Diablo II
First published in GRIND V, pages 208–217.
Bow before The KING!
Just as I started writing about Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction, a fear I hadn't felt in a long time gripped me. Strange feelings began to wander through my soul, strange thoughts roamed my mind... Eastward, always Eastward — I don't know why, I don't know what will happen there, but all I know is that I too must travel East. Well then, dear travellers, come along with me, and we'll see where this dark path leads us. WHAT's NOT
TO LIKE?
Speaking of strange feelings, could it be the feeling of being unable to put down on paper what I truly feel and believe about this game? Maybe you can help me... how do I set down on this beautiful, glossy paper one of the most iconic soundtracks ever created? They say the Tristram theme from Diablo 2 is the soundtrack you recognise from just the first note! And here the music, along with the ambient sounds, is a gateway that can teleport you straight into this game's world; it gets under your skin, seeps through your veins and sends a current through your soul.
Or could it be the fear of saying something wrong about the game, speaking without knowing what I'm talking about? It's just that I've been playing Diablo 2 since 2002 (with no intention of stopping), and I know what it's like when someone says something wrong about it — at that moment, in my mind, it echoes: "Come on, mate... if you don't KNOW, don't talk!"
But I will speak, even at the risk of being wrong, because in fact it would be ridiculous NOT to speak, it would be ridiculous to stay silent and let someone else in the future dip their pen into my ink, ink that I was supposed to use to write about this fabulous game.
Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction is an (almost) perfect blend of 4 elements: atmosphere, gameplay, hero progression and loot hunting, that mad dash for items; you hunt for items so you can get more enjoyable, more visceral gameplay, gameplay that is supported and elevated by the absolutely captivating atmos-
DIABLO II FACTS
Tyrael’s MighT Armour has a 1 in 452,682 chance of dropping, and 99.9% of Diablo 2 veterans have never found this armour in their entire lives. phere — an atmosphere conjured by the dark, grim, gothic visual style, topped off by the music and the simple ambient sounds that still ring in your head long after you've shut the game down. What’s not to like? Stay a while and lisTen!
The story in Diablo 2 is a pleasant one in its simplicity, and although the game doesn't hit you over the head with its narrative — the emphasis being on wiping out the hordes of hell — for anyone who wants to sink a little way into the strange world of Sanctuary, the game still offers plenty of story. Sanctuary is the world where most of this game takes place, and this world where mortals live was created by an angel (Inarius) who fell for a beautiful girl (Lilith)... well, a demon from hell, but there you go, we don't judge, beauty is in the eye of the beholder... so anyway, because they'd had enough of taking part in the constant quarrels between angels and demons, between heaven and hell, they went off on holiday; but since there were no exotic paradises back then, only heaven and hell, they made a new world... Sanctuary, the place where we now spend hours on end hunting for shiny items.
In Diablo 1 you were called upon to send their boss, Diablo himself, back to the depths of hell, but Diablo's essence cannot be destroyed; it has to be sealed inside a magical artefact called a Soulstone, a kind of prison built by Archangel Tyrael to capture the three Prime Evils (Mephisto, Diablo and Baal), so that they could no longer influence Sanctuary.
The hero of the first Diablo game drove the soulstone containing Diablo's essence into his forehead after defeating the Lord of Terror, hoping that this would once and for all put an end to his baleful influence over mortals. But lo and behold, disaster: in time, Diablo began to corrupt our brave hero, and so Diablo 2 begins, with our hero (now The Dark Wanderer), possessed and driven by Diablo, setting off on his journey East — starting with Tristram, and for starters, wiping Tristram off the face of the earth. From here on in, the game's story is
DIABLO II FACTS
ONLY 4 short hours The world record for completing Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction on Hardcore Hell is 3 hours and 48 minutes, set by player Ślimo roughly 7 years ago. He used a Sorceress, plus abilities like Frozen Orb and Hydra. represented by the heroes of Sanctuary, who follow in Diablo's wake, trying to stop him from freeing his brothers, Mephisto and Baal. IT Takes Time To masTer your skills!
As The Dark Wanderer pushes East he grows ever more powerful, and so do our heroes, because Diablo 2's progression system is almost perfect, down to the smallest detail. There aren't many games that give you the feeling of "just an ordinary dude... or dudette" at the start, only for you, little by little, to end up an extremely powerful but not unbeatable hero by the finish — and for the whole process to feel natural, unforced and easy to follow. If I were to compare Diablo 2's progression to a festive meal, I'd say every dish set in front of you is perfectly chosen, and from the appetiser through the other courses, dessert at the end included, there's nothing you dislike... compliments to the chef — that is, to the people at Blizzard... North, very important! Diablo 2, like many another game Blizzard made, adopts the philosophy of "easy to play, hard to master". The first time you step out through the gates of the Rogue Encampment, you're a nobody with a sword or a club who finds 2-3 zombies and kills them... then finds a few spiky hedgehogs, kills those too, walks a few more metres and stops, because you're out of stamina! Ugly game mechanic, but at least it scores a few points in the RPG department.
At first you don't have any grand abilities — maybe a little Fire Bolt that looks like a baby Bowser squeezed it out, or a Sacrifice that deals a lot of damage but eats into your life. But as you get familiar with the game, with the abilities and with the enemies, you realise why, after 25 years, there are still so many people playing this game: the quest for power — because it won't take you long to go from the humble Fire Bolt to the magnificent, mighty and one of the best spells ever invented by the human... or demonic mind: Blizzard!
Excuse me, but a tangent just smacked me hard over the head and I'm not recovering... please forget about progression and everything else for a moment, because we ABSOLUTELY MUST list some of the most iconic spells, EVER!
DIABLO II FACTS
Moo-moo!
The 'vacolize' — those 'moos' from the cows in the Cow Level — were recorded while Blizzard developers went round with a tape recorder past other employees, asking them to moo like cows.
Blizzard, Frozen Orb, Whirlwind, Blessed Hammer, Multiple Shot, Lightning Fury, Lightning Sentry, Poison Nova... there aren't many better implementations of such abilities in other ARPGs out there. I've searched, I've played, but I didn't care — I haven't found a more majestic Blizzard, a more beautiful Frozen Orb or a more spectacular Lightning Fury anywhere else... visually, audibly, for power, for impression, for anything. Diablo is the kind of game I'd play again JUST to use some of the above; having such delights on screen is a huge hook. Bravo, lads! And because I'm no elitist, I don't have to play whatever is most optimal — I play whatever gives me the most pleasure. And if it's pleasure you want from a game, then dear friends, know that Diablo 2 has it in spades!
Back to it: you've climbed higher, you've progressed, you feel powerful — now, when you go back two acts to farm some item or other, you're a sort of demigod next to the puny, weedy demons down there; you're their daddy. In my experience, there aren't many difficulty spikes in Diablo 2, either way... from start to finish, beginning with Normal and ending with Hell, the hardest difficulty. Granted, from Nightmare to Hell there's a fairly big jump in difficulty, but it's more a hill than a mountain. And of course, the situation depends on the class you play and the build you use, because, unfortunately, if you're only just starting out, you might sink your points into talents that won't help you later, you won't be able to progress, and you'll end up stuck. So we don't have many spikes, but we can have mountains reaching to the sky, and the only chance is to reset all your talents and hand the points out differently, into better abilities — by the way, you get one reset per difficulty, so 3 resets in total, use them wisely! This is no place for a warrior To die!
Diablo 2 didn't invent ARPGs, but it certainly made the genre's popularity explode (and I mean isometric, top-down action RPGs), and it brought on the madness of endless clicking that inevitably turns into shiny loot and dopamine-fuelled moments. That particular drug started back in 2000, and somehow, even after all this time, it's just as potent.
The sound of an item hitting the ground is buried deep in the subconscious: you hear one thing and your heart pounds, you hear another and you wonder whether NOW is the moment — the moment that unique item you've been waiting years for finally drops. Because yes, when we're talking Diablo 2, there are only three camps: the camp of those who laugh at the game's graphics, the camp of those who played a few hours, maybe finished the campaign, and stopped, and the camp of those who've hit 50 and are still thumping the table because instead of Tyrael's Might dropping, Templar's
DIABLO II FACTS
The 3 FRIENDS: the Dark Wanderer in Diablo 2 is the Warrior from Diablo 1. The Summoner in Diablo 2 is the Sorcerer from Diablo 1, and Blood Raven is the Rogue heroine from Diablo 1. Might, AGAIN (and yes, in 20 years Tyrael's Might has never once dropped for me, while Templar's Might dropped once). The beauty of Diablo 2's itemisation is prevalent and obvious at every turn. There aren't many ARPGs with such a uniform, such a perfect, such... pristine distribution when it comes to items. In some games you have too few items, in others too many; in some you swap items every level, in others the sword you've got today still works tomorrow — but in the end, in most games, everything that dropped for you at level X is absolutely useless by level X*2. I really don't want to get into modern ARPGs, where you have so many items that you need filters to hide them... well then, what's the point of so many items, friends, if you don't want to see them? As I said, I don't want to discuss it, because if I did, I'd be agreeing with one of the creators of Diablo 1 and Diablo 2, David Brevik, who said of modern ARPGs: "You've cheapened the entire experience." You tell 'em, mate!
And since we HAVEN'T discussed other games, we're staying with Diablo 2, where items don't drop according to the class you play, or anything else personalised. No, they drop at random according to the enemies' level, and according to which enemy you've lynched. And if you know how to search online, you'll discover which enemies have a better chance of dropping certain items, such as: any ghost-type enemy is more likely to drop runes; Andariel on Nightmare difficulty has the best chance of dropping the best ring in the game, the Stone of Jordan, a ring you can find at level 40 but which you can keep until level 99.
Should I also mention that almost absolutely any item, of any rarity, can be of use? Even a “white” item, the lowest rarity and quality there is, can be turned into a top-tier item through the magic of crafting, or other madness from around the game. NoT even deaTh can save you from me!
Diablo 2 is a predictable game, in the best sense of the word. As you play and get familiar with your hero's abilities, and with the danger posed by demonic minions, you start noticing patterns, you start working out who to steer clear of, you know what can kill you and what can't, and — very important — you never have such a huge number of hellspawn on screen that you can't follow what's happening, that you can't "read" the situation in two seconds. That makes Diablo 2 one of the most suitable and best games going as far as Hardcore mode is concerned (die once and you've lost your hero, along with all your progress and every item). I wanted to say a lot more, but someone, I don't know who, maybe me?? brought up Diablo 2's Hardcore mode, the best invention since the pixel — because yes, no pixels means no game, but no hardcore means your pixels are wasted, since a gamer's life turns bland, predictable and always the same. "Aaaa...", someone might say, "look at the elitist here, he's clobbered a few Fallen in the Den of Evil and now he reckons he's a big Hardcore player!".
I was just past 13 when I first saw Diablo 2, 14 when I first played it, and 15 when I was already losing nights farming Mephisto. Buriza, Herald of Zakarum, The Oculus? Yes please... what do you mean I've got a maths test tomorrow? Mate, I need to start my Amazon, can't you see Titan's Revenge and Thundergod's both dropped in the same run? Incredible... New Year's Eves? Ha... I've got a sorc ready, we're spending the night with Mephisto till morning, he won't even know what hit him... if only we got about 50 New Year's Eves a year, maybe I'd have finished my Holy Grail run.
I've finished the game far too many times, with far too many heroes... I used to give presentations and try to convince my high school classmates to play it too. When I started playing Diablo 2 there was a block network and plenty of people playing; after I started playing like a madman, nobody played any more (I don't think it's connected, but it makes for a good story!)... and so the years went by. BUT, somehow, I don't know how or why, I decided to play with a hardcore hero for the first time. I pressed the button, got the warning that if I die I lose everything, clicked OK, and went into Act I. I was playing a Sorceress, and as I walked out of the Rogue Encampment my heart started pounding, I got the jitters, my palms were sweating... and from then on nothing was ever the same. I made it all the way to Hell with my first Hardcore hero, only to die in Act I, to some Archers, obviously! One-shot kill, dead in a second... it was horrible, a really nasty feeling. Years later I've finished the game on Hardcore, on Hell, with every hero... except the Barbarian, but his turn will come (I don't like playing Barbarian in Diablo 2, that's just how it is). Diablo's Minions grow sTronger And look, I've rather let myself ramble and the armies of hell have managed to take over Sanctuary again, Diablo has spawned once more in his Sanctuary, and Baal is shamelessly knocking at the gates of Sescheron for the 10th time. The cry rings out across the mountains once more, the message of despair tries to unite the heroes of Sanctuary again, the only hope in the conflict to come! But isn't it boring to play this game for the 100th time? I don't know how to put this, friends, but Diablo 2 is one of those games with the highest replayability, whether it's the levels randomly generated through procedural generation, or the enemies who are never in the same place twice, or the unexpected items that drop where you'd least expect, or the variety of viable builds you can try...
Of course, you don't have to believe me, that's fine, because the truth is I've more or less reached the end of my writing here, and yes, there are plenty more words to say, but perhaps another time, because there are things about Diablo 2 you can talk about at length and then some, and I hope I've written these lines well, but either way, don't forget that even after 25 years, Diablo 2 is still waiting for you, it's still worth playing, it still delivers dopamine and adrenaline for countless gamers nostalgic for simpler times.
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