Darkest Dungeon

1. joebomb10

   Feb 3, 2015

   10

   Darkest Dungeon is at it’s heart more than just a rogue-like RPG. It’s a tale, a story, an epic if you will. Becoming attached to yourDarkest Dungeon is at it’s heart more than just a rogue-like RPG. It’s a tale, a story, an epic if you will. Becoming attached to your characters cannot be helped and only makes those final blows much more painful to witness. You cannot go wrong with Darkest Dungeon.
   
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   Gameplay: Darkest Dungeon gameplay is slow and methodical, but that does not make it stale. Oh no, the gameplay is as staunch as the droves of monsters you’ll slay. To rush your decisions will lead your party to suffer both mentally and physically. It’s unforgiving, and you’ll probably throw a few cusses at the screen but it’s part of the experience. This is a turned-based strategy gem, and you’ll see that the moment you step into the abyss.
   
   Mechanics: Controls are simple, actions are responsive. It’s a very well designed UI with enough depth to achieve what you want without feeling overwhelmed by navigation. You can literally play the entire game with just a mouse, unless you wish to name your characters after family members (not recommended).
   
   Graphics: Amazing enough to warrant the purchase of an art book. It’s orginal, somber, but warm enough to set it apart from other dreary titles. It takes you back, draws you in, and provides more than enough character and emotion while remaining true to the art direction. Nothing seems out of place, and at the same time everything feels otherworldly.
   
   Story: A solid foundation for a rogue-like game, and more than enough narration and backstory to keep you invested. The story is not the focus, but will provide you with everything you need to understand the world and characters.
   
   Replayability: Very high. There’s tons of upgrades (both town and character) and lots of trinkets to be found, if you stay alive long enough to make use of them. On top of that, there are currently three distinct areas with different enemies and randomized dungeons.
   
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   Recommended: Yes, very.
   Rating: Currently 9.5/10 (rounded up) - This is not a game you want to miss
   
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   Darkest Dungeon is the most original and deadly combination of genres to date. No area of the game is left unpolished, which says a lot for an Early Access title. I will continue to enjoy this game for an endless amount of time as it offers both an immense amount of replayability, depth, and challenge.… Expand

   • 37 of 78 users found this helpful
2. DragonHeart000

   Feb 12, 2020

   10

   Amazing game! Love the stress aspect since it's quite innovative and not something you typically ever think of in a game. The game is alsoAmazing game! Love the stress aspect since it's quite innovative and not something you typically ever think of in a game. The game is also incredibly polished and is very well done.
   
   I'd highly recommend this game to anyone that is interested in an innovative game, likes Roguelike games, or likes games that make you think about the characters.… Expand

   • 1 of 4 users found this helpful
4. Boonah

   Jan 20, 2016

   9

   A dark dungeon crawling compelling masterpiece of a game. The art is great, the narration is INCREDIBLE, the game has a dark atmosphere thatA dark dungeon crawling compelling masterpiece of a game. The art is great, the narration is INCREDIBLE, the game has a dark atmosphere that grips and pulls you in. The game revolves around stress management and party management, it can be challenging and brutal at times, but boring it is not.
   
   My only criticism is that the game gets easier with time rather than more difficult. For £20 you can't go wrong.… Expand

   • 4 of 17 users found this helpful
5. Eikox

   Mar 12, 2016

   8

   I give it and 8 because after of a lot of hours played, dozens of died heroes and almost reach the bankruptcy with the town. They give me thatI give it and 8 because after of a lot of hours played, dozens of died heroes and almost reach the bankruptcy with the town. They give me that final..... f*ck you. I love/hate this game.… Expand

   • 2 of 5 users found this helpful
6. iseeall

   Dec 21, 2017

   7

   It's an RPG with turn-based battles and a distinctive atmosphere. Its stellar class/ability system is ruined by extreme randomness,It's an RPG with turn-based battles and a distinctive atmosphere. Its stellar class/ability system is ruined by extreme randomness, permadeath and hidden information.
   
   The good:
   - great art, music, narrator voice, the whole atmosphere of darkness, death and sorrow
   - you build a party of 4 characters of different classes, there are over a dozen classes, and each has 8 abilities (of which, again, you can only pick 4 at a time). This all interacts in very interesting ways. Also, a lot depends on relative placement of characters because some abilities can only be used when the character stands, say, in the 3rd or the 4th row, but not in the 1st or the 2nd one. I can't immediately think of any similar games except from Disciples but still, here it's a lot more meat and tons of factors and strategies to consider.
   
   The so-so:
   - the design of dungeons is almost linear. Even in a cave you just move from left to right. It makes the game feel not even 2-dimensional but 1-dimensional. Almost like you just need to keep the character progression up with the increasing power of monster quads and that's it. There is no spatial component to it, and not much choice in where you go next. Which is probably ok for some people, but almost made me feel this game is intended for Flash or mobile (?) which however would be weird, given the high difficulty and the complex combat system.
   - GUI could be improved. E.g. you can't switch between characters easily while viewing buildings. This requires to close the character stats window, then right-click again on another character and so on. Management of things between battles just take too much time and hassle, and not because of the interesting decisions you have to make but because of struggling with the clumsy interface.
   
   The bad:
   - as other players said, the extreme randomness takes away much of the strategic feel. Crits, dodges, misses, resists - all this junk is from the RPG world, sure, but as a strategy games player (and I'm mostly fan of TBS games) this all feels like obligatory crap which designers never get tired of putting into games. In fact, when I played Disciples 2 back in 2000s, I opened gbattacks file in some hex editor and manually replaced all the chances to hit with 100% and instead reduced the damage proportionally. Believe me, after that the previously frustrating game (so many battles had to be replayed over and over with the same series of orders during battle, each time to get a different result) - turned into a thoughtful, tranquil TBS which wasn't easier, not at all! Simply by removing randomness here this game would be a lot more pleasing, at least to me.
   - permadeath, which may seem like a cool concept on paper (this game even says to you in the first dialog at game start that it's ok if your heroes die, and some battles can't be won etc). But in reality, in your first playthroughs you won't know what enemies do. So, say, you unexpectedly meet a strong boss which does something (some abilities, e.g. a murloc-type 2-tile boss endlessly spawning new mobs) which you don't know in advance. You face the boss, start losing, your healer dies. The fact that you couldn't know that new mobs are spawned endlessly makes you not feel like you made a mistake (and could correct it if you could re-load) but instead that the game itself makes no sense. Well, the game gives you a hint that ok, this battle can't be won, you must retreat. So, abandon the quest. And after that the dungeon will be unavailable, so no retries. And the killed heroes can't resurrected. And the save file has already been overwritten. Hmm.. This really makes no sense. You could just restart the whole game (as you would in ADOM, remember this 1994 game?) But this wouldn't bring anything because on your next attempt you will face another new monster which has unexpected tactics - and you will lose another party or at least a few heroes on that one, only to learn what that new monster does, and fail another dungeon. All this idiocy could be easily avoided if the authors made permadeath an option. Say, new players can re-load as much as they want, but veterans who have beaten the game and know all the rules and monsters could then try some extra challenge in iron man mode. At least that worked in Fallout 2 and I played it for months (at least 20 attempts) until I beat it in iron man (well, almost, didn't bother to do Navarro base). But that was after I knew the game inside out. Requiring a new player to restart the WHOLE Fallout 2 each time they saw a new monster for the first time or chose a wrong dialog branch would be pointless.
   - no tooltips or any other way to find out about abilities of monsters. Which means you can't really plan any tactics at the start of a battle and instead just apply something standard (which depends on your pre-designed party) and passively watch how enemies do damage to you, put dots or increase stress of your characters. No info => no meaningful strategy… Expand

   • 3 of 5 users found this helpful
7. ExcAverage

   Dec 25, 2018

   6

   Say what you'd like about my skill, but this game is ridiculously punishing. I love the theme and as far as I'm concerned there's no problemSay what you'd like about my skill, but this game is ridiculously punishing. I love the theme and as far as I'm concerned there's no problem the with very core of the game play, however the hours of grinding through the same hallways and enemies that grow dull noticeably quickly, I think there's some major flaws with anything past the core of the game play. There's no real story to dig for, although if you're looking at buying this I doubt you're in it so much for the story as the game play, and the perma-death mechanic would sound like it would make the game more intense, and I was hopeful that it would be, however it really just ends up padding out the game to crazy lengths for your first run through the game, and afterwards I don't believe this game has much replay value other than playing through on Stygian or Bloodmoon difficulty. If you're really into turn-based RPGs with a bit of strategy, I doubt you'll find this game as annoying as I did, but as it stands there is too much punishment to be reasonable, and it's not always something you can really avoid with skill. Going into a high-level boss and losing a character can set you back hours, and that's piled on top of the time spent with your characters getting quirks and stress removed. Personally, even if I were more into the genre, I'd give this game a pass. Not unplayable, but not very good either. I'd love to see what the devs create in the future.… Expand

   • 0 of 1 users found this helpful
8. chialeos

   Sep 12, 2021

   0

   this game cured all of my friends longing depression

   • 0 of 2 users found this helpful

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