User Score
7.5

Generally favorable reviews- based on 68 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 44 out of 68
  2. Negative: 8 out of 68

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  1. May 16, 2020
    1
    Darkest Dungeon's ugly, inbred little brother. A game that tries to be slay the spire, DD and dungeon keeper yet fails miserably. This game just doesn't work, is half broken and half finished. If the devs cared, the only way to explain its mediocrity is the devs where bad in the first place. The pace drags on, the battles are too long, the maps are too long, you have to invest a lot moreDarkest Dungeon's ugly, inbred little brother. A game that tries to be slay the spire, DD and dungeon keeper yet fails miserably. This game just doesn't work, is half broken and half finished. If the devs cared, the only way to explain its mediocrity is the devs where bad in the first place. The pace drags on, the battles are too long, the maps are too long, you have to invest a lot more time than in DD only to be randomly crushed once you walk in the 2nd level. Tutorial misses half of the mechanics and lets you figure it out by yourself. The game mechanics are grindy, unrewarding and repetitive (nowhere near the subtlety of DD). The UI is absolutely unintuitive, quickly annoying, incompetent and seems like it's not been tested at all (2 clicks to create a character, sure).
    You literally start the game with a character that is as useful as a doormat (dark knight, basically a 2ft tall chaos warrior in heavy armour that is weaker than your basic skeleton, IN EVERY WAY, go figure) and the only thing you can do with it is sacrify it the first chance you get and never use it again, EVER.
    All the characters have 6 skills but you'll only use 2 or 3 at best because the others are useless. The characters are so bad anyways you'll get murdered in the first 3 batlles, even dirt cheap enemies hurt you like hell. You start with peashooters, and have to play at least 30mns (and go through a ton of unintuitive UI micromanagement) to start having efficient warriors (which will get easily wiped out later on wether at lvl 10 or not). First game i ever played where the armies of the undead are bloody ****
    The buffs are indicated by a green square, but you have no idea what buff you are currently using because it's indicated NOWHERE. You might as well have 3 active buffs and you have no idea what's going on, as far as you know, you have A buff, period.
    I don't know how long the devs worked on this but so far, it feels undercooked, unbalanced, and just not well made. The ideas are there but the implementations...the devs might as well start again from 0 and understand what they are trying to do this time.
    "as good as darkest dungeon" I don't think so. The only thing this game got from darkest dungeon is RNG so unfair at some times you better have a plan B, C and D or else you just lose the 4 hours you've been playing.
    Upgrading your troops is essential but nothing is automated and you lose them very fast so you quickly spend hours increasing random stats that don't really change much in overall gameplay.
    Yeah 4 hours, because the pace is SLOW AF (no way you can have quick play sessions like in StP or DD, which were part of the appeal of the games), and this game amounts to using the same troops and same tactics all of the time until you get annihilated by over OP enemies that come out of nowhere once you pass the first boss (difficulty jumps from too easy to too hard with no steps in between).
    I just spent the 3 last days playing 6 hours a day to figure out how this game works.
    Verdict : this game works not. It's uningaging, boring, repetitive and unbalanced, and lacks work and investment from the devs. And has the nerves to compare itself to DD.
    Skip this one, don't even buy it on sale. Utter waste of time. Gets so annoying you'll feel like uninstalling it 30 hours in. Unfinished, half-baked, broken, boring garbage.
    You thought the RNG was all over the place in Slay the Spire (and it is)? Wait till you play this one.
    The devs don't get the difference between a hard game and a broken game.
    I've spent 300hrs on DD and I'm still playing it. 250hrs hours on Slay the Spire and still playing it. 1500hrs+ on Binding of Isaac and still playing it. This one I got fed up with in 30 hours.
    Skip it!
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  2. Aug 24, 2020
    4
    if you ever played DD you cant play this one... so boring and bad designed, i dont know who are the devs but it's not good at all
  3. Jun 22, 2020
    1
    I hate to write a bad review for an indie game, but this really had a lot of potential and did not live up to expectations at all. First, the graphics are very dark and unpleasant. I understand this is a stylistic choice, but it is not executed well at all. Darkest Dungeon for example is the same style, but way more polished. Most importantly, the gameplay is not intuitive and veryI hate to write a bad review for an indie game, but this really had a lot of potential and did not live up to expectations at all. First, the graphics are very dark and unpleasant. I understand this is a stylistic choice, but it is not executed well at all. Darkest Dungeon for example is the same style, but way more polished. Most importantly, the gameplay is not intuitive and very complicated. Slay the spire and other successful roguelite rpgs are very simple to pickup and have a lot of depth. This was just complicated and intimidating. Expand
  4. Apr 24, 2022
    2
    Unimaginative Darkest Dungeon clone where whole gameplay is boring grind.

    Played 6 hours and completed the game on "More Pain!", and about no fights were enjoyable. Game was not challenging at all and boring grind.
Metascore
78

Generally favorable reviews - based on 11 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 8 out of 11
  2. Negative: 0 out of 11
  1. LEVEL (Czech Republic)
    Jul 23, 2020
    80
    A very pleasant surprise. The game maintains great gameplay and at the same time brings nice innovations. A Darkest Dungeon, where you play as the evil ones. Give it a chance! [Issue#303]
  2. May 20, 2020
    60
    Iratus could have been a worthy successor to Darkest Dungeon, but is cast down into the swamps of mediocrity by its monotonous, boring battles.
  3. May 18, 2020
    82
    While Darkest Dungeon has more layers of complexity, turn-based combat in Iratus is just as compelling. You have to pay attention to negative effects, preempt potential threats, exploit loopholes in the game’s sophisticated rulebook and build effective combos.