Diablo + Hellfire

It installs and works fine on Windows 10, which is refreshing. I believe, however, they should have added one more loot item to the game: Rose-Colored Glasses. So you can see the game the way it appears in your memory. Not that I didn't expect the graphics to be dated, but... wow. I'm certainly not going to knock off a star for it. I regularly play ASCII roguelikes on a 4K gaming box, so graphics really are irrelevant to gameplay for me. It's just a bit jarring -- and one more thing that makes me feel like the old man I have become. Like when I look in the mirror in the morning and think "How did this happen?"

Diablo was the best aRPG of it's time. It is a little old now but still really fun. I wasn't going to get this release as the graphics "update" isn't really all that great. I also have the original CD so I didn't see the point, especially because there are online tutorials to get diablo running on windows 10. Why 5 stars? It now has hellfire and this is the only legitimate way to get the official licensed expansion for diablo (apart from paying huge amounts on ebay) That alone is worth the cost.

I've been using mods and hacks to get this game working for 20 years, my friends and I take a night and beat through it again at least once a year. So, sooo happy to see it finally on GOG! This is my personal favorite of the entire Diablo series. Diablo 1 is a child of the original roguelike genre, and I love the "rogue" feel here that I don't get from later games in the Action RPG genre it spawned (games more steeped in story and evolving modern game mechanics, including later Diablo games). I also love the gothic plot, just enough plot to set the mood, not so much that the plot becomes the point, because it's really about exploring the dungeon. It can be unforgiving. When you die you have to get back to your body to recover your gear, sometimes that's a real nightmare (use town portals to lure monsters away from the body, and don't quit the game until you've recovered it). Some monsters don't open doors, use that to your advantage. Remember to repair your equipment, if it breaks it's gone forever and it it really sucks to lose that prized item because you put off repairs. Especially if you're the Rogue character because every shot damages the bow a little bit. Randomness matters too. You only have the spells you find and that can change the entire game. Multiplayer takes about 10 hours, you can beat it in one weekend (or one night like we do). That makes it ideal for a long night of gaming with friends. It's balanced best for 2-3 players, with 4 you'll slowly become under-powered. Even with three players we sometimes restart the server and replay from the catacombs if the caves or hell are too difficult. Even with those replays 10 hours is about right though. Finally, yes the interface is dated. You have to navigate text-based menus with the keyboard when you talk to NPCs and things like that, but once you get used to it it's not bad at all. If you want an old school roguelike dungeon crawl I can't recommend it highly enough.

Plain and simple must have. By supporting games like this on GoG.com we create opportunity for more releases of similar games DRM-free on GoG.com. Support GoG.com for great job and hearing us.

Diablo 1 doesn't need a review. It's a fantastic game, worthy of five stars in its own right. But the GoG release is weak, at best, for which I'm knocking this down to three stars. High Resolution is just a blurry up-scale; there's no change to the zoom level of gameplay, and Battle.Net isn't available. IPXWrapper is provided for TCP/IP play, and there's no STUN support for NAT traversal. You'll have to configure ports on your router like it's still 1998. In terms of quality of life improvements there's virtually none to be found. You'll be clicking as much as you were in the original. Speech bubbles don't appear over characters who want to talk to you. Item names don't appear for pickups. And so on and so forth. If you already own Diablo then give this a skip and pick up Belzebub/TheHell/HellfireEnhanced/Infernity and enjoy the superior DDraw modes that they provide.