Retro Rocks Review: Diablo 1

“It Lurks Below” by David Brevik (Greybeard Games) has recently been released. He was the guy who helped create one of my favourite series of games, Diablo. Which scared the pants off me when I was younger, so I thought it would be timely to do a quick retro review.

“Hello, my friend, stay awhile and listen” – Deckard Cain

Diablo 1 was in my eyes, a revolutionary game. It combined a lot of different aspects going around at the time and brought it into a good playable package. Diablo is a hack and slash role-playing action game. You control a hero and fight your way through sixteen randomly generated dungeon crawler levels. Until you hit the big guy, Diablo himself.

Along the way, you will meet iconic enemies, such as The Butcher and King Leoric, The Skeleton King. The Butcher had high attack speed and damage, while also being quick. He was incredibly hard to defeat if you didn’t have items and levels behind you. You will also find him randomly in the Cathedral. After opening a normal looking door, suddenly there’s a huge Overlord with a massive cleaver shouting “Fresh Meat”. Then the chase and fight for survival begins. God dammit it scared me so much.

“Fresh Meat” – The Butcher

The lower you go into the dungeon, the more ominous and hell-like it gets. Eventually, you’ll meet Diablo. Good luck and I hope you have your items and levels sorted. Otherwise, you are done for.

If David has got “It Lurks Below” well made, I’ll be very happy to give it a go and see if there’s another overlord ready to scare me.

Here’s a link for The Butcher in action, skip to 2:50 if you don’t want to read the text.

Here’s a link to the end game fight with Diablo.

Written by Adam “Bruce L33t” Lamotte