Diablo + Hellfire

The most common and reminiscent line of any game: "Stay a while and listen" As uttered by Deckard Cain. Even to this day, no one can escape those words. If there is an older game that amazed us and still beats Diablo II & III, it has to be the original game. Unlike the other ones, this one has spirit, mystery, charm and a great cast in Cain and the others. As for the voiceovers, they were potentially the best of that era. There is something about Diablo that makes me get my CD out again (although I will buy the GOG soon as I have a newer PC without a drive). Sure, for younger gamers, this game is clunky with a low resolution. Still, for those of us who knew Diablo, Messiah, Dune 2 and other games of our time, Diablo was just magical. Diablo 3 is a joke in comparison. Graphics mean nothing if the gameplay is terrible and unappealing. Diablo had good graphics for the time, had cinematics (sort of), as well as a great story and amazing characters.

The smell of death surrounds me....

Diablo I it's made by people who really loved games. It was the first moments of Blizzard Entertainment. I played this on my PS1 to death. And, even though there's nostalgia all over me for this series, I can clearly see that Diablo I it's none other than a spectacular game, despite its age. The core gameplay loop it's immensely satisfying, and there are all sorts of little details in the atmosphere to make your journey stand out. The sound design in general is incredible, and the music's all give an uncomfortable feeling, like they should. Tristan's theme it's just pure magic. The narration is also superb, with always incredible voices to keep you engaged. It's pure virtual fun. This game is important. Playing Diablo I is appreciating history. Please, give this game a chance.

Still a great game if you are prepared to download at least one of the great mods available out there: this game comes with Hellfire so I'd say The Hell 2, which will add a bunch of QOL features and gameplay changes/enhancements as well as rearrange the village layout to a much more accessible map, all the while claiming it enhances on the original ideas and inspiration of the game - which it does. Play it this way and you will find this game can stand the test of time.

I'll be brief : this version of Diablo just doesn't run well. It keeps freezing, hanging for a while, looks bad on modern displays... it's a mess in today's day and age. So why would I recommend getting it ? Well, there's a source port known as DevilutionX. If you're unfamiliar with source ports, they're basically softwares meant to run old programs in a modern environment to not only make them look better, but in some cases simply make them able to run correctly on modern hardware. And let me tell you : DevilutionX is a god-sent. Not only is it very quick to load, but it is also available on a total of 14 different platforms including regular ones like Windows, Mac OS, Linux, but also more unexpected hardware like the Xbox One/Series or the PS4 (granted yours is hacked, which is up to you to decide whether or not you wanna open that can of worms). All you need is the game's files which you can get by buying this version, and the proper version of DevilutionX depending on which platform you want to run Diablo on, and you can get playing and customizing the game to your heart's content ! You can even host a server on the LAN and make it work between a PC, a PS Vita and a 3DS (I'm not even kidding !!) At the end of the day, I'll give this release 3 stars for minimal effort porting the game to modern hardware (like too many GoG releases unfortunately). Diablo and Hellfire are still as awesome s they were back in the late 90s, but they haven't aged well as softwares and a proper port would've made the process of getting this game to run on my laptop at all much easier, which it didn't. But on the flipside, I got to experience once more the joy of open-source, community-made ports which will always rock and always justify the purchase of old games.