Diablo II — Give The Devil His Due

The original Diablo worked flawlessly on my Windows Vista machine without needing to download anything extra and I had no reason to think that Diablo II wouldn’t work flawlessly as well.  Naturally, although Blizzard was able to program one game that stood the test of time and changing operating systems, they were unable to program two.  Oh, it probably would’ve worked fine if I’d have been running Windows 98.  But the problem with Microsoft is that they’re never satisfied with what they have and they’re always changing things in their operating systems.  Still, everything I’ve used that was programmed for Windows 95 seems to automatically work in Vista and 7 for me, but many things programmed for Windows 98 require a voodoo ritual where I smear blood on my cheeks and swing dead cats above my head.

But I decided to take a chance, since the neighbourhood was quickly running out of cats (everyone still thinks that it’s coyotes killing them!), and I chose to install the software without invoking any weird gods’ rituals.  I must have pissed someone off because the game’s graphics were partially glitchy, loading times were more sluggish than Bayonetta‘s on the PS3, and in the very first dungeon when I was trying to collect a piece of armour that I had more than enough room for in my inventory, the game crashed so hard that I had to cut power to my computer to turn it off.

A lack of cats in my close vicinity was immediately apparent to me, despite a desperate search, so instead I went to see what Blizzard could do for me and if they had any cats to spare.  I came to find that they had something better than cats on their website.  They’d released the version 1.13 patch for the game just two years ago.  So with that installed, the game was much faster to load, the game’s graphics worked the way they were supposed to, that first crash was also the last, and the neighbourhood’s remaining feline population breathed a temporary sigh of relief.

The initial problems I had with the game were pretty much my fault for trying to play older software on an operating system it wasn’t designed for, and I’m thankful to Blizzard for continuing to support their game a full ten years after releasing it.  If only other software companies were like them.  But anyway, having fixed the game, I figured it was about time to play it.

The first game only gave me three options for characters.  The obvious spell-caster, the obvious melee fighter, and a guy who was meant to be in the middle but inevitably would lean towards one or the other, depending on how he was played.  Any character could learn to do anything and wield anything, provided they met the minimum requirements.  The second game gave me five characters with their own personal skill sets that only they could use and I couldn’t decide which one I wanted to play as.  I took, quite literally I assure you, over a half an hour to get past the character screen simply because there were three characters I could see myself playing as.  I even asked my friends which class was better, but they had their preferences already and hadn’t played everyone.

I eventually went with the Paladin and quickly discovered two skills into which I could pump all of my skill points into, both of which would easily take me all the way to the end of the game.  As soon as I was able to, I started levelling up Holy Fire to the point where I could just stroll into the middle of an entire group of enemies and before they could gather themselves to attack me, the majority of them were already flat on their faces and the rest would soon follow.  I was slaughtering them with my mere presence!  I can’t get that in real life unless I quit showering for a couple weeks!  Was I mad with power?  Damn right I was!  Well, irate with power, but still.  I was!

Then, when Holy Fire stopped being as effective, Holy Freeze took over, and not only did it do the same thing as Holy Fire, it would slow down the enemy as well.  Plus, it worked all the way up to the final boss.  Although I still died a few times in the course of playing Diablo II, I was able to soundly defeat three of the four act bosses without dying.  This included the final boss of the game, who received the beating of his life; sweet revenge for killing me repeatedly at the end of the first game.  Not only that, but I could count myself as independently wealthy by the end of the game.  I had so much money that I didn’t know what I was going to be able to spend it on, and I probably wouldn’t have been able to anyway.

I didn’t have to spend it, though, not like in the first game.  One welcome change that was made to Diablo II was that instead of burdening me with a limit of 5000 gold pieces per item slot (which would mean that I’d only be able to carry a maximum of 200000 gold pieces), I was able to store up to two and a half million in a treasure chest referred to as my “private stash”.  Air quotes because the chest was always located out in full view of everyone.  I guess no one was ever able to figure out my lock combination.  (1, 2, 3, 4, 5.)

And the stash was a welcome addition, to a point.  Although I was stuck with the same amount of slots in my main inventory, arranged in the same configuration as before (a 4×10 rectangle), I was given a stash that could store additional items and protect the gold contained within from theft.  However, unlike in many games where I was given the same option, the stash in Diablo II was even smaller than my own personal inventory.  In fact, it was about half the size.  I don’t know what Blizzard was thinking when they offered it.  It’s like giving someone in a shopping mall, overloaded with boxes of merchandise, a small handbag to carry a couple of the items in.

So naturally, there I’d be, slaughtering whole armies of enemies just by standing in front of them, then making several trips back to town to sell off everything they dropped.  If I found a piece of equipment I wanted to keep stashed away, I had to hope there was something else it would render obsolete or else I couldn’t.  That’s one thing I like JRPGs for, I can just grind for items and equipment dropped from enemies, and I only run out of space when I have 99 of everything.  I recently grinded for Chiro’s Tails in Lunar: Silver Star Harmony, and I didn’t have to worry about heading back to Burg to empty my inventory every few minutes.

Blizzard took a step in the right direction, though, by allowing certain items to stack.  Although potions were still treated like unique items, the game introduced keys and let me stack a few of them in one slot, and the game also introduced books that I could
use as storage for up to twenty Identify or Town Portal scrolls.

Diablo II did have its other improvements.  For instance, environments just looked better.  And other than dungeons, they were a lot more open, too.  Whereas the first game took place within the corridors of an underground labyrinth, with walls often in the way of my line of sight, the second game took place in open environments, especially the first two acts.  I was impressed with the sheer size of each area as compared to the first game.

I also liked being able to augment my weapons and armour with precious stones dropped by enemies, although playing in normal difficulty, I didn’t find it particularly necessary.  They’d most likely come in handy when playing on the harder difficulties, but for the casual Diablo II player, they usually weren’t needed.

That’s the impression I got anyway, that Diablo II was built for the hardcore player, since after making it through the game and its many challenges (most of which were actually easier than in the first game, justifying the loss of the ability to save anywhere), harder difficulties were unlocked which augmented the stats of enemies and required an even more powerful player character in order to complete them.

Speaking of difficulty, every time I died, my character dropped where he was and I respawned back in town.  I had to make my way back to my body to pick up my gear so I could continue on.  Unfortunately, as I was playing the single player campaign, this could be a bit harrowing, especially if I was in the process of fighting something extremely scary and nasty.  Imagine an enemy that was able to take down a fully geared character.  Now imagine a naked shivering guy trying to get back his clothing, with a powerful enemy nearby looking to wipe the floor with Paladin-brand intestines again.

I suppose, despite always having to go back and forth between towns and battlefields, something that Diablo II did next to nothing to improve on over the original Diablo, I still enjoyed playing it.  The quests made sense, fighting enemies was just as fun as before, and I rarely felt overwhelmed by enemies like I sometimes did playing Diablo (but then, I never had Holy Fire in Diablo).  If you wanted to try the game, you’re in luck.  Despite being twelve years old now, it still remains popular and is still sold and supported by Blizzard.

As it turns out, the American RPG genre isn’t as complicated as I thought it would be, and now I want to see what the rest of them are like.  Luckily for me, a big box of them from the Windows 98 era arrived in the mail the other day.  Here, kitty, kitty kitty…

Screen shots generated by the author, who is aware that’s not a Paladin in the shots.  It’s a Sorceress named Sara.