I played Diablo II · 12:28am Nov 14th, 2020
From the first right onto the second.
This takes place shortly after the end of the first Diablo game. Tristram has been destroyed, evil continues to walk the land, and once again hero's must arise to solve the problem.
This game has a much larger supply of classes to choose each with unique skills and traits that change how you play the game, but with enough customization to still let you make various builds for each character. This really works in the game's favor giving you multiple options for each class to try out until you find one that you enjoy most.
For example, I started with Barbarian, had a fun build that could cover distances really quickly and wade into a horde of enemies and clean up. But lately I play a druid with a small army and constant recasting of hurricane keeping the screen clear of any threats and letting me walk calmly and enjoy the graphics.
And there's no shortage of specializations to play with, let alone building your own character how you like them.
While the first Diablo had a general story, the sequel has a more structured story to it. Specific quests you'll always get and a narrative these quests flow into. The first game is fun and worth playing, but the addition of the solid narrative that the game followed made it much more satisfying to play.
Among the changes they added a stamina bar which limits how long you can run in the field before taking a break to recharge. They also added mana regeneration, while slow it is incredibly useful in a pinch.
A common thing in the first game was to drop every surplus item you had in town, sometimes resulting in the whole place getting covered in unique items, gold, and potions. This has been addressed in the second game with the addition of the stash. Gold no longer takes up an inventory slot and you can carry it all. Though if you die, you'll lose it as a toll. (And unlike Dark Souls, you can't just recover it by going back to where you died.) While the stash has limits on size, it is a massive improvement over just treating Tristram like your kitchen table after a particularly large shopping trip.
Another incredibly useful addition is the addition of the waypoint. While I'd still suggest carrying around a book of Town Portal (two inventory slots holding up to 20 scrolls instead of sacrificing 20 inventory slots) the waypoint can often save you a massive headache. Especially if you run out of scrolls in the field and need to hurry back to town.
While cutting the belt slots down to 4 isn't as good, you can actually improve that by getting a better belt. So I'd still call this an improvement.
They introduced followers, hired help to make it a little easier. In the early versions you had to hire new help at the beginning of each act, but now you can take your partner with you. Dragging them through the desert, swamps, Mountains, and even the depths of hell. You must have really paid them well.
You can equip your help with items you find/buy and they have traits that can certainly help you. Each act has help according to their area, so don't necessarily just pick one character and stick with them. (even though that's exactly what I do anymore. But nobody can replace Bill the Barbarian and his brother Bob tearing up their ancestral home to hunt Baal.)
Ultimately the game play hasn't changed between the two games, and that makes it great for shifting from one to the next. No new mechanics to learn while starting out, the new things come while you build your character and this gives you a great deal of freedom to how you play. For example: The barbarian jump is great for moving quickly (at high levels), but they don't have to jump at all.
As you are chasing the Dark Wanderer (the Hero of the first game) you are not limited to one town. And each change of location comes with an advancement to the next act, you interact with new people and get to learn about the new location and it's history, making the world feel bigger and your mission more important.
And I have to say, they made hell much more interesting to look at than in the first game.
The base game gives you four acts, ending by destroying the soulstones in Hell, but with the expansion you have one final act. Because you only had two of the three Prime Evils. The final Boss is Baal, Lord of Destruction, and his goal is to corrupt the world stone. That one is kind of sprung on you, I think just chasing down the Lord of Destruction would be enough, but they toss in some lore out of nowhere. They do work to make it fit, but I don't think it was strictly necessary.
In the end, it's up to you to destroy the world stone to save it from corruption. Kind of a Xanatos Gambit there, which was an interesting turn.
With the world stone gone, what more is there?
Ha I remember playing this!
Wow...that takes me back....
I enjoyed 1 but spent so much more time in 2
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While 1 arguably had more to do, 2 was a larger game with how it felt and the story it told as you played. This was an adventure, and not just a dungeon crawler.
When you see people talking about the game of your youth as some ancient classic:
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I was in my teens when I was playing Diablo 2.
I guess I really am old.
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I was thirteen when the game came out, so yeah, time flies fast... Ironically, I never played with other people on the Battlenet, just locally
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Ugh, I'm still older.
I never really did Battle Net either (Of course now it's mandatory for their new games) But in the original Diablo My friend had a reputation on Battle Net as a PKK (Player Killer Killer) People would find him and have him take out players that killed them when they were supposed to be working together. My friend took particular pride in his character being totally legitimate too, especially when his targets were obviously hacked.