Diablo II

"A year-late review"

Yes, I am writing this review nearly a year after I got the game...why? Because I've just recently re-discovered it, after it's been collecting dust on my shelf for about six months...I got into Ever Quest (which I am now bored to tears with) and Baldur's Gate II. But since I've been playing this, at two years, it's still as good as it was when it was released.

Before I begin, let me say that I play single player most of the time. I have almost always prefered single player to multi player in most PC games (call me crazy). While I DO play multi-player, keep in mind that these are the opinions of a SP heavy player.

Graphics: MUCH better than the graphics in the first Diablo. The characters are all rendered and animated well, and the special spells and skills all look pretty. Whereas in the first game, there was one look for light/no armor, medium armor, and heavy armor, and one look for each weapon type, this is not the case; holding a tiny dagger looks different than swining a massive two-handed sword, like it should; a tiny buckler looks different than a kite shield, etc. etc. etc. The backgrounds are nice and detailed as well, and are fluidly animated. Lightning bolts no longer look like a bunch of blue squigly lines hooked together, they look like lightning bolts. FMV scenes are also very pretty, nothing near the likes of Squaresoft.

Sound: The music is nice, but nothing spectacular. One interesting note is that when you go back to the town in the original Diablo, it's the same town music that was in the original Diablo. The hit effects sound nice, and the spell effects are pretty nice too. The voice acting, while better than in Diablo I, is still not that great.

Gameplay: While it is the same click click click splurch type game of Diablo I, the gameplay is leaps and bounds ahead of it. It has a MUCH more strategic element to it. While in Diablo II, there were only a few differences between the character classes; Looks, starting stats, stat caps, weapon speed, and casting speed, and ONE special abilitiy. A warrior could cast spells, and a sorcerer could fight. Diablo II has five all-new classes, above D1's three; the Amazon, who uses bows, javelins and spears, the paladin, a knight of rightousness and virtue, the barbarian, the completely unsubtle warrior, the sorceress, who makes use of a number of elemental spells, and the necromancer, who cast spells related to life and death. Now, In D2, each different class has 3 'skill trees.' These each contain different skills that the character can use that have their different abilities. Each of the skill trees are considerably different, for example, the Paladin's skill trees are Offensive Auras, Defensive Auras, and combat skills. Every level, you can put one point in any skill on any skill tree. As you gain levels, you gain access to new skills, but some skills require that you have another skill on the same tree. The Amazon needs to know fire arrow to learn explosive arrow, for instance. As you put more points into skills, they become more useful. With this system, characters become very customizable. With some classes, you need to make a clear decision on how you want them to progress, i.e., a Sorceress must choose whether to specialize in fire, ice, or lightning spells, whereas with some classes, like the necromancer, it's a bit less clear cut; you need to make use of certain skills in all skill trees. Nonetheless, no two characters are going to be identical.

Multi-player gameplay has been enhanced by leaps and bounds. For example, you can now choose how many players can come into the game, their level range, etc. 8 players are allowed in MP games now, as opposed to D1's four. Cheating has been largely eliminated, thus you don't have to plaster ''Legit Only No Pks'' on all your games. You also cannot attack other players (at least in the realms) unless you announce your hostility first. Players can also 'party together' to share experience and gold. However, within the first week, you saw a gazillion level 50+ characters running around. Also, other characters tend to 'streamline' meaning they only put skill points into the high level skills and their pre-requisites, thus making someone who wants to play a more 'balanced' character at a disadvantage.

Replayability: This game is huge, with 4 different areas to play in. As long as it is, you'll probably want to play it more than once, since there's an infinite ammount of different types of characters you can make. You can make a barbarian who is an expert at warcries, or a necromancer whose sole function is to use curses to help his party, and for those who like Multi-player, there's always that.

This is a nice game, I recomend you play it. Right now I'm saving up to get the expansion.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 07/24/01, Updated 07/24/01