You can pretty much say that Diablo (created by Blizzard Entertainment) has attained the title of "classic." Not only has it sold well, it is extremely well liked by almost all the people who have played it. This is not that surprising considering that this game seems to excel in all areas.
First off, and what I consider to be most important, it has a great story. An incredibly powerful demon (Diablo) has taken over an empire and is trying to get control over all humanity (what could be better?). Your job is to fight through all of Diablo's minions and put an end to the monster himself. The game leads you gently on through this endeavor giving bits and pieces of the story at a time. If you want a good chunk of the story at once, you can merely read the nice sized direction booklet included.
The strength of Diablo is its replay-ability. Diablo has 16 levels to one individual game. This is one of the few constants when you replay. The levels, which are essentially mazes, change every time you start a new game. The variety of opponents who appear and the amount of them will change, as well. You also go on side quests, which will not be the same every game.
The quests themselves act as a good way to divert from the possible monotony of constant battle. They are interesting without being unsolvable riddles. At the same time, they are not just about beating up monsters, either.
Rounding out Diablo's strengths are the sounds and graphics. The sound effects are very good, if not entertaining in themselves. The haunting background music makes for a complete game experience. Plus, for a game that came out in the mid-90's, the graphics are still quite strong, especially when you consider that this game plays in real time.
The few weaknesses in Diablo stemmed more from my preferences than hard fact. Everyone who existed in the town stood in front of their place. You never got to go inside which I think would have made for an interesting progression of the story (it was rumored that no one ever went inside Adria, the Witch's house). Also, a couple of characters in town did not seem to have a purpose. Why exactly did Gillian, the barmaid, exist? She didn't send you on any quests, she never really added anything meaningful to the story line or answer questions.
The major weakness might actually be the finale. At the end, you meet Diablo and, of course, a major melee ensues. This is fun, but Diablo ends up just being a harder to kill bad guy instead of something more climactic. Then, the story ends with a tainted victory (which I will not give away). I was left hoping for something a little more.
These down sides, however, do not have enough impact to prevent a truly enjoyable game. Hats off to Blizzard.
Windows 95 Edition Boxed game (NOT a jewelcase edition) Game of the Year sticker on front of box, Platforms: Windows NT Windows 95, ESRB Rating: Matur...More at Amazon Marketplace
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