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Comment by AOsborn | Hacker News Reader

I think it is pretty fair to say that Diablo 1 did effectively create the genre as far as the history of gaming is concerned. The commercial and mainstream impact of that game vs anything prior to that is on a different magnitude.

A similar comparison is saying that Apple didn't invent touchscreen phones - sure, but the iPhone had such an overwhelming impact that it shook up the entire industry. Relevant phone comparison image: https://www.cultofmac.com/145083/what-phones-looked-like-bef...

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> I think it is pretty fair to say that Diablo 1 did effectively create the genre as far as the history of gaming is concerned.

Definitely not, there were many successful Japanese ARPGs long before that, like Dragon Slayer, Hydlide, The Legend of Zelda, Final Fantasy Adventure, Secret of Mana etc. Diablo may have created its own subgenre.

No-one would call Zelda an ARPG. You just need to live with the fact that the term has come to mean something else.

Zelda II even had experience points, and Wikipedia counts all the other games I named as ARPGs. There is no way in which Diablo was the first ARPG.

Edit: Maybe the influence of Diablo is more that it effectively ended the era of Western/PC turn-based RPGs. For Japanese RPGs, turn-based (non-action) RPGs did hang on for longer, e.g. in form of Final Fantasy.

Fact of the matter is that ARPG today generally means a Diablo-like game. It defined the genre that we know today as ARPGs. You can name other games ARPGs if you want, but it has nothing to do with Diablo or the genre that Diablo defined.

I'm not sure why this sort of thing is so difficult to understand.

Pretty much all modern Open World RPGs have real time combat and are therefore called action RPGs, e.g. by Wikipedia. But a game like Elden Ring doesn't seem to me particularly Diablo-like.

You're still missing the point. I've explained it to you. Not much else I can do.

> Fact of the matter is that ARPG today generally means a Diablo-like game

"Fact of the matter is that tree today generally means a birch-like plant"

I mean I am not sure if I would even call diablo an RPG. What roleplaying is there to do?

There are extensive skill trees and itemization choices. The roleplaying is choosing which skills and items you wish to use in your quest to vanquish demons.

None of those games are like Diablo…

From the wiki page about ARPGs:

> Diablo's effect on the market was significant, inspiring many imitators. Its impact was such that the term "action RPG" has come to be more commonly used for Diablo-style games, with The Legend of Zelda itself slowly recategorized as an action-adventure.

Zelda-type games were popular before Diablo-type games became the standard for the genre. Ys is an action RPG but I don’t think Ys is the type of game the average person means when they say ARPG.

Zelda didn't have experience points and levelling (except Zelda II) but there were many other games that were clearly RPGs and that had real time combat. Secret of Mana would be a classical action RPG. I never heard the term being restricted to Diablo.

One that comes to mind is Shadowlands (i at least remember it as not turn based..):

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadowlands_(video_game)

> Diablo 1 did effectively create the genre as far as the history of gaming is concerned

Ha, no. Legend (1992), Tower of Souls (1995), Dragonstone (1994),... And that was just on the Amiga/Atari/PC. I guess people more familar with consoles have many more examples.

> Diablo 1 did effectively create the genre as far as the history of gaming is concerned

> Ha no.

This is unceremoniously ungracious and an obvious misinterpretation. Being the first is not the same as genre creation^. The games prior to Diablo 1 shared features, but weren't considered a formula for generating revenue beyond the novel mechanics.

^Herzog Zwei had elements of the modern RTS, but it is not considered genre defining.

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