Diablo - What a Loot Fest

Featured Image

Side note from Jay

Once you’ve read this article, be sure to check out episode 48 of our podcast

called Hungry Not Hungry Horace - with G

for more of our thoughts on Diablo as a whole.

So why do I love Diablo so much?

It gave you carpal tunnel didn’t it?

Enough of that you… For the record I never got carpal tunnel from playing these games. Anyway I had an intro and everything. Thanks for de-railing me.

No problem dude

… …

Diablo, a prime evil, a big red menace and a total prat. One of the four Prime Evils plaguing Tristram and its inhabitants with it’s hoards of devilish monsters, who can help? That’s where you, the player, come into the picture. To liaise with Deckerd Cain and Adria the Witch, to supply yourself up to your eyeballs with weapons and potions, and run head first into danger for the people of Tristram and the rest of the world.

A warrior, a mage or a rogue. You pick your hero and are plunged into the point and click world of Diablo to crash, bang, wallop, fling, burn, and slice your way through wave after wave of things that want nothing more to get there hands on leg of hero.

Leg of hero? Crash, bang, wallop? Mage? Who the hell would pick a mage?

Well me for a start, nothing wrong with a mage I’ll have you know. Setting fiends on fire before they even know your there: pure bliss.

Warrior is were its at, I’m telling you. Bopping something over the head, either knocking it into next Tuesday or into another fiends soup: absolute class.

Okay I’ll give you that. I had fun with all the classes in the first Diablo game back in the day. My favourite was the Mage though. I have a tendency to pick the hardest character class in RPGs and action RPGs - and in this case the squishy of Diablo was the Mage. It takes a lot of patience to play a magic character that only builds up pure power to make a dent at a snails pace: a slow burner if you will.

That’s a lot of clicking and mana potions.. how much spare time did you have back in the day?

Enough time I would say, anyway what’s this back in the day? I only got the original Diablo about 6 years ago. I was an old school console gamer growing up.

Soo… What’s the plot?

Okay so its set in a town called Tristram which is a part of Sanctuary, a place for humans and Angels alike. So the demons of Hell, being part of there nature, wanted nothing more then to rise up and cause some trouble. An Archangel by the name of Tyrael was having none of that. So he took it upon himself to capture the three Prime Evils. Mephisto was mad for, and a Lord of Hatred; Baal who got a kick out of, and was Lord of Destruction’ and the final Prime Evil: Diablo who loved to to scare the living crap out people, as he was the Lord of Terror.

A rowdy bunch to say the least.

His plan worked to a point until Diablo, through contact with the unsuspecting humans right above him in Tristram, began bringing minions/fiends into the little village. In strode our hero to slay all of those little buggers and make the sellers of potions and weapons very rich for a short time, until they vanquished all of the little buggers.

Simple as that… minions from an evil Lord show up, you kill them and make merchants rich?

Pretty much. You delve deeper with your massive sword/axe, magic staff or bow and quiver of arrows until Diablo is found and you pound, burn, and use him for target practice. Hit it til it’s dead is the aim of the game.

So you hit it til it’s dead and jobs a good um?

Not quite, the successful hero after beating Diablo took on the job of being the new host of the Lord of Destructions Soul to keep him from resurrecting in the near future. How did the hero do this? By ramming the crystal with the Lord of Destruction’s soul right into, in this case, his forehead.

Just like Bam! Smack it in and move on?

Yep. After beating wave after wave of minions, smack, bang, and walloping your way into protecting the town folk and indeed making merchants all kinds of rich, the hero - in the cannon was the warrior…

I knew it! Axes for the win my man!

The warrior believed that he was strong enough to contain and keep the soul of Diablo inside himself, protecting everyone in the process.

Didn’t do a very good job though, there was a second and third game.

BLOODY SPOILERS! But indeed you are correct. I’m not talking about the follow up games I’m going on about the first and original.

Gameplay wise it was out when online gaming wasn’t as common and wide spread as it is today, however there were multiplayer sections of the game just not all of it.

So you could LAN it with friends then?

I would think so yeah, where as you can pick this game up now over at Good Old Games, and it works on modern PC’s. It also comes with the Hellfire Expansion pack which I never got chance to play. With an easy to follow story, in depth lore at the hands of Deckerd Cain and a plethora of equipment and skills to experiment with, Diablo is the first and in my opinion best starter point and click RPG for beginners. Its easier to pick up then say Boulders Gate or Neverwinter Nights, not saying they are bad games just not very beginner friendly in my view.

So as always thank you for reading this post.

Did you ever play the original Diablo? Did you only ever play one of the sequels? Have youu never played them, but are wanting to try it out?