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Is Diablo 2 worth going back to atm?

Obviously? It's the best in the series.

And thanks to Ressurected, it's brain-dead easy to get into. And it's often updated. I suspect that some may not be on the same vibe and not get into it because the Normal difficulty is very easy and the first couple of acts are slow.. so keep that in mind. It has the best loot itemization ever, so it'll hook you.

I wouldn't invest much time into it tho, because you'll risk getting burned out. Diablo II (and the original Diablo) have a thick, memorable atmosphere heightened by a brilliant soundtrack and art design. The story is very memorable as well, very unique take on angels and demons. Casually play the Normal difficulty soaking up that atmosphere and move on. I would also highly recommend checking the original Diablo as well. Grab it off GOG.com and apply the HD mod for it.

It is always, always worth checking out a series roots. It gives you a better frame of reference and knowledge regarding lore, story, plot, etc. which significantly enhances your experience with a later entry.
Bought D2:Ressurcted on sale couple of days ago. Still best Diablo there is. So much fun. And its perfect to kill time until D4 lands.

The only thing that D2 struggles with it inventory management on consoles, its not the best.
 
I mean, saying the game is too easy because you used a minmax build that nobody who hasn't played hundreds of hours would ever know about is kind of an unfair complaint because you are in no way representative of a new player. And the reason it is so easy on normal is because you can easily fuck yourself over with builds going in blind, so they have to balance it so you can still realistically complete the game.

I didn't say it was too easy, although yeah sure, trapsin is an easy build to play. That's not the issue. It's more that compared to modern ARPGs, most of the time you're going to be spamming one or two skills the whole game. D2 is way more about optimising gear and numbers than using a colourful array of abilities like, say, D3. Not that that's inherently a bad thing at all but it's a much different game by virtue of it being 20 years old.

Again, not recommending OP avoids it, but you have to go in knowing that it'll feel a bit dated.
 
Basically I am looking forward to 4 and played a lot of 3 where I started, the remastered version is currently in a decent sale on PS5, is it worth a look whilst waiting for 4 at this point or should I just wait?
Got 1,5k+ hours in d2r and mods from its launch in oct 2021, counting online and offline together, its best game in the series.
As a guy who maxed d4 beta barb and necro to lvl 25 and equipped in full legendary gear- mechanics from d2r are still much better and arent seen in d4 afrer so many years, for example- in d4 u can only have 6 skills, u dont even have mercenaries there, or runewords, which are staples of hack and slash genre and beloved mechanics by every1 :)

Graphics/sounds/funwise u will not be dissapointed at all.
Only one flaw but thats for ppl who want imediate reward- game is really hard, think souls series hard, for a newbie who doesnt know tons of hidden knownedge, ofc u got all the info about it on the net, all of if it english so expect to be forced to watch few d2r youtubers and take advantage of sites describing builds/runes/runewords, cube recipes and such.
Game is made for oldschool players- not for kids who like moba/minecraft/fortnite.
There are tricks to make it much easier but only if u are in the know, chosing proper build/ smart choice of gear, game is extremly satisfying and has hidden 2nd and 3rd floor of playstyle/master lvl, and has very big community of very addicted fanatics(im one of them so i know ;p).

U can play d2r in 2 ways- casual beating game on normal difficulty just for fun/get to know story and how game looks/feels, or u can then go like in d3 with ur character on nightmare and hell difficulty to experience actual challenge and discover actual d2r gameplay.

D2r is so hardcore than as a veteran player u can still remember where and when some of most rarest drops happened for u, same with me- rarest rune in the game-called zod- i found it only once in those 1500h+, online on secret cow lvl playing on my summoner necro- u dont get this feeling from any other game- dopamine rush when finally after hours(or sometimes days or months) u finally get that omega rare drop that u only saw on screenies/youtube videos.
 
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Tetris inventory sim. If that's what you are looking for, then have at it. Game aged terribly imo.
Aged terribly vs what other game in the genre, and in what aspect, coz u just giving negative opinion w/o actually giving any kind of arguments here, hard to take it seriously .
 
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Should play Last Epoch on PC instead. It's early access but it is 95% complete and is currently the best ARPG out there right now. Not as dumb as Diablo but not as complex as POE either. It's a fantastic game and will easily scratch that ARPG itch until Diablo IV comes out.
 
Got 1,5k+ hours in d2r and mods from its launch in oct 2021, counting online and offline together, its best game in the series.
As a guy who maxed d4 beta barb and necro to lvl 25 and equipped in full legendary gear- mechanics from d2r are still much better and arent seen in d4 afrer so many years, for example- in d4 u can only have 6 skills, u dont even have mercenaries there, or runewords, which are staples of hack and slash genre and beloved mechanics by every1 :)

Graphics/sounds/funwise u will not be dissapointed at all.
Only one flaw but thats for ppl who want imediate reward- game is really hard, think souls series hard, for a newbie who doesnt know tons of hidden knownedge, ofc u got all the info about it on the net, all of if it english so expect to be forced to watch few d2r youtubers and take advantage of sites describing builds/runes/runewords, cube recipes and such.
Game is made for oldschool players- not for kids who like moba/minecraft/fortnite.
There are tricks to make it much easier but only if u are in the know, chosing proper build/ smart choice of gear, game is extremly satisfying and has hidden 2nd and 3rd floor of playstyle/master lvl, and has very big community of very addicted fanatics(im one of them so i know ;p).

U can play d2r in 2 ways- casual beating game on normal difficulty just for fun/get to know story and how game looks/feels, or u can then go like in d3 with ur character on nightmare and hell difficulty to experience actual challenge and discover actual d2r gameplay.

D2r is so hardcore than as a veteran player u can still remember where and when some of most rarest drops happened for u, same with me- rarest rune in the game-called zod- i found it only once in those 1500h+, online on secret cow lvl playing on my summoner necro- u dont get this feeling from any other game- dopamine rush when finally after hours(or sometimes days or months) u finally get that omega rare drop that u only saw on screenies/youtube videos.
Obbiously you love d2 (rightfully so), but you are throwing hyperbole after hyperbole. Its not a hard game, runewards are nice to have, but a functioning crafting system will always be better - which d2 doesn't have. That dopamone rush of finding s rare item is something you get in every game that has you finding something extremely rare, come on now. D2(r) is a great arpg, no doubt, but far from being the best today.

Just my 2 ith.
 
It's a good game. The shared inventory chest between characters is cool and adds a whole lot of replayability when playing different classes.
 
Basically I am looking forward to 4 and played a lot of 3 where I started, the remastered version is currently in a decent sale on PS5, is it worth a look whilst waiting for 4 at this point or should I just wait?
Diablo 4 beta was the first time I've played anything from this franchise and I loved it. So I decided to buy the Diablo 2 +3 bundle which is currently on sale on PSN for $20 and I'm having a blast with Diablo 3. I will play Diablo 2 eventually but I'm focusing on Diablo 3 first so i can get ready to 4.
 
Aged terribly vs what other game in the genre, and in what aspect, coz u just giving negative opinion w/o actually giving any kind of arguments here, hard to take it seriously .
Inventory management is trash. That's exactly what I was saying. And aged terribly meaning some of the systems are not good any more (ie inventory management).

Edit - to add, I love Diablo 3 and am looking forward to 4, so this isn't a random bash on the game.
 
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Loved 2 back in the but after the remaster came out it made realize how much of a decent job blizzard did with 3, even though i still hate 3s art style but never realised how annoying 2s inventory really was
 
I didn't say it was too easy, although yeah sure, trapsin is an easy build to play. That's not the issue. It's more that compared to modern ARPGs, most of the time you're going to be spamming one or two skills the whole game. D2 is way more about optimising gear and numbers than using a colourful array of abilities like, say, D3. Not that that's inherently a bad thing at all but it's a much different game by virtue of it being 20 years old.

Again, not recommending OP avoids it, but you have to go in knowing that it'll feel a bit dated.
Not if you play controller and throw to concept of optimizing your build out of the window and just play for fun. Thing about controller is you have a second skill bar, so you can put all most of the skills on your bar, allowing you to do hybrid druid where you are a wolf/bear and can go human form to cast a few spells at command.

Or you can have a barbarian will all his fun skills.

The way everyone plays diablo where they use the same two skills over and over and where the screen is deleted right after teleporting.

Unfortunately my idea if what is fun is different to everyone else. Diablo4 doesn't seem to have this second skill bar which is also going to turn it into a brain dead spam same skills game.
 
You can always identify the dude that knows jack shit about D2 by the one with this take right here.
Playing a sorc first doesnt make the other classes irrelevant but he's kind of right in how playing the sorc first to blitz through the game and farm items, makes the other classes really easy to start with and twink afterwards
 
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I played through it with a friend a couple months back and we both honestly were just pushing through it by act 2.

It's a very dated game that lacks a lot of QOL changes and is extremely stingy with loot. There was never a single moment where it felt like any of the loot was interesting or made any difference.

You're also allowed to respec once during your playthough. If you're not looking up builds beforehand then you better be happy with the choices you made.

I'm sure the game was great at the time of release but not so anymore.
This. I feel like I'm going crazy reading the replies in this thread. Diablo II is not fun
 
I'm having fun. The new terror zones and sunder charms introduced in Season 2 are fun addition. After 4's beta ended I started up a hardcore ladder season 3 character and accidentally got one shot by Diablo in Nightmare when I stopped paying attention for a second. I'm currently making my way back to that but I don't know how long I'll keep with it. To be honest, I'm more interested in PoE's new league that starts on Friday.
 
Inventory management is trash. That's exactly what I was saying. And aged terribly meaning some of the systems are not good any more (ie inventory management).

Edit - to add, I love Diablo 3 and am looking forward to 4, so this isn't a random bash on the game.
Its ok, personally i prefer to play d2r modded, which solves inventory management for the most part, i played few hundred hours of d3 at launch, all classes maxed with back then best possible gear, so i got direct comparision.
I definitely can attest for true hardcore diablo series fans diablo 3 was huge downgrade vs d1/d2, not only in candy-looking graphics/ very cliche story but most of all with simply gameplay of having many/all ur skills on cd, playestyle of d2(d2r) is far different- it still had amazing mechanics and i apreciate(ed) it for them- nemezis system and very dynamic skill tree/paragon tree- just to name the 2 most memorable ones.

Ofc its imho, d3 with reaper of souls was still amazing game in hack and slash genre, just nowhere near close replayability/fun to d2lod/d2r, as proven by my time spent in game, again 300h maybe bit more in d3ros expack, and 1,5k hours+ in d2r alone on top of few k hours in og d2 lod =D

Some games are made for/beloved by casuals more, some, much harder ones that require srs digging in and mastering- are usually adored by its most hardcore fanatics- thats how cookie crumbles, i loved d3 for the time i played it- again few hundred hours- so months of playtime, just later it suddenly wasnt as fun, while d2r is much more longterm experience if u decide u want it to be- no such option in d3 :D
 
I started the series in D3, loved it. Bought D2R day one, couldnt stand it. So much shit just aggravated me about it and I gave up in Act 3
 
So funny story, after the Diablo IV beta and reinstalled Diablo III in the first time in well... forever and thought I would give it a go again...

Jesus Christ, people talk about the difference in tone between Diablo II and III at launch, but I totally get it now. When Diablo III came out it had been years since I last played Diablo II so I didn't really get the issue, but after Diablo IV so recently its such a difference literally night and day. Like Diablo III is some sort of Warcraft 3 mod map, with cartoon characters.

So I ended up buying resurrection, and it is MUCH closer to Diablo IV from III. Yes its dated and is that older type of game, but I just cannot playing Diablo III after the IV beta. II on the other hand is still great, and the remaster looks excellent.
 
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It's very much worth checking out if you can find it cheap. But I find it hard to recommend to anyone that hasn't already played it unless I know that they can understand and accept that the game is ancient and some of those cracks are very wide.

Exactly how I feel about its contemporary Starcraft 1. Masterpiece, but some of those cracks are really gaping if you didn't play it back then and "get it", so you hesitate to recommend it. Sequels have an annoying tendency to be more approachable, while failing in other areas that made the og good 🤷‍♂️
 
Diablo 2 is always worth going back to, imo. There's a reason it's an all-time classic and people still revisit it. I think a lot of it boils down how you well you can handle the late 90s/early 2000s game design.

Modern conveniences in games is a double edged sword for some people.
 
You can always identify the dude that knows jack shit about D2 by the one with this take right here.
That moment you think you're smart but don't understand just how much better sorc is than every other class starting off.

Sorcs are speed farming by the end of normal while every other class waddles around for days worth of play time until they eventually get access to engima. Sorcs already have built in anti immunity and a level 6 counter skill with almost entirely uncontested DPS with just 1 skill point investment.

But hey, if you want to gimp yourself, go ahead and start with a different class. While you're struggling to finish norm I'll be speed farming hell.
 
I never played D2 in it's hayday, I tried D2:R out and just couldn't get into it. I think I got to the expansion and never finished it. I'm definitely more of a casual ARPG fan though, I'll take Torchlight II and D3 over D2 and PoE any day of the week.
I had the opposite experience. I played the hell out of D2:R and fired up 3 somewhat recently after the D4 beta and was a little turned off by the fact that it seemed to be easy mode Diablo. I don't necessarily dislike it but I felt a lot more freedom with D2. What I played of the 4 beta seemed more like D3 but I enjoyed it more
 
Do it. I bought it on sale last week and have been hooked on it the past two nights. I've only ever played 3 and D4 beta and I'm enjoying it a lot.
 
It's a good game but I find myself too often heading back to the village to clear my inventory because it's full after picking up like five weapons. You also have to manage your potions. There might be an appeal to this if you're like inventory management as part of the core experience, but I do not anymore in these games; at least not to this degree.

Also, the terrain is almost always flat and lacks verticality so even if it looks modern from the engine and visuals effects, its geometry design of the levels still feels dated.

It's also more challenging, which I really enjoy at times. You don't have like 16 difficulty levels as in D3 which you can always change on the fly. 'Normal' difficulty, the lowest, can already be quite challenging at times. You have to improve your build, gear or play if you want to proceed after meeting too tough enemies, whereas D3 can be set as low as a walk in the park.
 
Hmmm level 40 amazon end of act 1 nightmare

This lightning javelin amazon is hilarious. I just poke a group and they are nuked.
Got all my res up to min of 20% so 🥲
 
That moment you think you're smart but don't understand just how much better sorc is than every other class starting off.

Sorcs are speed farming by the end of normal while every other class waddles around for days worth of play time until they eventually get access to engima. Sorcs already have built in anti immunity and a level 6 counter skill with almost entirely uncontested DPS with just 1 skill point investment.

But hey, if you want to gimp yourself, go ahead and start with a different class. While you're struggling to finish norm I'll be speed farming hell.

there's so many different ways to approach starting fresh and the economy. sorc is just one of them. yeah cool you can teleport around and farm mephisto/andy/ancient tunnels, there's other viable and equally good ways to do it.

could go trapsin and farm keys early season. trapsin can target farm every key with ease.
smiter is by far the cheapest class to kill ubers on and people will pay big for you to carry them early season
hdin/fohdin/zon and target HRs in chaos or cows. more rng involved but a few decent runes puts you way ahead of whatever you're selling on your sorc. the items you're targeting on a sorc (shako, arachs, etc) drop in value pretty fast.
hork barb and farm trav/gamble

you can farm a +teleport staff in like 5 minutes

the changes they've made in D2R like terror zones have made the playing field even more level.

on top of that, even if you start as sorc, it doesn't make other classes irrelevant. sorc isn't even the best mfer for end game. season 2 i ran a smiter and within the first week of selling ubers i was already on a basically bis horker barb which is leagues better than a sorc at farming.

sorc also isn't even that much faster at playing through the game. if you're going entirely solo you'll save a couple hours normal>hell with barb being the big exception.
 
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Was thinking the same myself lately, that beta got me haha. Got it when it came out but played only like 15 hours in or so. Hmmmm
 
I know I'm mostly alone with this opinion but I don't think it has aged well.

Was my absolute favorite game at the time and I've probably played through it like 10 times but I absolutely couldn't get into the remaster. Combat just doesn't hold. Clicking everything to death and spamming 1 skill, annoying inventory management, annoying hp/mana potion system.
 
Obbiously you love d2 (rightfully so), but you are throwing hyperbole after hyperbole. Its not a hard game, runewards are nice to have, but a functioning crafting system will always be better - which d2 doesn't have. That dopamone rush of finding s rare item is something you get in every game that has you finding something extremely rare, come on now. D2(r) is a great arpg, no doubt, but far from being the best today.

Just my 2 ith.
Any time someone throws around the fact that people who don't like a game is because it's not Minecraft or some shit, you know you're dealing with a pleb and ita best to stop reading there and then lol
 
Got the platinum trophy in season 2. Started a new character again in season 3. And then another one. And then another one.

D2 is the GOAT arpg; anyone arguing otherwise is being disingenuous. Absolutely worth playing.
 
could go trapsin and farm keys early season. trapsin can target farm every key with ease.
You're not starting the game farming keys
smiter is by far the cheapest class to kill ubers on and people will pay big for you to carry them early season
You're not starting the game clearing ubers
hdin/fohdin/zon and target HRs in chaos or cows. more rng involved but a few decent runes puts you way ahead of whatever you're selling on your sorc. the items you're targeting on a sorc (shako, arachs, etc) drop in value pretty fast.
hork barb and farm trav/gamble
You're not starting the game farming hell chaos or cows.

What part of "do anything but start off with a sorc" did you fail to read?

Sorcs are farming hell long before any other class comes online.

They are already farming uber smite gear. They are already farming HRs for Hdins. They are already farming Java gear.

I started D2R casually 2 days ago, I could already teleport around endlessly before I even finished act 2 nightmare and even earlier with the help of the odd mana pot.

So I'll say again, the D2 autistic fucks cries about early game class balance in D4 are fucking stupid. Just like their crying about dungeon randomness just after they finish their 2000th trav run.
 
You're not starting the game farming keys

You're not starting the game clearing ubers

You're not starting the game farming hell chaos or cows.

What are you even on about? Yes you are? The game itself takes like fucking 6 hours to go through lol, less if you're starting on a new ladder and playing with others. Maybe if you're only ever playing SSF you have a point. These are all the things you would be doing once you've gone through the game. A Trapsin can start farming keys immediately after finishing hell, a budget smiter can be clearing ubers by the end of the first day of ladder and can sell for consistently good prices for like two weeks while your sorc is sitting there hoping a shako drops before the value plummets to a pul, hammerdin can farm chaos basically immediately.
What part of "do anything but start off with a sorc" did you fail to read?\

I guess I missed the part where you defined start off as the first 30 minutes of the experience and only within SSF parameters.

Sorcs are farming hell long before any other class comes online.

They are already farming uber smite gear. They are already farming HRs for Hdins. They are already farming Java gear.

Except they aren't. An Assassin can be farming keys at basically the same time a sorc is farming "hell" (which is really just mephisto and andy). A smiter can be selling ubers around the same time. A HDin can be farming chaos. A zon can be farming cows. A horker can be doing trav. etc.

I started D2R casually 2 days ago.

I can tell.
 
I know I'm mostly alone with this opinion but I don't think it has aged well.

Was my absolute favorite game at the time and I've probably played through it like 10 times but I absolutely couldn't get into the remaster. Combat just doesn't hold. Clicking everything to death and spamming 1 skill, annoying inventory management, annoying hp/mana potion system.

Most of the ppl who adore this game have nostalgia for it. Since D2 this genre has been done better by many others, but this was the original king and many ppl will never admit its been improved on since. The problem with a lot of those ppl is they are blind to how poorly this has aged.
 
Most of the ppl who adore this game have nostalgia for it. Since D2 this genre has been done better by many others, but this was the original king and many ppl will never admit its been improved on since. The problem with a lot of those ppl is they are blind to how poorly this has aged.
POE to me is the only argument for done better as it's directly trying to evolve D2 and the things people like about it.

It's been done different by other games - D3 for example prioritized streamlined action. Some may prefer that, but it's different and not necessarily better.
 
Most of the ppl who adore this game have nostalgia for it. Since D2 this genre has been done better by many others, but this was the original king and many ppl will never admit its been improved on since. The problem with a lot of those ppl is they are blind to how poorly this has aged.
D1 was the original king. I played a lot of D1, but once D2 released I moved on to it and played on and off for years.
Played a few hundred hours of D3, but after moved back to D2 as I'd still rather play that over D3.

Just picked up D2R recently and have been playing through it. Seems okay so far and has a lot of QoL improvements for people new to D2. Especially with inventory space and not having to click on everything (gold).

Interesting reading the comments here about diablo 2's inventory issues. At the time it was a great improvement over the D1 inventory system. (5000 gold per slot, haha)
I did replay D1 about a year ago and still enjoyed playing through it. Much different experience compared to D2 and D3.

Edit:
Inventory looking like this in D1:

Or just dumping everything in Tristram because you couldn't carry it all.
https://diablo2.diablowiki.net/File:D1-stash1.gif
 
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ok, I finally started it today for a couple of hours and yea I can see why people like this, its brutal in the beggining, so it dropped me in (I'm a sorcerer) with vague directions to a Den of Evil and then an objective to clear it out, did that whilst dying once and barely having any recovery items, then back to town with a lot of items for other classes I could sell

Then I have a quest for somewhere near the Cold Plains, but now have Armor!
 
I played through the D2 remake and the drop rates were awful. I think I had the same set of armor for most of the game and really didn't get that great of weapons until much later and then only a few of them.
 
I played through the D2 remake and the drop rates were awful. I think I had the same set of armor for most of the game and really didn't get that great of weapons until much later and then only a few of them.
bruh MF also BRUH i have 14 loot chars juts to dump all my shit
 
What are you even on about? Yes you are? The game itself takes like fucking 6 hours to go through lol, less if you're starting on a new ladder and playing with others. Maybe if you're only ever playing SSF you have a point. These are all the things you would be doing once you've gone through the game. A Trapsin can start farming keys immediately after finishing hell, a budget smiter can be clearing ubers by the end of the first day of ladder and can sell for consistently good prices for like two weeks while your sorc is sitting there hoping a shako drops before the value plummets to a pul, hammerdin can farm chaos basically immediately.
Ah yes, people are starting off near enough to record speedrun times. Funny how speerunning shows the dominance of the sorc at the start of the game though.

But cool, you need a group of 7 other D2 autists doing exact planned group activities to do what a single solo sorc player can accomplish.

And tell me more about how reliant you are on getting lucky drops because your build is slow as molasses until enigma. Oh you can Hdin chaos? wow, it only takes you twice as long as poorly geared sorc can, I guess you couldn't rely on forge dropping jah and ber for you.

I can tell.

*after well over 5000 hours of original diablo 2 lod.

So, again, sorc makes every other class irrelevant starting off, and everything you're posting is just proving it.

7h27sb.jpg
 
I've put a few hours in now and I can definitely see why that is a time sink, but some QoL features are really hurting it, a good example, where the fuck do I go, at least give me some direction, I'm still in Act 1, on Quest 3 and all I'm told is go through the Dark Woods, where the fuck is that? I've gone back to the Burial Grounds and its not there, logically it would be as thats the progression, but nope

I did allow a couple of new people to join though, they helped kinda, but they seemed to be aimless as well

At this point I may call it there and just wait for 4, but I dunno, theres something here for me I think, maybe I'll look up a guide
 
I've put a few hours in now and I can definitely see why that is a time sink, but some QoL features are really hurting it, a good example, where the fuck do I go, at least give me some direction, I'm still in Act 1, on Quest 3 and all I'm told is go through the Dark Woods, where the fuck is that? I've gone back to the Burial Grounds and its not there, logically it would be as thats the progression, but nope

I did allow a couple of new people to join though, they helped kinda, but they seemed to be aimless as well

At this point I may call it there and just wait for 4, but I dunno, theres something here for me I think, maybe I'll look up a guide

If you have it on PC, I'd be happy to show you the ropes (this goes to anybody else, as well).

For your current predicament, go back to the Cold Plains and look out for a different exit that isn't Burial Grounds.


The game itself takes like fucking 6 hours to go through lol,
You're also being far too harsh. The moment you said this, you made it clear that you don't understand the conversation.

For a brand new player, D2 is not a fast game.

So I'll say again, the D2 autistic fucks cries about early game class balance in D4 are fucking stupid. Just like their crying about dungeon randomness just after they finish their 2000th trav run.
This, however, is also wrong.
D4's level design has already proven to be extremely restricted compared to D2's.
I haven't played enough of D4 to discuss character balancing, but chances are it could use some tweaking (as is the case with most games).
 
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