diablo

I still wanted to reply to this, but didn't have the time.

Later Diablo games are about management of gear, cooldowns and enviromental awareness (traps, explosions, elements). My main reason for liking Dialo1 the most is that it homes in on what makes it good without all the chaff. A lot of things it does well have been done way better in later games (inside and outside its series), but as a whole it's a great rogue-lite game. Everything from your gear, your spells etc. is random. You can go the entire game without finding a scroll of warping, or firewall. Or you could plan on making a durable warrior, but there's no tanky gear in sight.

The game gifting you completely random sets of armor means you're more forced to play on the fly, use the tools that you have and kite accordingly. Later levels of the dungeon can be a gear check (esp. in elemental resistances), but you can always just press 'New game' and start fresh with your character, retaining all your money, level and gear, but resetting the world.

Quests are even randomized, only offering you about 25% of the possible quests per run (pre determined). You can boot the game at any time in your life and you'll get a new scenario, new situation of combination of gear, quests and problematic stuff that just hits unlike before.

I've had runs where I was cursed with only terrible gear like "lose 10HP every time you attack", until I found a really good bow, deciding to make my warrior a bit more a  ranged hybrid.

In terms of actual interaction outside the RPG elements, it's mostly a game about positioning, kiting, not getting surrounded and avoiding certain death situations. Stagger is based on level-difference, so if a boss is way stronger, his attacks will stagger you so much you can't do anything and you'll just die immediately.

This is legit what happens to most players during the first boss: https://youtu.be/Odi5iR9Ni50?t=120

I couldn't jam with D2 and D3 since a lot of this randomization was gone, and a lot more was focused on getting and making a good build. Sure the maps were still random, but the quests weren't and a lot of gear sets were set in stone I think. In that form it's more a game that rewards dopamine. Click the button, get shiny sound, get gear, see it work, get better gear - it's a great 'forget about life for a week' game. Hardcore mode adds a lot to it too.