Playing through Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption for the first time since I was a child, and now I remember the details to this game: it's basically 3D Diablo, right down to the inventory grid and clicking on dudes until they die in real time, if it were a linear post-Baldur's Gate BioWare RPG, but the dialogue choices are more useless. I didn't play too much single-player though, I was hooked on the multiplayer where it was like pre-Neverwinter Nights roleplaying servers or dungeon crawls. They were fun while the servers lasted.

This game feels utterly strange. I think it was actually somewhat popular for its niche for the time, but history has not been very kind to it as it has been overshadowed by its pseudo-sequel Bloodlines.

Name some games you think fit into that interesting category of "this is a rip-off of some games but is still oddly unique".

I don't agree that Redemption is Diablo-like or any sort of Diablo clone, nor that Bloodlines is a better game than it.

And also the gameplay of Redemption is a lot more complicated than the OP describes it as being.

*blink* What could Redemption possibly have in common with Diablo?

It's not a clone or even really similar but gameplay philosophy was definitely affected by Diablo popularity at the time with it's hub + dungeons world construction and randomized loot. I remember reading somewhere that at production stage it was planned to be much closer actually with bigger items variety and randomized stats on them.

Guys, the topic is about games that aren't *quite* clones, I never said VtMR was a straight Diablo-like. I also said it was basically a proto-Neverwinter Nights. Everyone seems to get hung up on one part of a phrase for some reason.

Streets of Rage isn't a Final Fight clone. But it kind of is though.

The old arcade game Arkanoid has a zillion clones.

"Sonic is not a clone of Mario, but kind of, is..."

Convoy isn't a FTL clone, but it was designed to look exactly like one.