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Of these, the two that had the strongest effect on gameplay were the starting and maximum attributed and the advancement of hit points and magic points upon gaining a level.
Attributes in Diablo were the primary limitation on a character's abilities. A high Strength score would allow a character to wear heavy armor and melee weapons, a high Dexterity allowed a character to use devastating ranged weapons and a high magic allowed the character to learn high-level spells. Thus the Rogue class began the game with the highest Dexterity, the Sorcerer with the highest Magic and the Warrior with the highest Strength. These classes could also achieve a much higher maximum attribute in these areas, allowing them to attain the most powerful weapons suited to their character class.
Still, a Warrior could concentrate on Magic and become reasonably proficient in its use, a Sorcerer could work on Strength to wear heavy armor and so forth, allowing a player a great degree of flexibility in tailoring his character to his preferred playstyle. This was one of the many game elements that increased replayability.
Warrior: The pure melee combat warrior, he is the master of weaponry.
Rogue: These master archers have a slight level of magic, not nearly as expertise as that of the Sorcerer.
Sorcerer: This ultimate master of the magic arts is trained to use pure magic to smite foes rather than combat.
Diablo The Lord of Terror: Demon who possesed the prince of the land. Main Antagonist of the franchise.
King Leoric: The former king of the land. Corrupted and twisted by Diablo. Now he wanders as a giant skeleton with his crown on his head.
The Butcher: Demon killing the townpeople of Tristram. First (optional) boss.
Since these items were generated randomly as they were dropped in the game, a player never knew what item could be in the next chest or held by the next monster. This increased both the addictive nature of the gameplay as well as the replay value. Indeed, a player could continue to play the same character, moving to a higher difficulty level with the same character, where the monsters would be more powerful but would drop items of increasing rarity.
In addition to the level randomization, many other aspects of Diablo's gameplay could change from game to game:
These random elements made each game of Diablo feel fresh and different and led to many late nights playing the game, something players of other Blizzard games were used to as well.
As a multi-player game, Diablo's gameplay changed radically and resembled what we today would recognize as a Massively Multiplayer Online RPG or MMO. In fact, Diablo and Ultima Online could be seen as the two games that most strongly influenced the most popular MMOs of all time, Everquest and Blizzard's own World of Warcraft.
In multi-player, players could team up and the number of players in the dungeon made creatures more powerful. Item drops were also increased based on the size of the player party. Many elements of the modern MMO were introduced into this environment, such as player to player economies, where rare items were bartered or bought with enormous sums of gold.
Another unfortunate element of MMOs was introduced here, with players cheating to gain a competitive advantage over other players, or to get the rarest of the rare items. Blizzard's experience running Battle.net and managing both the economy as intended but also cheating was to prove invaluable in their development of World of Warcraft.
The Action RPG was adapted to other genres as well. Some were extremely well-done such as the superheroic X-Men Legends, X-Men Legends II and especially Marvel Ultimate Alliance all three set in the Marvel Comics universe.
Less successful was the attempt to turn the classic Fallout RPGs into Action RPGs with the Brotherhood of Steel game for the PS2.
The Action RPG has also returned to its PC roots with games such as Titan Quest, a workmanlike attempt to recapture the magic of Diablo on the PCs.
Game review site Gamespot gave the game a 9.6 which makes it the highest-rated computer game in the history of the site.
60Mhz Pentium
8MB RAM (16MB for multiplayer)
SVGA compatible graphics card
2x CD-ROM Drive
System 7.5 or higher
Power Macintosh or compatible
8MB RAM with virtual memory
2x CD-ROM Drive
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Video Thing: It's A Website
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Diablo is an action RPG in which you use fantasy medieval weapons and spells to defeat hordes of monsters from hell through randomized dungeon levels, continuously gaining experience points, gold, and a variety of equipment to bolster your monster-killing potency along the way.
Game History
Released in 1997 for the PC (and later the original Playstation), DIablo is a dark, gothic-fantasy game blending RPG and arcade elements to create an addictive, highly replayable game.
The original game was known for endless mouse-clicking "hack and slash" action in a single dungeon consisting of 16 levels. The dungeon is located under the town of Tristram, a sparsely populated town which consists of 6 NPCs who serve primarily as shop keepers to buy and sell adventuring equipment to the PCs and give out the occasional quest. Critics of the game will point to this lack of interaction within the game and the focus on mouse-clicking, killing things and taking their stuff as weaknesses in the game, while fans of the game will point to these same elements as the core of the game's addictive gameplay.
Diablo was both popular and influential, spawning a number of sequels and spin-offs, including Diablo: Hellfire, a licensed add-on to the original game produced by Sierra Entertainment rather than the original development team of Blizzard North.
Finally the game spawned two direct sequels: Diablo II (which saw an official expansion created by Blizzard) and the upcoming Diablo III.
Gameplay
Diablo had three character classes available for play: the Rogue, the Sorcerer and the Warrior. Despite using a class-based system, character development was very free-form and was left largely up to the player. There were only a few elements directly tied to character class: each class had a skill available at 1st level that improved as the character gained level; the character's class determined his starting and maximum attributes; the character's class determined how many hit points and magic points were gained with each level increase; finally, a character's class determined his starting equipment.Of these, the two that had the strongest effect on gameplay were the starting and maximum attributed and the advancement of hit points and magic points upon gaining a level.
Attributes in Diablo were the primary limitation on a character's abilities. A high Strength score would allow a character to wear heavy armor and melee weapons, a high Dexterity allowed a character to use devastating ranged weapons and a high magic allowed the character to learn high-level spells. Thus the Rogue class began the game with the highest Dexterity, the Sorcerer with the highest Magic and the Warrior with the highest Strength. These classes could also achieve a much higher maximum attribute in these areas, allowing them to attain the most powerful weapons suited to their character class.
Still, a Warrior could concentrate on Magic and become reasonably proficient in its use, a Sorcerer could work on Strength to wear heavy armor and so forth, allowing a player a great degree of flexibility in tailoring his character to his preferred playstyle. This was one of the many game elements that increased replayability.
Character Classes
There are 3 different character classes that appear in the Diablo game; each with their own character attributes, traits and specializations.Warrior: The pure melee combat warrior, he is the master of weaponry.
Rogue: These master archers have a slight level of magic, not nearly as expertise as that of the Sorcerer.
Sorcerer: This ultimate master of the magic arts is trained to use pure magic to smite foes rather than combat.
Enemies
Diablo The Lord of Terror: Demon who possesed the prince of the land. Main Antagonist of the franchise.
King Leoric: The former king of the land. Corrupted and twisted by Diablo. Now he wanders as a giant skeleton with his crown on his head.
The Butcher: Demon killing the townpeople of Tristram. First (optional) boss.
Magic Items
Diablo also featured an extremely diverse array of magical equipment, with magic items being powered by a prefix and suffix. Since the power of each prefix and suffix was variable and they could be found in any combination, this led to a stunning variety in type and power of equipment. There were also extremely rare unique items that had individual names, a unique appearance and abilities that were not found in normal items.Since these items were generated randomly as they were dropped in the game, a player never knew what item could be in the next chest or held by the next monster. This increased both the addictive nature of the gameplay as well as the replay value. Indeed, a player could continue to play the same character, moving to a higher difficulty level with the same character, where the monsters would be more powerful but would drop items of increasing rarity.
Randomness
A final element of the game that increased replay value was the fact that the dungeon maps were randomly generated every time a player started a new game. Because of this, it was impossible for a player to have an advantage in a second or third game because he knew where quest objectives were. This required each new game's dungeon to be mapped anew (which the game assisted with through an auto-map feature), meaning the player never knew where critical quest objectives or opponents could be found.In addition to the level randomization, many other aspects of Diablo's gameplay could change from game to game:
- Monsters on each level of the dungeon would vary, meaning a player might face entirely different opponents, requiring different tactics and abilities to succeed
- As mentioned above, the way magic items were generated meant that a player was unlikely to see the same item twice over the course of multiple games
- Not every quest was available in every game, meaning different tasks and rewards for each instance of the world
These random elements made each game of Diablo feel fresh and different and led to many late nights playing the game, something players of other Blizzard games were used to as well.
Early MMO
A final element of the game that increased its appeal was the free multi-player component, available through Blizzard's Battle.net servers.As a multi-player game, Diablo's gameplay changed radically and resembled what we today would recognize as a Massively Multiplayer Online RPG or MMO. In fact, Diablo and Ultima Online could be seen as the two games that most strongly influenced the most popular MMOs of all time, Everquest and Blizzard's own World of Warcraft.
In multi-player, players could team up and the number of players in the dungeon made creatures more powerful. Item drops were also increased based on the size of the player party. Many elements of the modern MMO were introduced into this environment, such as player to player economies, where rare items were bartered or bought with enormous sums of gold.
Another unfortunate element of MMOs was introduced here, with players cheating to gain a competitive advantage over other players, or to get the rarest of the rare items. Blizzard's experience running Battle.net and managing both the economy as intended but also cheating was to prove invaluable in their development of World of Warcraft.
Influence
Diablo inspired a host of imitators who sought to recapture its addictive, simple gameplay. The most important of these are probably Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance and its sequel on the PS2. Other games to follow Diablo in the Action RPG genre on consoles include Champions of Norrath and its sequel Champions: Return to Arms, which were Action RPGs set in Norrath, the world of the popular MMO Everquest.The Action RPG was adapted to other genres as well. Some were extremely well-done such as the superheroic X-Men Legends, X-Men Legends II and especially Marvel Ultimate Alliance all three set in the Marvel Comics universe.
Less successful was the attempt to turn the classic Fallout RPGs into Action RPGs with the Brotherhood of Steel game for the PS2.
The Action RPG has also returned to its PC roots with games such as Titan Quest, a workmanlike attempt to recapture the magic of Diablo on the PCs.
Critical Reception
Diablo was widely praised by critics, with a Metacritic average of 94. Many critics gave the game perfect or near perfect scores. Notably, Computer Gaming World, an influential game review magazine for PC games gave the game a perfect score of 100.Game review site Gamespot gave the game a 9.6 which makes it the highest-rated computer game in the history of the site.
System Requirements
PC
Windows 9560Mhz Pentium
8MB RAM (16MB for multiplayer)
SVGA compatible graphics card
2x CD-ROM Drive
Mac
System 7.5 or higher
Power Macintosh or compatible
8MB RAM with virtual memory
2x CD-ROM Drive
| Game Name | Diablo |
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| Original US Release |
Jan. 2, 1997
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| Original US Release |
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| Aliases |
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