulties but the balance is very out of whack! There are many rare items that are only available in multiplayer that help create this balance issue.
Holy crap!! That makes me interested to continue playing and see a grossly OP Sorcerer!!
Great video, I checked it out because of Indigo Gaming's recommendation.
I greatly appreciate his shoutout, it was very generous. Thanks for the feedback!
Love doing a playthrough of d1 every few years, great rpg. beezlebub and hell2 mods give some cool new classes to try too
In Griswold’s defense, the sword he makes with that anvil was unlike anything I’ve ever gotten before up to that point. I would have used it to kill Diablo if I didn’t find something better.
Just brought all of the Diablo games in preparation for Diablo 4. Played Diablo 3 previously but now I really wanna play them all
1:02:43 Oh god, I remember this. When the game released there were no wikis, blogs, or whatever to document that stuff, so most of what I remember is from word of mouth and seeing what the game magazines wrote back then, but apparently the cinematic shows the "Diablo's sword," the ultimate weapon for the warrior that dropped upon Diablo's death. Supposedly the item still exists in the game, you just need some hacking software to add it into your inventory. I even seen some screenshots of player's inventories "proving" the existence of the sword.
Looking back at now, I guess it could be possible? Since they were building the game around the warrior character, it would make sense to reward the completion of the game with a sword... and then they removed it once they added more classes.
If they were sticking with a single warrior class, it would have made sense to include a special sword for the final battle with Diablo. I love the mystique that rose around it.
Darn. I wanted to know why I should play Diablo 1, but it’s 2024 now. I can’t trust such outdated information.
I’m surprised the algo hasn’t buried such outdated information.
Check out the Belzebub mod. It includes a lot of original cut content and expanded mechanics, some taken from D2. These content pieces never feel out of touch with the look and feel of the original game and you can play it on HD. Ad over ;)
I’ve had a lot of comments about this, and Belzebub does look damn good! I’m glad that fans have kept this classic alive. ❤️
I remember playing Diablo 1 with my brother ,he was so into it but I loved d2 when it came along - probably because i was finally old enough to understand the game 😂 so many amazing games in the 1990s .
I have an ex-girlfriend who would swear up and down Diablo was a Real Time Strategy game that you played with only one character instead of an army
Actually have the original PC CD copy of Diablo 1 for Windows 95, surprisingly it actually works beautifully on modern hardware so if you're ever looking for the original PC release you can easily play Diablo 1 on Windows 10 or 11 without any additional tinkering or mods. Sadly its just the original CD in its case though don't have the full in box copy of the pc version dont even want to know how much that costs now...
I started reading and getting incredibly jealous, then I saw you were missing the box 😂
Still jealous though, hold onto it.
@@HeyBlondieGamer looked it up and a standard pc copy of Diablo 1 isn't that expensive either about same price as the GOG version, the catch though is its only cheap if you're just after an original cd case and disc its the complete copies with manual that get expensive which means I don't have the manual sadly 😂 just the disc and the cd case which simply has an ad for other games or products at the time
Sadly, I missed out on an original too. Still have the D2 box and original manuals though.
I've long been interested in Diablo 1 for its restraint compared to 2 and 3 and its sad, but believable ending. I came to this video expecting a cursory look over the story and then deep dive into the game mechanics (like most game videos do), but I was overjoyed when I saw that the Tristram section of the video wasn't an analysis on buying items, but a treasure trove of character backstories and exploration of the game's themes and mood! That you dedicated most of the rest of the video to things like the game's ending (and the complex situation in which it was made) and the PHONEBOOK of pre-game lore was a joy and an eye opener to me that the wider story of the Great Conflict, Dark Exile, etc wasn't pulled out of nowhere in Diablo 2 as I thought, but present in the story since Day 1 (this actually improves my opinion of Diablo 2, as I now know it didn't just complicate a previously-simple story with a bunch of weird additions, but acted on the set-up of this game's ending).
Thank you very much for shedding light on this series starter and pioneer in gaming and keeping us story-buffs in mind!
I'm interested in game mechanics insofar as they complement storytelling or affect the experience for better or worse. Diablo's characters and narrative are far too interesting to NOT cover, but even I was surprised how they held my imagination hostage and demanded a recount.
I focus on narrative, characters, and the gameplay experience in my analysis videos as these components often hold that indelible spark which players struggle to put into words when pressed about why a game is good or bad. We all have a fair idea of what bad game systems look and feel like, but defining thematic or narrative inconsistencies can be much harder to nail down. It *all* affects the experience.
I'm glad the video spoke to you, and I appreciate you taking the time to comment!
@@HeyBlondieGamer At the risk of this comment being either too late or too irrelevant, the view on games you just described really speaks to me, as I've always cared a lot about stories in games and get annoyed when commentators treat it like a small piece of the puzzle. I think I might just have to subscribe to see more stories in games.
Not late or irrelevant in the slightest, glad to have you here!
Spotting the difference between one-handed and two-handed weapons is actually very easy. Swords and maces are one-handed, while axes and bows are two-handed. The only exception is the great sword, which has 10-20 damage. So any sword with 10-20 damage is a great sword.
It may have been more obvious to kid me, because I had not previously been taught by other games that it could be any other way.
From memory there were some weapons which also used a different image to their weapon type which kinda muddied the waters. It could have been more streamlined.
@@HeyBlondieGamer The images sometimes lied, like the Butcher's Cleaver looked one-handed, but it wasn't.
This was fantastic, and as a result I may have to take a break from D2R and play OG Diablo again...
Cheers mate. If you want to spice it up, plenty of the good folk here have suggested the Bezlebub and The Hell mods.
The gameplay isn't for me but I'm definitely gonna read that manual. I got really hooked in the 'World of Diablo' section of this video.
They went above and beyond with the lore. It does a great job of setting the tone.
Recently started again with Diablo Hellfire. Had forgotten how difficult this game is at start. You die way easy. lol
So the game animators have the authority to just end a game however they want?
Were they just being jerks about it?
They didn’t really have the authority, but they believed in their vision enough to ignore Brevik’s instruction and craft a better ending. As much as don’t condone that behaviour, you can’t argue with the result.
I think I played this and pokemon gold exclusively on a pentium 3 for 4 years almost daily...
They sound like good times.
@@HeyBlondieGamer best of times. Great vid btw.
Diablo 1 is in my mind the best of its kind. While Diablo 2 is technically a superior game, the contained and oppressive atmosphere of D1 has never once been recaptured in any other game of its kind. Unfortunately many games in this style that came after focus too much on the power creep side of things and not on the things that can really leave an impression over two decades later. In many games like this, a sword is to increase your power and make your character stronger. In Diablo 1, a sword felt like something you used to try and stand a chance.
It's possible that this feeling of being underpowered stems from the turn-based system under the hood. Getting surrounded in D1 feels punishing and deadly because you needed to ensure you were never in a position where you could be overwhelmed. There are abilities in later titles specifically aimed at creating this scenario, however. That sense of tension and danger evaporate.
Very well said OP.
Yo i see what you did with that sorcerers name ... how about a gothic 1 video next?
very video btw :)
Haha, cheers 🤘
You better believe I’ll cover Gothic, but it won’t be next. I have a few in queue before we reach the G-spot.
Best thumbnail ever
I wish the future games kept the Diablo 1 tone... visual, musical and storytelling style.
Diablo 2 was a big jump in power fantasy and magic. Diablo 3 was to diablo 2 what WoW legion was to WoW classic
I wouldn't be so sad if there was something else out there trying to do a world like the original diablo, or even diablo 2 for that matter.
I never understood why, while we are supposedly fighting evil from Hell.....we end up chasing spiderlings and werewolves...in D3 and D4
To be fair, Diablo 2 also has spiders and plenty of non-demonic near humans to fight.
@@suddenllybah sure but that is a totally different game.....if only we could have the same D2 quality in d3 d4 and i would fight spiders all day.
What a fantastic video, as someone who started on Diablo 2, I didn't know a lot of these backstories. So much interesting information and view points, keep up the great work!
Cheers!
This is a reminder that you can now play Diablo on your browser, that's right folks, on the fucking BROWSER! What a time to be alive
Wonderful video, I need to play this masterpiece again.
There’s a link to the GOG page in the description, and people in the comments here have suggested a bunch of great mods if you want an updated experience 😊
I love the atmosphere of this game. First played five years ago, blind. I like the gameplay aswell, I play it once every year or so as a sorcerer. During the night in a dark room preferably. There is something that modern games can't capture. Maybe It's suggestion, maybe the uneasy feeling of strange eerie enviroment, or unability to move fast and knowing that once you are badly caught, you are doomed.
My favourite book:
I can see what you see not,
visions milky, then eyes rot
when you turn, they will be gone,
whispering their hidden song.
Then you see whan cannot be,
shadow move where light should be?
out of darkness out of mind,
cast down, into the halls of the blind.
The buildup of tension for that quest was fantastic but I might have been over-leveled because the encounter was too easy.
Atmospherically Diablo 1 is my favourite... Diablo 2 did it well better in items and skill tree, but quests and atmosphere suffered already... sind diablo 3 the francise is dead to me... there is nothing left Diablo made it to an individual expirience.
I laughed so hard at 37:00 when you said the cover art should have been a massive fucking clue, I don’t why, everything before that is just so serious until you drop that line lmao
Just listen to the sounds in this game. They melt perfectly with the gameplay. The door opening the creepy eerie atmosphere everything is so unique in diablo 1, except the differencies between the pc and ps1 version
The simple horror and damage of the Tristram townsfolk is so intriguing. After seeing the Diablo 4 beta story. It simply doesn't capture it. It's like they are trying so hard to be dark that it shoots right past the goal. Adrea should never have been a villain in d3. She was so much more intriguing as a simple witch.
D1 holds so much magic and imagination. That's what makes it so fascinating. Blizzard north was so metal back then. I feel like Dark Souls and even Bloodborne pulled a ton from the tone of Diablo 1.
I haven’t seen much of D4, and I can’t see myself supporting Blizzard or this product, not anytime soon. That said, storytelling in current games trips over itself to define every character clearly and give them a concrete role in the world. This is a mistake. The unanswered questions are always more potent, but characters have to be written in a way that invites reflection and curiosity. Paint too much of the picture and there’s nothing left for the imagination to grasp.
I should watch more of the D4 trailers to get a feel for what they’re aiming at.
@@HeyBlondieGamer you got it exactly right! It's a guidance of imagination that counts! They lost that after Blizzard North shut down. Even with the dark graphics of D4, the story hasn't got that imagination. Fromsoftware has it, it's the "here is the world post event and your character is now in that world" the depth that this gives is immeasurable.
Blizzard is a pretty terrible company atm. They have done terrible things. I will be playing D4 but this is probably my last chance for them. And so far it definitely looks like my last chance.
@@HeyBlondieGamer actually d4 is looking to be pretty fun. I played about 15 hours and they did a good job with story so far. It's a little surprising 😅
No shade from me, I’m glad that you’re enjoying it 😁
You missed the most important part: Diablo 1 should be played with mods. For example the The Hell mod.
This was good shit. Please do more of this.
More shit to follow. Thanks for checking it out 👍
OG games are the best games, back when developers werent corrupt money grinders all stammering around for our attention and disposable income, games were sold in a more or less, complete state, and DLC's cost a small fraction of the actual game price. It was truely the greatest era for gaming. What we have now is half assed, money grabs, poorly put together, rushed to market after having chopped up the final product, so that DLCs could be sold later, without any additional development.
-e
I cannot stand the current era of gaming. I am so glad i kept all my old consoles and games from the old days.
This is why AAA will eventually fall. The business model is outdated, and indie studios offer great experiences for a fraction of the price. The competition is steep now, and the big studios haven’t recognized the danger.
Capitalism & an unbiased Free Market created Diablo & no one should mind others profiting off great creations. It's not the profit that bothers me it's the lack of passion creators have for there creations & there Motivations or Agendas in mind when making these Games. Leftist political agendas have infected everything. It's not just Games its Sports & Entertainment realm & even Comic Book characters. The Mainstream Media plays a huge rule in this because they've all been infected & they promote agendas by lobbying for funding for Games no one wants. This is why there's many Game Developers that don't even like Gaming. They've either made it in because of Gender or Ethnicity. If the Gaming Realm was left to pure Capitalism & the Free Market you'd see Games being made the way they were in the 1990s & early 2000s.
Awesome video!
Thank you! 🙏
Still playing this game with The Hell HD mod sitting on my hard drives for more than a decade. It's that good...
First video of the channel is already a banger. Well done
The Diablo Analysis is by far the most watched video even though the Dusk video was the first one for the Channel. Cheers, I'm happy to see people enjoying it!