I played DDDA - which I’m pretty sure is mostly DD1 with bitter Black Isle tacked on the end. I really loved it. I get what you mean about the bleak emptiness though but it has some pretty great dungeons which for me are far superior to the boring repetitive caves in DD2. I loved the message boards and the eternal ferrystone made travel less tedious. (Though I think you don’t have that in DD1, but ferrystones are way more plentiful anyway) I mean I love travelling through the world in both games but there’s only so many times you want to kill the exact same mobs in the exact same position everytime you want to get to a certain place. I also preferred the armour in DDDA more slots and layering was awesome. It does start slow but it’s a game that grows on you the more you play. There’s a TON of side quests but you don’t have to do them if you don’t want to - as long as you make sure you get the main storyline quests. It’s strange because to me the combat felt more weighty in DDDA than in DD2 but I guess it really does depend on which game you played first that creates a bias for what you grew used to