Diablo + Hellfire

Frankly, I like this better than Diablo 2, which for me has become a grindfest for known items. This first game feels more like an adventure, and not like item shopping. It has a dark atmosphere, a sense of danger, and less of a sense of the player's eventual invincibility. Not being able to run, while inconvenient, adds to the tension.

Лучшая рпг для меня. Я очень рад что ее переиздали.

While I was ecstatic that GOG brought Diablo 1 in to work with modern OS, I put off buying it at the $9.99. It's arguably a fair price, but balanced with other games on GOG of the same caliber, I figured it would be better to wait for a while. Summer Sale 2019 comes around and there's a 10% discount. Not a dealbreaker, but got the email announcing the third party Hellfire expansion would be included AT NO EXTRA CHARGE. Some may argue that Hellfire wasn't a great expansion, but the additional bells and whistles were much appreciated (the fast movement in town alone is a big deal for many). The unofficial debut of the Monk (and, with tweaking, the Barbarian and Bard) cements the deal. Companies that thrive on microtransaction DLCs should take a page out of GOG. This is how you build customer loyalty! Playing it after so many years is like an old friend. Sure, the graphics are dated, and the interface is clunky compared to modern stuff, but the atmosphere, the challenge, the experience, all of these make up for the shortcomings, especially if you've played it before. Diablo II was a huge improvement, but the original will always have its place in gaming history for its innovation and bridging the Roleplaying and Action Gaming genres.

I never had the chance during my early youth to play Diablo, but was always aware of the reputation that precedes it. Due the age of the game, I perform the grave mistake (like many) in bypassing the opportunity to get ahold of the game, forsaking it in the ever-growing Wishlist. As part of the winter sale, I decide to bought it. My only regret was not buying it sooner... As somebody whose judgment is not clouded by nostalgia, Diablo exposes you to many special things. In my case: the in-depth appreciation of ARPG-genre games; the well written lore and atmosphere that prevails until present time; the music; the characters. Diablo will not make you a fan of the game, but rather of the franchise. And for that, it has my highest praise. My only negative feedback would be that was too short, leaving me for more. But, ironically, this may pertain to the old adage: quality over quantity.

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.