Yeah, Duriel’s the D1 Butcher in D2.
Nostalgia is a powerful drug that is best kept as a memory, Never cared to revisit old games even if they hold a fond memory, which this one does. Tried wow classic, it was awful. Self induced pain is not my gaming appetite
If you can get a character up to the point where they are self refreshing mana, health, and stamina, this game is really fun. Before that point, this game is just incredibly annoying and tedious. The micro management with potions, stamina, mana usage are all especially garbage.
For me, the early game in D2 is about as bad as gaming gets, it’s just blatantly idiotic in terms of design and tedium level.
Duriel is a particularly bad fight, but like everything else in D2 it’s wildly dependent on class, build, and gear. For some classes, Duriel is an absolute nothing burger, especially with the right gear, and for others it can rise to the level of almost impossible in nightmare and hell.
Last time I played D2 was in 2002. I bought it for nostalgia.
I am enjoying it exactly as much as back then, if not more. Just loving the gamepad controls and gorgeously recreated graphics and cutscenes. But ymmv.
I like the lack of lighting in some of the indoor areas. Definitely feels claustrophobic.
Do you have any tips to manage potions? I am generally happy with the controls on a controller, but having the worst time keeping my slots consistent. Having to drag each potion from my inventory to the item slots is tedious as hell and my slots often get mixed up so I haven’t yet developed the proper muscle memory.
I really hate the way they adapted this to the controller. Diablo III feels like it was meant to be played on a controller, but they didn’t bring any of those UI/UX upgrades or Quality of Life improvements to Diablo II. Diablo II is one of my favorite games of all time, but I think I’ll stick to Diablo III on my Switch.
When you hover over your potion belt, you can hold down right stick to auto-fill it. I think it’s right stick, it’s the same control as the inventory auto-sort - it tells you exactly which in the tool-tip.
If you already have something in one slot it’ll fill the one above it with the same type.
To expand on Profanicus’s excellent tip, this also works when you click to pick a potion up - it will try to fill up the empty slots in your belt first (using the first row as the type it tries to populate with) so I like to drink a mana or health potion before picking a new one up to keep my globes topped off and my inventory free.
I’m actually enjoying the early game. Mostly because there is a sense of danger if the wrong mobs pop up, much more so than early D3 when it launched. Early game D3 is so easy now that you can play just fine with your eyes closed.
I can’t decide if I am just annoyed at the tiny inventory or popping back to town frequently creates a sense that clearing the map is more of an expedition than a quick walk.
It’s a lot better balanced if you activate /players 8 as a console command. It used to be available in singleplayer and LAN characters (those were the same thing), but since they got rid of LAN characters, it’s only available in Single Player. But you level up a lot faster, and IIRC you hit Duriel around level 24 or 25, maybe even higher than that. So you have a lot more options on skills you can use against Duriel.
Playing this on the PS5. So far using the controller is fine. I thought the grid-style inventory management would be tedious but I don’t mind it at all. Loot drops are less frequent than in D3. The biggest annoyance is being constantly told my bag is full because clicking “X” for combat is also for picking up loot. Maybe I should have picked a ranged character.
Definitely lots of nostalgia. I enjoy the music so much. And the cinematics… Blizzard was at the top of their game back then when it came to cinematics.
I practically rage quit this morning before work because of this.
You should be able to re-map the attack button to something else, no?
Also thanks for the potion tips @Profanicus and @Scotch_Lufkin … life saver!
You can split those keybinds out.
On the PS5 controller?
Go to the menu and there’s a section next to the skill trees that says something like other skills. You should be able map the basic action there.
Put me down as having hit all the best spots, nostalgia-wise. Doubled as my 22 year old son is currently living with me and we both have fond memories of our playing it together (as in him on my lap) when he was small and on and up through the years I guess until WoW took over. But we were D2 Hardcore for a long long time. (Not doing HC this time around.)
I wonder what the sales numbers are.