Graphics and Sound

There is no Graphics God

In our First Impressions we weren't too thrilled with Diablo 2's graphics. In fact, they seemed inferior in almost every way to the original. The most annoying problem that struck us was the "pixel crawling" effect - which fortunately can be turned off (it's the Perspective option), though there is a slight loss of the pseudo-3D look.

Cain's old fountain

w00t! Loot!

Diablo II's graphics still seem a bit disappointing compared to the original at times. Any given model is less detailed. Monsters don't seem as crisp ... in fact, nothing does. Act I is by far the worst looking one in the entire game - it's bland and dull, lacking in atmosphere right up until the end. Act II seems to be the favorite around the office. Its tilesets offer a great deal of atmosphere and monsters are probably the best in the game. The dungeons are by far the most interesting and have - in general - the best layout. Act III is a pretty big downturn in the graphics again - they get a generic jungle feel. To make matters worse, the jungle canopy doesn't "disappear" in areas that monsters can hide in, so you end up 'scanning' for them with your mouse. Damn annoying.

Wait... that's Wirt's corpse

I STILL got ripped off by Wirt, it sucks

However, we've learned to forgive the slightly inferior character models. Yes, they may not seem as smooth or fleshed out, but to compensate they are far more varied. You have your five different characters, and each one shows any change on the model. If you put on gothic plate, it will look different from field plate or plate mail. Studded leather looks different from leather or quilted, and so on. Armors, shields and weapons can also gain a tint to various degrees, reflecting what kind of enchantment it has. A strongly poisonous sword will be green, while an axe that has a strong fire enchantment will be red. All this (well, likely not the tints) must have taken an extreme amount of effort and time on the part of the Blizzard North art team to animate. Though in our opinion none of the models have as much character or detail - as a combined sum they are better than what Diablo offered. Sure, 3 models in Diablo that had 3 different armor sets were nice, but this is much better.

The ancient Horadrim himself

Experience charm? Cool

3D?!

A word of warning to those trying to FSAA Diablo II - you can't. The 3D is only used for spell effects, so any FSAA abilities your graphics card has do not apply to this primarily 2D game.

The 3D accelerated effects are fairly impressive, but they are definitely hurt by the 8 bit color palette used by the game. It leaves effects and everything else in general with a very grainy, dithered feel that's not at all pleasant to look at. Still, the effects are improved from Diablo. The Sorceress in particular can throw some wicked spells at the legions of Hell.

That Sounds Good Baby

Diablo II uses many sounds from Diablo yet it doesn't feel cheap, only more familiar. In fact, given all the changes between the games, it is one of the few familiar aspects in the sequel. You'll see the occasional barrel and sarcophagus, and the music might be slightly derived from Diablo, but the sound effects are the only true remnant of the original game. It was a nice touch.

The music is just awesome. It always fits the mood and manages to creep out even jaded gamers such as ourselves. Only once did it get annoying and that was in the Palace in Act II. Every other time it tended to blend seamlessly into the background or heighten the tension.