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[Kosma]

Which is the better game? For me it's a toss up.

Diablo 1 had more atmosphere then Diablo 2. It was scarier and darker. The world felt more coherent because everything took place in one area. You really had a sense of descending into hell, step by step and inch by inch. Diablo 2 improved many things. There were more unique classes. You could run, which made the game less frustrating but also diminished the sense of fear you had when you were getting cornered.

There were more enemies and different looking locales, but somehow they always seemed disconnected to me. The jungle and the outdoor areas in the desert never really clicked with me. Overall the gameplay experience was better balanced and fun, but the game lost some of its 'edge'. Also the online in 2 was better, but you can hardly blame 1 for that as in 96-97 online gaming was still in its shoes (but already very fun).

All in all I'd say D2 was the better game, more varied, more fun. But it already lost some of its creepiness (maybe it was just me being 17 instead of 13 though ). D3 seems to continue along this path which is a good thing imho. What you say?

Diablo 1 (1996)

Diablo 2 (2000)

 

[Cat in the Hat]

For me

Singleplayer: Diablo 1 I agree it was creepier also shorter and more linear of game which is why I prefer it.

Multiplayer: Diablo 2 The multi is simply the best thing I've ever been a part of in gaming, I loved ever hour I wasted in that game.

 

[Draft]

D2 is better in every quantifiable way, but it's the sequel. It can never hope to match the impact of Diablo, which is one of the defining titles for the PC.

 

[Almak]

D2 is just D1 with more variety and functionality. For me there is also no contest as far as story is concerned D2 is much better.

 

[Cat in the Hat]

You know I played D2 so much I literally recall nothing of the story. I just know ever other aspect of the game like the best loot underbosses(pindleskin) and the main bosses.

Also I think Magic Find is the main reason Diablo 2 is still the best game of its kind still.

 

[MurkyZebra2417]

Diablo 1 was awesome for 1996, but I disliked the luckbased Skillsystem and that my lvl 40 Mage lost all his items cause of a bug :/

Diablo 2 improved everything from Diablo 1 and was imho the better game overall!


edit: I remember D1 had "ahhh fresh meat!" - classic!

 

[antiloop]

I agree with OP. They are about equal.

D1 made a bigger impression on me. D2 didn't scare me in the same way.

 

[FishSquared]

Diablo 2 all the way.

Diablo 1 for nostalgia though.

 

[Sohter.Nura]

Diablo 1 also seemed to me a much harder game. I played one helluva lot of it, and I remember never getting to the Hell difficulties. I'm pretty sure I was a newb back then too, but D2 seemed to me to have a lot less difficulty. Part of it I believe are because of the gameplay barriers.

D2 was great, I played it for months and months. Overall it has a lot less atmosphere than D1, but is better balanced and better replay value. I'd say both games are "Must play" in my list, and I can't seem to decide which one is better.

I only wish D3 had more atmosphere going for it, but judging from what I've seen in videos, screens, etc, it won't. A shame indeed :{

 

[LogicStep]

D2 though D1, like Draft said, has that impact that it could never match. But that game is amazing, loved every hour spent in it for the years I played. The online is amazing and the game is pure gold. Can't for D3, it will be the biggest thing since sliced bread!

 

[Johann]

One of the rules of Gothic Horror is to keep the setting limited to either a single household or a town. This helps bring a sense of claustrophobia and helplessness. You also have a easier time developing the characters, setting, and supernatural element with less things to focus on.

Diablo 2 was bound to lose that horror feel when it attempted to expand the game's universe. Never the less, I found a lot of the enemies and settings, especially in Act 3, to be just plain goofy. It was almost like a parody of itself at times. It probably helped that Diablo 1's graphics were 'cutting-edge' at the time of its release.

 

[Struct09]

All in all I'd say D2 was the better game, more varied, more fun. But it already lost some of its creepiness (maybe it was just me being 17 instead of 13 though ).

I can agree with this

 

[JMC]

Diablo 2 in my book as well, but that's only because I haven't played much of the original. It's a game I wanted to play the shit out of when I first heard about it all those moons ago, however I didn't get my hands on it until well after I'd played through Diablo 2 a few times. It was just so hard to go back to the original when the sequel improved on it in almost every way.

Can't for D3, it will be the biggest thing since sliced bread!

Blizzard and Valve's catalogues are the only games I buy on the PC these days. Well, these and the occasional indie title.

 

[Lateraleye]

Diablo 1 is my choice. Others mentioned the scarier, more depressive setting, and I agree with that. The music was also more ambient and creepy. I prefer the gameplay style a lot more too. Diablo 2's customization with all the gems and such turned me off a lot because I dig simple linear progression in RPGs.

Thus, Diablo 2 was a bigger more expansive game while Diablo 1 was a better, tighter, experience.

 

[magicalsoundshower]

Definitely Diablo 1 for me, I agree that it had a lot more atmosphere and simply liked the idea of a huge dungeon to explore better. I never got far in 2 as I was disappointed by the direction Blizzard took (the fact that it slowed down randomly on my ancient PC didn't help, either). I'd love 3 to go back to the series' roots and resemble the massive dungeon of 1, but it probably won't happen as 2 was so much more popular due to its massive online mode (which I never took part in as it's just not my thing).

 

[nubbe]

Diablo 1
Simpler and straight forward.

 

[Fonds]

Diablo 2 all the way.

Diablo 1 for nostalgia though.

This. Diablo 2 was a better game.

But atmosphere in Diablo 1 is unmatched. Tristram <3.

 

[Cat in the Hat]

Wanna hear something sad.

Even though I don't play the game anymore I still go to Diabloii.net ever once in a while to look at items and things. Probably the most pathetic thing I do.

 

[Petrie]

D2 is just D1 with more variety and functionality. For me there is also no contest as far as story is concerned D2 is much better.

There was a story?

 

[Kosma]

One of the rules of Gothic Horror is to keep the setting limited to either a single household or a town. This helps bring a sense of claustrophobia and helplessness. You also have a easier time developing the characters, setting, and supernatural element with less things to focus on.

Diablo 2 was bound to lose that horror feel when it attempted to expand the game's universe. Never the less, I found a lot of the enemies and settings, especially in Act 3, to be just plain goofy. It was almost like a parody of itself at times. It probably helped that Diablo 1's graphics were 'cutting-edge' at the time of its release.

Yes this was my most hated act too for that reason.

My biggest hope for Diablo 3 is that it will be able to recapture the feeling that Act by Act things are getting darker and more serious.

Wanna hear something sad.

Even though I don't play the game anymore I still go to Diabloii.net ever once in a while to look at items and things. Probably the most pathetic thing I do.

Nah man, thats pretty cool. Just come back for Diablo 3 eh

 

[blu]

1. by far.

 

[SonicX_Zero]

Diablo 1 was scary for the short time I played it in my PS1. But I'll have to give the nod to Diablo 2 because I love playing either Sorceress or Assassin while getting my ass whipped with my friends in multiplayer. :lol

 

[Technosteve]

there is no cow level

 

[ElyrionX]

1 for single player. 2 for multiplayer.

Also, D2 doesn't have the awesome death knights.

EDIT: Oh, and the Tristram theme is awesome and the atmosphere there was so fantastic.

 

[Alx]

Diablo 1
Simpler and straight forward.

I agree. Even if it's less subtle, I liked how in Diablo1 I never had to make a real choice in powering up, it was mainly a quest for more damage, more spells, more protection...
Having to deal with item sets, skill trees, runes, gems etc. is fine and all, but for me Diablo is all about kill/loot/sell.

 

[DeBurgo]

I never really thought Diablo was all that creepy. I mean, I guess it had a certain unique atmosphere, but I've always felt that it was outpaced by Diablo 2 in pretty much every way.

I've always thought Diablo 2, even though it didn't have that "dungeon to hell" feel that Diablo had, still had a just as good, albeit different "heart of darkness" feel. I thought each act was pretty great at piling on the sense of dread and isolation, despite taking place in a wide wilderness as opposed to a claustrophobic dungeon.

Also I remember the original Diablo being really really unbalanced compared to Diablo 2.

 

[BlisterBrown]

Diablo 2 has the Secret Cow Level. Nuff said.

 

[mm04]

I never played Diablo 2. Diablo 1 is in my pantheon of greatest games that impacted me in this genre, up there with Ultima Online and Everquest. I was so knee deep into EQ that I never played D2. Since I've turned the page on the MMO genre (not enough time anymore), I'll definitely be playing Diablo 3. It'll be like returning to my roots!

 

[DownLikeBCPowder]

Diablo beats Diablo II by a pretty fair margin for me and always has.

I love and adore Diablo, it's one of my favorite games ever even today. I play through it twice or more a year with much fervor. The setting is dark and contained, allowing an atmosphere of the unknown to develop. Characters are less varied but darker in design as well as the areas/enemies. I love the fountain of blood which gush forth from a decapitated Hidden. The animations and gameplay for Diablo was top notch and the singular Tristram track beats down anything D II has to offer musically.

Diablo II lost a lot of heart in exchange for the new variety of class/skills/areas. The expansion of content would have been truly marvelous had they managed to keep the original feel of the first title. Don't mistake me, I love Diablo II as well but it is not Diablo. Diablo II is much more colorful and, to be quite frank, I really don't think such brightness has any place in Diablo.

Diablo III had my hopes high - I dreamed of a return to the focused and darker style of Diablo with the expansive elements of Diablo II. And while it will turn out to be fun and likely a great addition, unfortunately it looks uglier than ever. I prefer the older, 2D style. Instead we get ugly and rounded designs a la Warcraft III or WoW. That look does not suit Diablo in the least.

In closing, a gigantic Diablo fan whom definitely prefers the first, but looks forward to the third with reservation.

 

[Cat in the Hat]

Here is my favorite memory of Diablo 2

I was dueling with my Paly in a room with 4 others. The name of the room was legit duels only. A guy pops in with a bunch of hacked Items he wants to trade for our legit gear. We tell him we're not interested but he keeps on spamming us. Finally he say F you guys then I'm coming back with my Barbarian to kill you all(yawn).

Anyways before he leaves I notice he ran back to town into the corner behind the dude that sells yellows. I immediately thought hey thats the spot I use to mule stuff over, you see I do it all the times in duel rooms. Well the guy leaves and I run over to the coner and sure enough He droped 2 crazy powerful Isted out axes. I forget the name of them but they are popular hacked items with six sockets all with ists.

So dude comes back and he checks the spot and flips out. Starts telling us he'll hack us and other typical nonsense people would say. I just said thanks for the gear and kept dueling, he left saying he was gonna report me to Blizzard that I stole his illegal equipment. Which I thought was mad funny.

Ahhhh good times man.

 

[Zek]

Diablo 2 lost a fair amount of atmosphere but it's by far the more fun game.

 

[Kosma]

I've always thought Diablo 2, even though it didn't have that "dungeon to hell" feel that Diablo had, still had a just as good, albeit different "heart of darkness" feel.

That's a great way of putting it. It is a "heart of darkness" feel.

What kind of feel would you say D3 is aiming for atm?

Diablo III had my hopes high - I dreamed of a return to the focused and darker style of Diablo with the expansive elements of Diablo II. I prefer the older, 2D style. Instead we get ugly and rounded designs a la Warcraft III or WoW. That look does not suit Diablo in the least.

Those were my hopes too, but I'm still sure the game will turn out great. The game itself will undoubtebly be a huge jump in quality again and I'm sure I'll spend tons of time with it.

Hopefully with modern day technology Blizz can include the option to set a darker filter over the world (grain?) and change the color pallete a bit. It still won't change the round Warcraftish looks but it would help a bit.

 

[ArjanN]

D2 is better in every quantifiable way, but it's the sequel. It can never hope to match the impact of Diablo, which is one of the defining titles for the PC.

I kind of liked Diablo 1 better because it was shorter.

In Diablo 2 to clear out a dungeon you need to kill like 1000 skeletons. It's just became kind of an MMO type grind. And I hate MMOs.

 

[Chiggs]

D2 is better in every quantifiable way, but it's the sequel. It can never hope to match the impact of Diablo, which is one of the defining titles for the PC.

God, I really can't wait to read the Diablo 3 thread.

 

[Chris Remo]

I basically agree with the OP.

Diablo 1's single-player atmosphere is unmatched. The music and color design and tone is just amazing--foreboding and memorable and awesome, and really concentrated.

Nothing will ever top the Tristram theme, or the firt time you approach The Butcher and hear "Ahh, fresh meat!"

Diablo 2 was the better "video game," at least when you factored multiplayer into it, which I always did. The classes were much better designed (if less focused), the interface was great, and it was a more expansive and varied overall experience.

Also, people don't really talk about this, but the narrative structure in Diablo 2 is brilliant to me. Telling a parallel, time-shifted story that covers the same geographical ground you do, while being about a different character, is inspired and covers numerous issues simultaneously: conveying a story that is relevant but not necessary to understand your character's specific plot, tying in the events of the first game without requiring knowledge of it, removing any real direct disparity between how specific characters are portrayed in-engine and in cutscenes, providing a really clean overall narrative metaphor for a traditional video game hub-based structure, etc.

It is totally rad and off the top of my head I haven't seen another game pull that specific thing off, and few even really try. A lot of it is what Kojima tried to do with Metal Gear Solod 2 but I think he was enormously less successful than Bluzzard was with Diablo 2.

I'm kind of worried about Diablo 3 in that respect. I don't doubt it will be fun as hell and incredibly well designed, but Diablo 1 and 2 both hit on extremely clever, understated structural and atmospheric elements that I don't think any other Blizzard game has achieved to date.

 

[Blast Processing]

D2 improves upon just about everything as far as playability, but D1 does have the better atmosphere, and Tristram music.

 

[LiK]

Diablo 2. no question. i played this game to death. it was so awesome to play with friends online and doing the Baal and Cow Runs were super fun.

 

[KilledByBill]

Diablo II improved upon the first game in so many areas that in IMO it HAS to be the better game. But Diablo I was fantastic and as others have mentioned in some ways (like atmosphere) was never bested by D2.

In multiplayer, although D2's changes made the game much less frustrating it also took some of the tension out of it. If you were killed by a monster in D1 you dropped all your equipment and I can remember many games were as a stripped down party we'd be fighting to recover our equipment.

I really want to play D2 online again but I'm holding out for the new patch/ladder reset.

 

[gokieks]

Diablo 2, if only because your mouse could actually live through the game due to being able to hold down the button instead of having to keep clicking like you're on crack.

And I liked the environments in D2 better too.

 

[Hootie]

I don't even want to know how many hours I spilled into those games. Beating the last levels of Diablo 1 with my dad were good times, though me and him also played the shit out of Diablo 2 (and still do!)

Of course I think D2 is better, but that's certainly not putting anything against D1. D2 is just flawless. So many items, characters, enemies, environments, spells, etc.

 

[Scrow]

diablo 2 came out in 2000? wow

 

[Redd]

Single Player- Diablo I
MultiPlayer- Diablo II
Overall- Diablo II

Can't wait for Diablo III

 

[The Hermit]

As someone who played and loved Diablo II alot, can I go back to Diablo I?
Until this thread almost everyone told me that Diablo II> Diablo in every single way...

Also I remeber my ex-Gf mentioning alot about the "ha, fresh meat" but i dunno if it was from DI or DII...

 

[Kosma]

Also, people don't really talk about this, but the narrative structure in Diablo 2 is brilliant to me. Telling a parallel, time-shifted story that covers the same geographical ground you do, while being about a different character, is inspired and covers numerous issues simultaneously: conveying a story that is relevant but not necessary to understand your character's specific plot, tying in the events of the first game without requiring knowledge of it, removing any real direct disparity between how specific characters are portrayed in-engine and in cutscenes, providing a really clean overall narrative metaphor for a traditional video game hub-based structure, etc.

It is totally rad and off the top of my head I haven't seen another game pull that specific thing off, and few even really try. A lot of it is what Kojima tried to do with Metal Gear Solod 2 but I think he was enormously less successful than Bluzzard was with Diablo 2.

I'm kind of worried about Diablo 3 in that respect. I don't doubt it will be fun as hell and incredibly well designed, but Diablo 1 and 2 both hit on extremely clever, understated structural and atmospheric elements that I don't think any other Blizzard game has achieved to date.

This is very interesting, I wrote in the OP that I felt somehow disconnected to the locales, but reading your post made me realize thats not the right choice of words. The locales definately felt connected to each other and as another poster said they had that heart of darkness feeling.

There was always this sense of "danger on ahead" in Diablo 2. Different from Diablo 1 indeed. I also wonder if they will be able to recreate such a unique feeling in Diablo 3.

Gameplay wise Blizzard is getting better and better every year it seems, judging by how far WoW has come since launch. But, the WoW universe is getting crazier every year too, more goofy (to appeal to a young demographic?). Some people will say this has always been the case with Warcraft, but the amount of "humor" is really much higher nowadays then let's say in WC3. I hope this doesn't happen too much in D3.

 

[xbhaskarx]

D2 is better, but I enjoyed D1 more at the time and it had a bigger effect on me.

 

[Redd]

As someone who played and loved Diablo II alot, can I go back to Diablo I?
Until this thread almost everyone told me that Diablo II> Diablo in every single way...

Also I remeber my ex-Gf mentioning alot about the "ha, fresh meat" but i dunno if it was from DI or DII...

It was from Diablo I when you meet the Butcher.

 

[vilmer_]

Diablo had The Butcher. Probably my all-time fave character :lol

 

[Chris Remo]

This is very interesting, I wrote in the OP that I felt somehow disconnected to the locales, but reading your post made me realize thats not the right choice of words. The locales definately felt connected to each other and as another poster said they had that heart of darkness feeling.

There was always this sense of "danger on ahead" in Diablo 2. Different from Diablo 1 indeed. I also wonder if they will be able to recreate such a unique feeling in Diablo 3.

Gameplay wise Blizzard is getting better and better every year it seems, judging by how far WoW has come since launch. But, the WoW universe is getting crazier every year too, more goofy (to appeal to a young demographic?). Some people will say this has always been the case with Warcraft, but the amount of "humor" is really much higher nowadays then let's say in WC3. I hope this doesn't happen too much in D3.

Mainly what irritates me about the "humor" (I use the term loosely) in modern WarCraft is that it's not self-contained like in the early WarCraft games. It's very cheap, easy, break-the-fourth-wall kind of stuff, with lots of stupid puns and cheesy jokes and constant pop culture references. I absolutely can't stand it. It's one of the lowest forms of humor to me, and just screams of laziness and shortcuts. There are a lot of reasons I haven't played WoW since 2005 and have no plans to ever play it again, but that's a big one.

I think a big part of it is that Blizzard probably has many times more writers than it has ever had before, just to write all the scores of quests necessary for WoW, and the quality bar has clearly dropped. Much of the humor in modern WarCraft is dumb internet-style humor, and I imagine a lot of the quest and NPC writers just come straight from the internet, with little experience writing for "straighter" games or in any other professional capacity.

I just can't stand it, and I really hope it's not reflective of the people on the Diablo team. To be honest though, I think I'm being pretty realistic about what to expect from Diablo III, and I don't think they'd make the mistake of assigning second-string WoW quest writers to handle that game's story, so that particular area is not a big concern of mine. I just hope that overall attitude to writing hasn't infected the rest of the company, because based on what I've heard, a majority of Blizzard employees, even those on other teams, are WoW fans first and foremost.

 

[CiSTM]

My memories from the first game are very vague so I don't really remember how good or bad it was. I just remember how bad ass Butcher was when you faced him the very first time :lol I enjoyed Diablo 1 far as I can tell but it got bit repeative after a while. Same dungeons after dungeons

Diablo 2 on the other hand is still one of my favorite games. Great action, looting, good sidequests etc. Also I liked the variety of the worlds.

 

[Visualante]

I never spent a great deal of time with Diablo 2, but I felt the first had a better atmosphere and sense of progression. I enjoyed it at a much younger age- only coming to Diablo 2 recently to find it did nothing for me.