Darkstone

"Why this game is a Diablo Clone"

Ok I'm not here to give a normal review. I could use a point system and grade every aspect of the game, but on this one I feel that the other reviews have it summed up pretty good. I am here today to try to give you the best input as to why this game mirrors Diablo.

For starters we can get rid of the classes, races, mana, etc... We are not looking at the fact that they have all humans, and have fighters, thieves, Magic users. All RPG's have them, and I am also not going to compare weapons. One sword looks like another in all RPG's. I am not going to say that this game is a clone of Diablo just because it has the same classes, weapons, and they both have red potions for life, and blue for mana, they both call your magic power mana, and they all fight monsters that look similar.

What I am going to do is take Darkstone and Diablo, for Playstation, and compair them. The only difference in the way both of the games move is Darkstone will let you move your view orientation, and Diablo your stuck with the view you have. Also Diablo characters move diaginally when you push one button, so in order to make them move straight up you have to hold up and left, or up and right. Darkstone characters will move freely in whatever direction you push on the D-pad.

They also have very similar control configurations. For example; You assign a magic power to your L1 and R1 buttons, and use the L2 and R2 buttons for belt pouch 1 and 2. Diablo even has skills such as repairing items that are assigned the same way, just like Darkstone's skills. To use your weapons you hit X in both games. To use scrolls you have to assign them to a belt pouch, in both games.

Now lets look at the voices, or sound effects for different things the characters do. In Diablo when you run out of mana your character says, ''Not enough mana,'' and in Darkstone they say ''I do not have enough mana.'' These are way to similar to be just coincidence. It's been so long since I have played Diablo that I can't remember if what the characters say when they are low on life. I thought it was ''Help me please!'', but I can't remember.

The similarities in how certain items work also make you wonder how they could repeat the same game without getting sued. The main one that I find between the 2 of them is the scroll and spell of Town Portal/Magic door. In Diablo its called Town Portal, and when you use it you get a humanoid shadow that you can walk through to get back to town from a level in dungeon. The shadow is always in the same place in the town, and after you use it to get back to the level it disappears. In Darkstone you use Magic door, and it creates a circular ''stargate'' looking vortex that has the exact same effect as Diablo's Town Portal, it even appears in the exact same spot in town every time.

Ok now lets get into the handling of the game. Both games have identical moving ability. A real time, non-turn based battle setting. With both of them operating identicly in all forms of battle, and casting magic. Not to mention opening doors, chests, and such.

So whith all this similarity you can see why Darkstone is a clone. Even the graphics are similar. Sometimes when playing one I can get mixed up on which game im playing. The realy tell tail signs of which game I'm playing is that Darkstone has all the levels broken up. Each dungeon has only 4 levels, where as Diablo has 1 continuous dungeon.

In conclusion, yes this game is basicly diablo without the 2 player capability. Yes it is a clone of Diablo, meaning that it moves the same, has the same feel, the same look, and if you didn't pay attention to the title you would swear your playing Diablo. I'm not going to point out that this one has this sword, which makes it different, or better. If you have played one of these games you can pretty well say you know how the other one plays.

I like both of these games. I like Diablo's 2 player functionality more then the mono player Darkstone, but hey everyone has there own opinion as to what makes a game good.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 02/02/02, Updated 02/02/02