A Night With the Devil: A Diablo Retrospective
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While there is no mention of its Hellfire expansion pack, Gamasutra is featuring a retrospective feature for the original Diablo called "A Night With the Devil" that analyzes the gameplay elements, roguelike inspirations, and attention to detail that led to its massive success for Condor/Blizzard Entertainment. Personally, I'd love to see a fan remake of the game with a significant number of new levels and expanded character/item systems:
From a gameplay perspective, Diablo retained many defining aspects of a roguelike despite being a real-time game. Randomization was present in level layouts, monster type and placement, item generation, and even the available quests. Character classes shared the same basic statistics and could all learn a large swath of common spells, but possessed unique abilities and statistical progression. Shrines and consumable items provided further boosts and ailments, and inventory management was big part of the experience (even gold had to be accommodated for, one 5,000-coin stack at a time).
However, Diablo wasn't quite as unforgiving as a typical roguelike. There was no instadeath, and saving/loading was allowed at any point. If the player died while playing online, they would respawn in town and get the chance to retrieve their equipment from their corpse. There was even an option to restart the game at any time, retaining all of the character's armament and upgrades.
None of the items severely handicapped the player either, and it was possible to equip unidentified items to benefit from their statistical boosts while foregoing their special abilities. A superimposed minimap was an option as well, and compensated for the more zoomed-in viewpoint compared to typical roguelikes.
Thanks Kamikaze, via RPGWatch.
