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I'm in a mood for a Diablo-clone / favorite Diablo-clones

Sykar

Arcane
Joined
Dec 2, 2014
Messages
11,297
Location
Turn right after Alpha Centauri
Restricted Area is pure dog shit...

Holy fuck I remember Restricted Area. What an awful piece of shit game. I have the box here somewhere.

Yeah, I played a lot of shitty Diablo clones in my time, and this is by far the most bland, boring and soulless one I ever touched.

Perfect adjectives for that gigantic pile of turd. I curse myself for not reading any reviews about it and just bought it on a whim in my local game store. I managed an entire playthrough in like 4-6 hours with that psionic chic, who looked like cheap hooker instead of a supposedly secret agent like it was advertised. Oh well, I was young (and stupid).

:negative:
 

Aeschylus

Swindler
Patron
Joined
Mar 13, 2012
Messages
2,538
Location
Phleebhut
Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Wasteland 2 Divinity: Original Sin 2
Titan Quest with Immortal Throne (2006)
If you do try it again, you can make it more interesting/actually challenging by installing the Soulvizier mod.
Also seconding Grim Dawn. Quite good and well fleshed out for an early access game.
 

JarlFrank

I like Thief THIS much
Patron
Joined
Jan 4, 2007
Messages
33,052
Location
KA.DINGIR.RA.KI
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Restricted Area is pure dog shit...

Holy fuck I remember Restricted Area. What an awful piece of shit game. I have the box here somewhere.

Yeah, I played a lot of shitty Diablo clones in my time, and this is by far the most bland, boring and soulless one I ever touched.

Perfect adjectives for that gigantic pile of turd. I curse myself for not reading any reviews about it and just bought it on a whim in my local game store. I managed an entire playthrough in like 4-6 hours with that psionic chic, who looked like cheap hooker instead of a supposedly secret agent like it was advertised. Oh well, I was young (and stupid).

:negative:

I got it from a friend who pirated it, and we first played it at his place to check it out. It looked kinda cool at first. Then, after an hour or so, we've already seen every single thing the game has to show because 99% of its content is recycled. There are like two or three level tilesets and at maximum 10 enemy types that just get a different colour on higher levels to show they're more powerful.

I've never played a game as poor in content as this bland piece of shit. Everything about it feels like the developers didn't even bother to put more than the minimum amount of work into this game. It's just a lazy and uninspired hackjob that even a modder would be ashamed of.
 

Sykar

Arcane
Joined
Dec 2, 2014
Messages
11,297
Location
Turn right after Alpha Centauri
Restricted Area is pure dog shit...

Holy fuck I remember Restricted Area. What an awful piece of shit game. I have the box here somewhere.

Yeah, I played a lot of shitty Diablo clones in my time, and this is by far the most bland, boring and soulless one I ever touched.

Perfect adjectives for that gigantic pile of turd. I curse myself for not reading any reviews about it and just bought it on a whim in my local game store. I managed an entire playthrough in like 4-6 hours with that psionic chic, who looked like cheap hooker instead of a supposedly secret agent like it was advertised. Oh well, I was young (and stupid).

:negative:

I got it from a friend who pirated it, and we first played it at his place to check it out. It looked kinda cool at first. Then, after an hour or so, we've already seen every single thing the game has to show because 99% of its content is recycled. There are like two or three level tilesets and at maximum 10 enemy types that just get a different colour on higher levels to show they're more powerful.

I've never played a game as poor in content as this bland piece of shit. Everything about it feels like the developers didn't even bother to put more than the minimum amount of work into this game. It's just a lazy and uninspired hackjob that even a modder would be ashamed of.
:bro:
 

Decado

Old time handsome face wrecker
Patron
Joined
Dec 1, 2010
Messages
2,544
Location
San Diego
Codex 2014
Restricted Area is pure dog shit...

Holy fuck I remember Restricted Area. What an awful piece of shit game. I have the box here somewhere.

Yeah, I played a lot of shitty Diablo clones in my time, and this is by far the most bland, boring and soulless one I ever touched.

Perfect adjectives for that gigantic pile of turd. I curse myself for not reading any reviews about it and just bought it on a whim in my local game store. I managed an entire playthrough in like 4-6 hours with that psionic chic, who looked like cheap hooker instead of a supposedly secret agent like it was advertised. Oh well, I was young (and stupid).

:negative:

I got it from a friend who pirated it, and we first played it at his place to check it out. It looked kinda cool at first. Then, after an hour or so, we've already seen every single thing the game has to show because 99% of its content is recycled. There are like two or three level tilesets and at maximum 10 enemy types that just get a different colour on higher levels to show they're more powerful.

I've never played a game as poor in content as this bland piece of shit. Everything about it feels like the developers didn't even bother to put more than the minimum amount of work into this game. It's just a lazy and uninspired hackjob that even a modder would be ashamed of.
:bro:

It is probably the game that most epitomizes European shovelware. it is a fucking relic of history, a monument to plagiarism and laziness.
 

Deakul

Augur
Joined
Feb 21, 2011
Messages
417
Location
Taxachusetts
Marvel Heroes is great, it's not P2W despite what you might think.
It has meaty combat, loads of loot, tons and tons of fun characters, flashy abilities, and fun levels.
 

Watser

Arcane
Joined
May 8, 2014
Messages
1,865,075
Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign
Without skipping content, there was zero challenge of any sort until the Act One boss - and even beating that didn't take me more than redoing the last couple of areas until I was lvl 17 and could wear better armor. I dislike equipment level restrictions btw. These games don't need balance as much as they need opportunity for trying higher level areas and skipping content easily, and cool stuff like finding an awesome armor at low level and being able to use it.
.
I'm afraid there is not much of a challenge in the first difficulty till you get to late act 3, and even then it's first at the higher difficulty levels things get troublesome.
 

Sykar

Arcane
Joined
Dec 2, 2014
Messages
11,297
Location
Turn right after Alpha Centauri
Marvel Heroes is great, it's not P2W despite what you might think.
It has meaty combat, loads of loot, tons and tons of fun characters, flashy abilities, and fun levels.

MH is a great game and easily on par by now with games like PoE. The only beef I have with it is that it is a bit too easy concerning defeats(deaths).
 

rezaf

Cipher
Joined
Jan 26, 2015
Messages
650
You guys mentioned a ton of diablolikes ... but is there any game that actually comes close to the experience of the original Diablo?
In my eyes, even the official sequels failed to capture that special something.

What I thought was really great about D1 was that it was almost a coffe-break game. You could play if for hours, or only a brief amount of time. You could actually save your game - most diablolikes didn't have that feature.
You could reasonably hope to find any (or even all) of the unique items without having to play for a hundred years. It had a lot of loot that could drastically alter the way you play your character.
It had great art direction and good sound. Just a good game through and through in my book.

The thing I found most derivative games fell for is what Bilbo describes in Lord of the Rings as "butter stretched over too much bread" - they tried to just fill a much greater whole with the same stuff that filled D1.
Even in D2 this means you could never reasonably hope to find most uniques yourself, let alone finishing a set or something like that. These games expected you to grind them for hours and hours and weeks and months and years like you were trapped in a giant hamster wheel. Some games added insult to injury by making almost all loot utterly meaningless with miniscule bonuses and a too small set of modifiers to begin with.
Kinda like HL1, D1 made good use of a very limited story. Many of it's successors either regarded their storylines as background noise between more click-click-click and thus ended up having little to no atmosphere of their own OR tried to come up with some clever, huge plot that ended up being boring after the second of third time through the game anyway even for folks that liked it and just got in the way of the click-click-click gamers right from the start. In short, very few of the diablolikes were really anything like the original Diablo to me.

But appearently, it's just the click-click-click combat most people are looking for? Or the random loot? Btw., I never really got why 3rd person RPGs like Divinity 2 are considered diablolikes by some...
 

grudgebringer

Guest
You guys mentioned a ton of diablolikes ... but is there any game that actually comes close to the experience of the original Diablo?

They don't need to. Those games are interesting on their own. They don't have to replicate the exact diablo feeling you had back in the days. If you want diablo experience then go play diablo. Diablo 3 went shit? Well, the original team that have made diablo is non-existent anymore, what did you expect? No one knows how exactly they did it, maybe today they themselves don't know how they did it.
 

Cadmus

Arcane
Joined
Dec 28, 2013
Messages
4,264
From all those mentioned, I only somewhat liked Sacred 1 and that was like 10 years ago or something.
Van Helsing is pure garbage.
Sacred 2 is boring, dunno why.
Revenant is cool but it kept crashing so much I gave up on it.
Torchlight 1&2 are fucking horrible, I have no idea why people like those cartoons.
Titan Quest is a chore to play, that game is sooo bland.

Divinity and Div 2 have nothing to do with Diablo and they are great.
I remember liking Dungeon Siege 2 for a while but got bored of it eventually. This genre is just really shitty and boring in itself, you know? As soon as you make an interesting isometric clickity-click aRPG, it ceases to be a Diablo clone by definition because those are just fucking hack and slash number generators.
 

nomask7

Arcane
Joined
Apr 30, 2008
Messages
7,620
What I thought was really great about D1 was that it was almost a coffe-break game. You could play if for hours, or only a brief amount of time. You could actually save your game - most diablolikes didn't have that feature.
You could reasonably hope to find any (or even all) of the unique items without having to play for a hundred years. It had a lot of loot that could drastically alter the way you play your character.
It had great art direction and good sound. Just a good game through and through in my book.

It was also fun to find stairs-down next to the level entrance, because you could skip the entire area easily and try your hand at a higher level area. A couple of skips like this and you would be happy to be able to lure & kill one monster at a time for a while, although I have to say going this far wasn't a good strategy as it meant you'd run out of HP potions pretty fast (at least as a warrior).

This genre is just really shitty and boring in itself, you know?

Nope, it just has to do a few things right:

1) Content that's easy to skip.
2) Properly reward exploring higher level areas as a 'thief' who tries to avoid monsters (higher level loot that you can use in chests).
3) Make that exploration challenging and make avoiding those monsters interesting/thrilling.
4) Properly reward managing to beat tough higher level enemies - possible to beat if you manage to find higher level equipment via above or other methods.
5) Make this higher level loot usable - no lvl restrictions on equipment.
6) Obviously no level scaling of any sort.
7) A monster level is just a sign of how badass the monster type is - no recycled skins or monster types except where solid lore allows it (Dragons).
8) Open world isn't a must but it's a plus.
9) Obviously the healing mechanic has to be well done - i.e. not allow defeating high level enemies without solid equipment or superb character customisation (except in rare cases where it's possible to lure a monster that's not too high level one at a time).
10) Great soundtrack.
11) Make all monster types kinda cool, the more so the higher level they are - no cases where you have cool low-level monsters but then level 20 slime balls or pygmies. No New Game+ bullshit.
12) Great sound effects.
13) Great gory visuals with a nice amount of variety.
14) A rather opaque skill and spell system that provide a couple of "over-powered" builds already near the beginning for those who manage to figure out the best ways to use them (Two Worlds has a good example).
15) Starting characters of somewhat different levels with not just different stats but different starting items & equipment that in some cases you can't immediately easily replace (an idea from Dark Souls games). This gives variety with regards to what you can do already when starting the game. With the right starting character, you could easily skip the first couple of levels for example. Two or so characters would have interesting items like Master Key from Dark Souls to help exploration and allow skipping content more easily.
16A) Hand crafted world like in Sacred 2.
16B) Secret chests, areas, etc. that aren't too easy to find and/or reward exploration.
17) Monster specific loot drop tables so you'll have to learn which monsters to grind-kill if you want certain drops. Loot system somewhere between Dark Souls (low drop rates) and Two Worlds (you always get armor from those wearing armor etc) - certain types of loot easy to figure out who drops and how often but others much rarer etc.

Still, I'd rather game developers started making Dark Souls clones. It's just that you're wrong that Diablo-clones can't be a pleasant enough time sink.
 

Cadmus

Arcane
Joined
Dec 28, 2013
Messages
4,264
What I thought was really great about D1 was that it was almost a coffe-break game. You could play if for hours, or only a brief amount of time. You could actually save your game - most diablolikes didn't have that feature.
You could reasonably hope to find any (or even all) of the unique items without having to play for a hundred years. It had a lot of loot that could drastically alter the way you play your character.
It had great art direction and good sound. Just a good game through and through in my book.

It was also fun to find stairs-down next to the level entrance, because you could skip the entire area easily and try your hand at a higher level area. A couple of skips like this and you would be happy to be able to lure & kill one monster at a time for a while, although I have to say going this far wasn't a good strategy as it meant you'd run out of HP potions pretty fast (at least as a warrior).

This genre is just really shitty and boring in itself, you know?

Nope, it just has to do a few things right:

1) Content that's easy to skip.
2) Properly reward exploring higher level areas as a 'thief' who tries to avoid monsters (higher level loot that you can use in chests).
3) Make that exploration challenging and make avoiding those monsters interesting/thrilling.
4) Properly reward managing to beat tough higher level enemies - possible to beat if you manage to find higher level equipment via above or other methods.
5) Make this higher level loot usable - no lvl restrictions on equipment.
6) Obviously no level scaling of any sort.
7) A monster level is just a sign of how badass the monster type is - no recycled skins or monster types except where solid lore allows it (Dragons).
8) Open world isn't a must but it's a plus.
9) Obviously the healing mechanic has to be well done - i.e. not allow defeating high level enemies without solid equipment or superb character customisation (except in rare cases where it's possible to lure a monster that's not too high level one at a time).
10) Great soundtrack.
11) Make all monster types kinda cool, the more so the higher level they are - no cases where you have cool low-level monsters but then level 20 slime balls or pygmies. No New Game+ bullshit.
12) Great sound effects.
13) Great gory visuals with a nice amount of variety.
14) A rather opaque skill and spell system that provide a couple of "over-powered" builds already near the beginning for those who manage to figure out the best ways to use them (Two Worlds has a good example).
15) Starting characters of somewhat different levels with not just different stats but different starting items & equipment that in some cases you can't immediately easily replace (an idea from Dark Souls games). This gives variety with regards to what you can do already when starting the game. With the right starting character, you could easily skip the first couple of levels for example. Two or so characters would have interesting items like Master Key from Dark Souls to help exploration and allow skipping content more easily.
16A) Hand crafted world like in Sacred 2.
16B) Secret chests, areas, etc. that aren't too easy to find and/or reward exploration.
17) Monster specific loot drop tables so you'll have to learn which monsters to grind-kill if you want certain drops. Loot system somewhere between Dark Souls (low drop rates) and Two Worlds (you always get armor from those wearing armor etc) - certain types of loot easy to figure out who drops and how often but others much rarer etc.

Still, I'd rather game developers started making Dark Souls clones. It's just that you're wrong that Diablo-clones can't be a pleasant enough time sink.
I honestly can't think of any Diablo clone (or even Diablo for that matter) that would have even most of these. It just sounds like you're describing Dark Souls.
Anyway, dude, I just can't shake off the knowledge that you wanted SMA to be your fuck slave, it just poisons your posts for me.
 

nomask7

Arcane
Joined
Apr 30, 2008
Messages
7,620
Anyway, dude, I just can't shake off the knowledge that you wanted SMA to be your fuck slave, it just poisons your posts for me.

I wasn't communicating with you, I was posting on a public forum so that people who care can read it. And - it's OK. Enjoy the naivete of your youth while it lasts.
 

nomask7

Arcane
Joined
Apr 30, 2008
Messages
7,620
Have you tried diablo mods nomask?

I've tried the Hell mod, but it just makes the monsters so tough that I can no longer skip levels or do anything fun.

I'm not particularly interested in Diablo mods though. The game is good as it is, and hard to improve if you're just a modder.
 

Snorkack

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Jan 8, 2015
Messages
2,975
Location
Lower Bavaria
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Again, I heartily recommend the belzebub HD mod for Diablo 1. They implementet lots of Quality of Life stuff too, like running in tristram, zooming, toggling loot displaying, repeated attacks when clicking and holding on the enemy...

http://mod.diablo1.eu.org/
 

nomask7

Arcane
Joined
Apr 30, 2008
Messages
7,620
Again, I heartily recommend the belzebub HD mod for Diablo 1. They implementet lots of Quality of Life stuff too, like running in tristram, zooming, toggling loot displaying, repeated attacks when clicking and holding on the enemy...

http://mod.diablo1.eu.org/

I did try this, but it changes my desktop resolution, messing up the placement of icons, so it kinda does the opposite of making my life easier if I want to play the game.
 

Rahdulan

Omnibus
Patron
Joined
Oct 26, 2012
Messages
5,105
You guys mentioned a ton of diablolikes ... but is there any game that actually comes close to the experience of the original Diablo?

Throne of Darkness was always the closest thing to that in my mind, although it's honestly more akin to a bridge game between D1 and D2 with some novelties of its own like controlling four characters at the same time, meaningful formations, etc. I also dug the atmosphere in that game and it's probably one of the few very similar to first two Diablo games in that regard.
 
Joined
Jan 11, 2015
Messages
627
Location
Seattle, WA
I assume you're already familiar with Prince of Qin?

Not really. I'll check it out, thanks.

No Torchlight?

Never tried it. I get the impression people aren't that into it and it's like old. I didn't mention it but I'm actually more curious if I missed something recent. But I'll try anything at least once. At least if it's single player.

Path of Exile? Give it a try, it's free!

Online only? Do I have to interact with anyone, ever? I don't like online interactions in games.

Dude, if you haven't played Path of Exile, give it a whirl. It's basically Diablo 2 with multiplayer options, I haven't teamed up with anyone yet, and I'm having a blast on Act 3. Plus, no Pay-to-Win, it's Free. Done right.

Torchlight 2 was more innovative than Diablo 3 in a number of ways. I found it more impressive than number one, which felt like a lift off Diablo 2, with less life and plot involved.

I only wish there was DLC available for #2, as I'd like to have new classes to try and play....

The game has longevity!

Did anyone mention Divine Divinity? ;)

Grim Dawn is a good recommendation, and playable through the first two acts, I haven't tried Act 3. Final game, only. :)
 
Joined
Jan 11, 2015
Messages
627
Location
Seattle, WA
Throne of Darkness
Came to post this 'un.

Been meaning to try this. You control a whole party?

Restricted Area is pure dog shit...

Holy fuck I remember Restricted Area. What an awful piece of shit game. I have the box here somewhere.

Yeah, I played a lot of shitty Diablo clones in my time, and this is by far the most bland, boring and soulless one I ever touched.

How to FUCK can you not pull of a Cyberpunk Diablo clone!? :'( Sigh....
 
Joined
Jan 11, 2015
Messages
627
Location
Seattle, WA
Here are the games recommended so far that were mentioned by title (I'm also leaving out the ones I mentioned in the op):

Grim Dawn (early access 2013)
The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing (2013)
Path of Exile (2013)
Torchlight 2 (2012)
Torchlight (2009)
Divinity 2 (2009)
Titan Quest with Immortal Throne (2006)
Kult: Heretic Kingdoms (2005)
Restricted Area (2005)
Shadowflare (2002)
Prince of Qin (2002)
Throne of Darkness (2001)
Nox (2000)
Soulbringer (2000)
Revenant (1999)
Silver (1999)
Darkstone: Evil Reigns (1999)
Cybermercs (1999)

PS2:
Dark Alliance II
Norrath games

Damn, this thread has been more interesting than I anticipated. And the Torchlight games are a lot newer than I thought.

I want to play Path of Exile now that I still can (I'm assuming that as an online-only game it will become unplayable at some point).

Thanks for the interesting and thorough recommendations.

Record of the Lodoss War if you have a Dreamcast. Sorry for spam!
 

Goral

Arcane
Patron
The Real Fanboy
Joined
May 4, 2008
Messages
3,552
Location
Poland
Try VtM: Redemption.
VTMR has its fair share of flaws (such as horrible companions AI and Diablo like linear dungeon/level design) but it has an amazing art direction and atmosphere, not to mention that (as already mentioned) it has a fun character development system with lots of disciplines to mock around with.

It does kinda fall apart once you get to the modern age though (I have replayed it many times over the years mainly until that point), the Prague part is by far the best.
 

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