Today I’ll write about Diablo II. Another game from my childhood. I remember it much-much-much worse because I played it when I was a little older and had a lot of other games to play. Still, Diablo II was one of my favorite games. Paradox – I don’t remember much about it, but at the same moment, I like it. I heard they did the remake of the classic game, and it is even fairly alright, so maybe I’ll play it in the future (when I’ll have more free time on my hands and maybe would like to waste it playing the game which basically synonymous to time-eater).
Anyway, Diablo II. It is special because I remember the day when my dad bought it. He returned from a business trip, I think it was early spring, and brought a box with the game. It had two CDs, and it was perhaps the first licensed game I ever saw in my life (spoiler: it was also the first ever CD I saw to explode in the drive, but about it later).
I hurried to install it and played it. And my mind was blown. Plot-wise – I didn’t really understand what was going on except maybe that there was a dude from the first game (perhaps warrior) who went crazy and accepted Diablo (turns out he was one of the brothers of Chaos, Prince of Hell, and something else to it) as his lord and savior. And now he traversed the deserts and the fields, corrupted everything he touched, raised armies of hell, and acted like a total and complete dickhead. Or something like that. I played it very long ago and don’t remember the game this well.
But I remember how I started playing it. First of all, I was shocked, mesmerized, and pleasantly surprised by the character selection screen. Instead of pictures of the character and basic description (like class, and that’s pretty much it), there were 3D models (and 3D was really cool), animated, making sounds. Standing around the bonfire and looking at you with silent hatred and determination (one of these two, maybe both, I don’t know). If I recall it correctly, there were four classes: paladin, necromancer, barbarian, amazon. In the DLC (which I didn’t play), I think they added two more classes like assassin and shaman (or something like that, correct me if I’m wrong).
So, I chose paladin because he was the knight, and knights were cool (he had plate armor, alright?) and started my journey. First thing first. I was just in fucking awe when found out that now we could run around the surface. That was so fucking cool. I’ve been dreaming about it while playing Diablo I. I wanted this to happen, and now it happened, and that was just fucking awesome. There was also some significant increase in quality of life. They added teleportation points for every zone. They added chapters, and (hold your tits, ladies, and gentlemen) those chapters were separate journeys with separate worlds, enemies, atmosphere. This was so freaking cool.
They also added a lot of different things with identification of the loot and upgradability with the help of crystals (yeah, now our hero is like spiritually enhanced mom – puts crystals in everything he owns) and basically doing all sorts of weird shit just to get so needed edge over the enemies. And enemies here were tough as hell. They added mini-bosses capable of turning your life living hell, I still remember when I was little and dumb and went fighting some zombies with elemental counter-buffs. And they shot lightning and fire, I suppose, you know, like fucking avatar kind of bullshit (final fight between two retards, where they basically spammed fire and lightning all along while trying to teramorph the whole world). Should I say my paladin’s ass was bent into an iron flower in a second or two. Very realistic depiction of what happens to you if you’re not really into elemental bullshido.
Anyway, this game blew my mind. It had so much cool stuff, and I can swear I forgot 90% of it, but what I still remember – how I fucked up. So, in this game, they added sprint and stamina. Now your character could run. Why? Because sometimes it gets boring to walk through the dungeons, especially when you’re doing a quest on taking out every enemy in the cave, and there is one motherfucker left who got lost, and now you wander around trying to find the bitch and bring some light into this kingdom of eternal darkness. Running helps. Not much, but still. Much better than before.
And when I discovered running, I also discovered speed-running. But not like those real speed-running dudes do – finding the best way to glitch through the game, kill the boss and save the world from eternal doom in thirty minutes. I did it my way. Feel it? Because that’s how stupidity feels like. So, since I was so good at running, I decided I could run through the whole first chapter without spending too much time on such bullshit like quests, leveling up, and all that crap (funny where my brains went since the first instance of the game and understanding of basic munchkin playstyle). I just ran. I ran through fields, I ran through caves, through castles, and chambers. I ran past a lot of enemies and reached the end of the first chapter in no time.
Now, I won’t tell you whether I really ignored all the quests or did a few of them to progress and get access to the boss of the chapter, since I don’t remember. But what I remember – how I entered the dungeon where the boss of the chapter was. And if I’m not mistaken, it was some kind of lady with spider legs on her back (or she had a spider body and the top of a chick; I don’t really know). What I know and remember for sure – the second I entered this room, things got bad for me. Really-really-really bad. Like a fucking shit-show kind of bad. Because the second I got there, I was introduced to some hardcore ass-bending with elements I didn’t know because a) I didn’t watch Avatar till 2019; b) I think Avatar wasn’t created when I played Diablo II; c) what is the deal with the Avatar comic books anyway? I mean, there’s like a lot of them, they all look like something I might enjoy, but I have no clue where to start, and at this point desire to know more intensifies…
Alright, I messed up. I understood my mistake. Did I learn from it? No, somehow, I finished the first chapter, moved on to the second (the desert one), and did pretty much the same. And got pretty much the same result. And it was years before Far Cry 3 was released, and my dumb ass found out about doing the same thing, and expecting different results might be a sign of being one crazy motherfucker. Well, I was stubborn. Besides, I liked the game so much I couldn’t wait to see what else there was. Long story short, it took me some time to get past the second chapter. And when I reached the third one (I think it was the swamps), that’s where the game became disproportionally hardcore. I think I leveled up my character in the wrong way, and by the time I reached the third chapter, any basic crowd of mobs evaporated my ass into oblivion. I sucked at the game, alright? I’m not even going to pretend that I prevailed, raised to the challenge, and crushed my enemies. No. I dropped the game.
Yeah, my favorite game. It was so much beloved that I replayed the first chapter over and over and over again. And I aced it. And maybe because of that, I still remember the first half of the first chapter by heart. I remember mercenaries, the fight in the cemetery, and all the other nice and cool stuff I did there. I remember even hiring amazons to run with me and do some serious damage, and could you believe it, those amazons even had names. So it’s like they became part of your little family, and you took it damn personally when they died. Nice game, perfect game, I have to finish it someday.
So yeah, I think I knew one guy who finished Diablo II from start to finish and did it even on perma-death mode. And he was hardcore. He told me something about it, but I never did it myself. Once again, I replayed the first chapter over and over and over again and enjoyed the part of Diablo I found the most interesting. And since I didn’t know what happens in other chapters, this part was the only interesting part – the desert was too damn strange, and the swamps were boring and hard. Oh, also, they added a change of night and day. I don’t remember whether it had some real impact on the gameplay, but it was a really cool thing to have. Helped you to immerse in the world better. And also, they added a chest! See? I remember something little by little.
I think I also enjoyed having a trip to Tristram to save Deckard Cane (I think that’s how he was called) and seeing my favorite town burned down, swarmed by demons, and those bitches left from one-leg boy Virt only his wooden leg. Fucking animals, but you have an opportunity to get even by bludgeoning them to death with the said wooden leg. Quid pro quo, motherfuckers. Also, there was this blacksmith guy who turned into a zombie and was a real pain in the ass to deal with. Still one of my favorite parts of the game. Brings back a lot of fond memories. A sad one, too, since now I knew that the town I saved wasn’t saved for long. It fell victim to demonic corruption. Sad day. Sad.