Funny but as a kid I devoured and adored D2. I played it many many times through. Later I decided to try D1 and I couldn’t get past how slow it felt, and in some ways primitive.
Diablo 2 was a bit more on the rails to me: if I play a specific amount of time, I can acquire the specific pieces of gear that I want for a specific build. Diablo 1 it felt like you were chasing pieces, but grand scheme of things, you just wanted the best in slot more often than not. Story was more there too and the quests appreciable. They didn’t phone in the sequel and really delivered a great game.
Diablo 1, however, I enjoyed stacking Intelligence as much as possible so that I could have pretty substantial levels of casting skills from books (since you had to have x amount of points in it for the next level book to work). In that way, it felt like you could have a God Character in a way that D2’s 20 max assignable (more could be gained as mods on gear) didn’t. You had to also work at that, which felt rewarding.
