Does POE feel less scary than Diablo?

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Mikrotherion wrote:

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Foreverhappychan wrote:

Diablo 1? Fuck no. Diablo 1 was utterly fucking terrifying. The opening cinematic alone has more intensity, dread and terror than anything in any ARPG since. It was a masterpiece.

Just compare the Diablos.
The original was a sinister Demon, the second one more like a dragon and the third one, while possibly a bit more sinister than the second, a babbling idiot. Oh how I will not miss him constantly bragging about being the worstest and badassest of all demonkind and that I can do nothing to stop him.

No shit brother. Diablo 1's Diablo was truly the Lord of Terror. D2's was an appropriate end-boss with some still devastating skills, but now overshadowed by his place in the larger scheme of the Sin War and the overt presence of other Prime Evils. D3's Diablo was a plot twist about as unpredictable as last week's weather, and even more overshadowed by ActiBlizz's impulsive need to up the stakes constantly. You could call Diablo 3 'World of Sanctuary' -- in fact, I did after I saw how much of it was drawing on WoW. You know how you have those moments of revelation where you just can't ignore that everything was different from then onward? For me, with Diablo, it was when they said one of the classes was going to be the Demon Hunter. By that point, the similarities with WoW were already striking, but we could pretend it was just skin-deep. Nope, they were going to incorporate an entire class from their fluffy bog-standard fantasy world into the fairly original gothic-fantasy-horror world of Diablo. Fuck. That.

Another thing to consider is the game manual aspect -- RIP game manuals. Diablo 1's game manual was such a joy to read and peruse, with all its conceptual work by Chris Metzen (fuck whoever decided it was a good idea to let him write actual in-game story -- it's clear his prowess was elsewhere) and its comprehensive background on the Sin War. Admittedly, that was 1996 and we were all far from the jaded fucks we are now, but I kind of miss when they could do this and not be labelled grimdark emo kids or edgelords or whatever. Unfortunately it sort of became clear that's exactly what Metzen is as the years went by and his influence turned the minimalist precision of Diablo 1 into the gross excesses of diablo 3.

Either way, that D1 manual is great. And it kept the larger elements of Sanctuary where it belonged: on the page, as support for the core Diablo experience. I find the D1 manual *far* scarier and harrowing than any depictions of it in visual format later on. Kind of the same way I never, ever want to see anyone attempt to adapt 'Paradise Lost'. Some things are best left to the imagination, and apparently anything involving actual warfare between Heaven and Hell is in that category. It just becomes cheesy spectacle once it leaves the page and manifests on the screen, I think. But being literate, I'm probably biased there.

Diablo (1) was likely 'scarier' on first play than POE, but then, I was probably about 14 at the time; not so for POE's launch. So I'm not sure there's a good way to make the comparison. These days Diablo is way too clunky to be scary.

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GusTheCrocodile wrote:

Diablo (1) was likely 'scarier' on first play than POE, but then, I was probably about 14 at the time; not so for POE's launch. So I'm not sure there's a good way to make the comparison. These days Diablo is way too clunky to be scary.

I can appreciate that sentiment, in the same way as some people can't find older movies scary due to the aged special effects or other technical limitations. I personally find that a little unfair, to apply future standards to past works, but it can be hard to avoid it.

Diablo 1 was not clunky for its time. It was considered streamlined and sleek. Smooth and immersive. I would absolutely argue that Diablo 1 was less clunky for a 1996 game than Path of Exile is for a 2020 one. Or a 2015 one. Or a 2012 one.

To be honest, There are no games today, that are scary. I mean genuinely scary. But i can share some moments that scared me, when i was a kid/teenager:

1. Residant evil 2: that scene where arms come out of wall/windows
2. Half life - opposing force: underground tunnels, where there was no light, you had to use night vision and huge aliens were running around.

Maybe there was more, but nothing comes to mind right now.

I think its hard to make scary arpg game which has a top down view. And poe has some goofines/silliness in it. Quite a lot of microtrnasations look ridiculous.

EDit:
Regarding the PoE, how can you be scared of something, that you cannot see? Players are zooming through the areas, exploding everything around. Screen is cluttered with effects, no one has time to take a good look at monsters. I think, that to be scared, you have to build up tension first.

Disagree: Papers, Please is very scary.

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Foreverhappychan wrote:

Disagree: Papers, Please is very scary.

I vagualy know this game, will take a better look into it :)

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Toshis8 wrote:

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Foreverhappychan wrote:

Disagree: Papers, Please is very scary.

I vagualy know this game, will take a better look into it :)

Eh, I was being fairly tongue-in-cheek. It's a game all about manning a checkpoint in a dystopian Eastern-Bloc style country. I may or may not have been referencing a certain company's predisposition to assist a certain government with arguably invasive population monitoring. I refuse to comment further; my social credit score is already in the 厕所 as it is.

But there are other genuinely scary games, especially once you bring headsets and/or VR into play. Admittedly, they all demand you surrender to them but so do scary movies, shows, books...so maybe it also comes down to a form of willpower that technically-complicated games like PoE do not encourage with their constant demand for meta-game research and community involvement. And that's also where Diablo 1 had the edge: you couldn't alt-tab; you couldn't watch videos of speed runs. Until folks like BobbaFett started hacking the shit out of it, it was a pretty pure gothic-horror experience first, ARPG second -- especially given 'ARPG' wasn't really a defined genre then. Diablo 1's usage of confined spaces, limited lighting, distant sounds, and sepulchral music was a masterclass in dread-driven gaming, at least for a little while.

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Foreverhappychan wrote:

I can appreciate that sentiment, in the same way as some people can't find older movies scary due to the aged special effects or other technical limitations. I personally find that a little unfair, to apply future standards to past works, but it can be hard to avoid it.

I don't see that 'fairness' comes into it, as I'm not making any kind of judgement of the quality of Blizzard's work, just describing my current response to it. Regardless of when it was originally released, Diablo is an object that exists in the present.

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GusTheCrocodile wrote:

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Foreverhappychan wrote:

I can appreciate that sentiment, in the same way as some people can't find older movies scary due to the aged special effects or other technical limitations. I personally find that a little unfair, to apply future standards to past works, but it can be hard to avoid it.

I don't see that 'fairness' comes into it, as I'm not making any kind of judgement of the quality of Blizzard's work, just describing my current response to it. Regardless of when it was originally released, Diablo is an object that exists in the present.

And that's perfectly fine, which is why I said *I* find it unfair -- implicitly, when I do it. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

I recently did play Diablo 1 with a ridiculously stupid hard mod made by an Exile, and yeah, it definitely creaks with its age. I still found it scary for all the old reasons, not to mention that huge spike in early game difficulty inherent to 'nightmare' style mods.

Probably its least scary incarnation was on the PlayStation, where all of the flaws overshadowed most of the game's ability to induce claustrophobic panic and urgency.

I suppose it also comes down to one's idea of 'scary'. I definitely find the idea of death=lose all gear far scarier than death=lose a bunch of experience. The former keeps me on my toes, very much not wanting to die; the latter just makes me want to play something else when/if I do die.

Thematically, PoE is *far* scarier than any Diablo, given the most fleshed-out boss for the first arc is not some unfathomable incarnation of evil but a mere human perfectly copacetic with using humans en masse for lethal experimentation. But the breakneck-speed execution of PoE falls far short of its themes as the OP points out (and as we all know), to the point where it all just seems superfluous and abstract. At least Diablo 1 married its themes with its execution such that it was scary both in concept and in practice. I don't think the stiffness of age can take that away from it.

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Mikrotherion wrote:

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Foreverhappychan wrote:

Diablo 1? Fuck no. Diablo 1 was utterly fucking terrifying. The opening cinematic alone has more intensity, dread and terror than anything in any ARPG since. It was a masterpiece.

Just compare the Diablos.
The original was a sinister Demon, the second one more like a dragon and the third one, while possibly a bit more sinister than the second, a babbling idiot. Oh how I will not miss him constantly bragging about being the worstest and badassest of all demonkind and that I can do nothing to stop him.

TER-ROARRR!!!!!