Diablo II

I can see the appeal of this game if you played it back when it came out over 20 years ago but playing it in 2021 I was left feeling pretty cold about it. Maybe it's because I played a melee class as my first character and maybe it's because I played solo and maybe it's because I didn't read a guide beforehand but I found it very slow, frustrating, and tedious. And that's the thing: it's a game that requires you to play it in a very particular way. If you don't spend hundreds of hours grinding to understand it's mechanics or read a guide or have a friend lead you by the hand you'll end up playing a very, very hard game. But if you do everything right it suddenly becomes much more playable and fun.

There's plenty of stats and lots of loot and mechanics, but most of the things are unexplained. Like I'd equip weapons but often times have no real idea if one was better than the other because there were hidden mechanics not expressed anywhere. I spent most of the game running back to town to fill my inventory with potions just to survive because otherwise I'd have to do hit and run tactics that'd make the game 1) not fun and 2) drawn out forever.

The fact that I spent maybe 20 minutes fighting Diablo which consisted of my slamming potions non-stop and right-clicking Frenzy endlessly until he used his lightning attack which would often 1-shot me before I could run away resulting in me respawning in town, use my town portal I laid down before fighting him, picking up my corpse, running away, healing (and sometimes going back to town to buy more potions), and then going in for another round-- should tell you how frustrating this game becomes.

So yeah I think in terms of potential this game could be a 9 but for someone with no nostalgia who's played games more well balanced for solo play (Diablo 3), I have to say I kind of hate it.