Saturday Morning Gaming Post: The Original Diablo

The original Diablo was released on December 31st, 1996. Which is crazy. Why would you do that to your taxes? Just wait a day. (Or, wait… maybe it was beneficial.)

Anyway, I wasn’t one of the day one purchasers but I did get it in February or March. AND I WAS HOOKED.

The game was absolutely perfect. Procedurally-generated dungeons (well, tileset dungeons), multiple classes that played differently from each other, and that sweet, sweet intermittent reinforcement.

You play the warrior, you get in there and do massive damage while you get hit all the time. You play the archer and you do decent damage from a distance and you can take a hit or two while you run away to someplace where you can start shooting again. You play the mage and you do GIMUNGOUS DAMAGE but you pretty much can’t get hit.

And the monsters were interesting and they were all different! And the levels were interesting and different parts of the dungeon FELT different from other parts. Some of the monsters were even scary! (The first time you fought the Butcher? Dang.)

The game mechanics themselves were a hair repetitive (I heard stories about people who bought low-quality mice from the used mice box at the computer store (ones without the scroll wheel) because they didn’t want to wear out their good mice) but the game was really, really fun despite the literally hundreds of clicks per level.

Well, the game sort of faded as Windows 98 did. Diablo 2 came out and, well, there was just no reason to go back to the original.

And then you COULDN’T go back to the original because it wasn’t for sale anywhere.

Until March 7th. Last Thursday.

It came out on GOG.com.

Ten bucks. Heck, if you could pay 10 bucks for a potion that could make the best parts of 1997 come rushing back into your forebrain, wouldn’t spend that money in a heartbeat? Well, here’s 10 bucks that will give you a game that will make you remember the parts that involved sitting in the basement.

And then you’ll probably be asking yourself “man, did I really play this for hours at a time?” and “maybe I should get one of the crappy mice from the back of the closet for this one…”

So… what are you playing?

(Featured image is the infamous Diablo Title Screen.)