But if you've never seen a Butcher before and you don't know what it is, it's still exciting and fun to play, and it still creates that really memorable moment because we're seeing streamers and creators post their "What the heck is this?!" [content] which is awesome."
Hah, yeah. I feel thoroughly initiated now that I had my own "What the heck is this?!" moment.
But first things first. I started to play Diablo, chose a warrior, named him Primus because he's my first, and walked around the town.
My first impression was that the graphics are dated of course, but in a charming way, and the look is relatively familiar, reminding of BG1, only slightly older.
What I absolutely like is the sound. The music in the town is nice, the haunting sound in the dungeon with the anticipating drums, and the cute sound effects when gold or loot are flying, or when you kill a zombie or skeleton and their head or limbs pop off
.
Combat on level 1 and 2 of the church was fairly easy, if I remembered not to let myself be flanked (melee... using one-handed weapon and shield) and find a nice door to stand in and let the monsters line up for killing.
And then, yes, of course, on the second level, I saw a room within a room, there seemed to be corpses hanging in there, I opened the door, something came out and started hacking me to death with the speed of a sewing machine, I tried to flee but I got... butchered.
So yes, now I know the "What the heck???" feeling of running into the Butcher.
I reloaded, went about my way and left him for another time.
I didn't quite know how to level my character, thought vitality and strength were probably best to invest in, but asked the internet and the usual advice was to max out Dexterity first, because what use is the warrior's damage bonus through strength when he misses half of his hits? A miss is exactly 0 damage, so that made sense to me, and until now it has paid off.
Combat continued to be easy, even with monsters that dealt more damage or attacked faster or drained mana (which I'm not using anyway at this point), as long as I remembered not getting flanked, until I reached the 4th level of the dungeon and met archers.
It's fun! They shot at me, I ran (well... walked. movement speed is the one thing in this game that would drive me nuts if there weren't Town Portal scrolls) towards them, they walked away at the same speed, so this felt like trying to corner the king with one pawn only... and of course following one enemy if I don't have a ranged weapon led to interesting surprises:
Yay, aggroing the whole large mob just because I walked after that one guy!
Or opening a door and facing all those arrows:
Zigazagging, trying to avoid them, draw them out, split them up, or corner them to be able to finally hit them is surprisingly fun!
Of course I could simply try using a bow myself, but right now it's more fun this way, and boosting Dexterity also gives me good AC, plus the shield for blocking.
And then I got my first unique item!
+200% damage vs demons!
I had cleared the 4th floor of the dungeon, my character has level 10, I have a good weapon against demons, so I figured I should go and get my revenge against the Butcher! I was really, really nervous about facing him again, but my AC and To Hit are quite good for my current level I think, and that weapon is perfect against him. I didn't even take any damage against him. Sweet revenge!
Nice!
I'm sure it will become harder soon, so I'll try to remain vigilant, but I'm really surprised how much fun I'm having until now!
Here's the weapon I'm using when I don't need the demon cudgel:
And my shield:
Also, a ring that gives +8 Dex, and another one that gives light radius and 16% magic resistance.
The 5th level looks different from the ones before, not surer what to expect, something more difficult and probably at some point magic users too... for now, my only reload was that first unexpected meeting with the Butcher, and I'd like to keep that counter low, but I have no idea what I'm going to find down there, and the slightly nervous anticipation is a great feeling!
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