I can always appreciate a game that lets you lose and face the consequences every once in awhile, hell it might happen pretty often in this game. This game is fun because there are genuine stakes in your encounters, and forces the player to carry on. As you play the game and improve at commanding your party, you learn that the stakes aren't as high as you first thought, and your challenges are not as insurmountable as they first seem, this for myself felt like genuine character progression that happened to me personally with the game instead of being something that happened to my character in the game which was a really fulfilling experience.

The game's aesthetics are also top-notch, the art is appropriately dark and gritty, the fairly rudimentary animations feel heavy and striking with the different effects, camera angles, and sound effects applied. The announcer adds a lot to the experience, acting like a narrator for your dark adventure and sets the tone very well, with enough lines to keep from getting stale for a really long playthrough.

Overall this game is one of the best that I've played with very little bad to say about it, the game can be wonderfully frustrating at times but I think that's part of its charm sometimes you just lose and that's part of the game, it feels bad but not actually too much of a setback and when you win it feels amazing, when you win when your plan all comes together and the whole dungeon run is a breeze it feels earned and is a lot less boring than when you cruise through the content in other games. Despite its dark aesthetics, its a game all about never giving up, about falling down and getting back up, learning from your mistakes on the way, and it tells that from it's mechanics and gameplay which really sets it apart from other games and I think demonstrates how games as a medium can be different to other mediums of art like literature and cinema.

It's good but I can't say now that I've beaten it that I harbour much love for it or anything. It has a similar flaw to the XCOM games in that it really outstays its welcome by 8-10 hours. A lot of the midgame quests is grinding out the same missions you've been doing up until that point with maybe 1 or 2 new enemies to take into consideration (which became far too familiar far too quickly as well), until you finally unlock a new boss so you can get back to the fun part of the game, all the while hoping RNG doesn't decide to fuck you over on a random run. Furthermore these missions are even worse than XCOM's midgame because a ton of them feel like EXACT replica's of one another, with only slight variation in the layout. Also there's far too much walking through empty hallways and backtracking through dungeons for how monotonous and slow this can be at times. A fast walking option in the settings would've probably cut down my playthroughs length by an hour over the course of the game.

When it comes to game balance I generally think they did a good job class-wise, only the Grave Robber felt to me like it didn't serve that much of a purpose on many teams (it has a little bit of everything, but almost every comp I made i'd rather take someone else with me in their place). Vestal is a little too overcentralizing for my tastes; when the only other good (main) healer is the rng-centric Occultist you are setting up your strategy game to become vestal + 3 others as your comp on every (important) mission. Additionally, I think the bosses are mostly good as long as you know what you are getting into. Unfortunately a TON of them are matchup checks that become nearly impossible with the wrong comp, and a pushover with the right one. The wiki or a friend who knows what they are doing is a lifesaver in this regard. Going in blind can easily be the end of a run.
Enemy design is hard to talk about because generally they are well done but a lot of problems with them come from the structure of the rest of the game: There is too much RNG stacked on top of RNG meaning that any fight can be a complete push-over or spell the end of a run.

As a final note I want to say that capping your accuracy at 95% is one of the stupidest game mechanics I've seen in a while. Forcing RNG like that is fucking lame and it creates some really fucked situations where I set everything up perfectly but two of my guys decide to miss their 95% accuracy moves on their backline Madmen who promptly fears two of my guys and now the whole party is losing it right before I was about to camp etc. etc. It's just not fun, you are getting punished for the basic act of playing the game.

I understand if all of this comes of as supremely negative, but I swear I do think this is a good game over all. The core gameplay loop (in the early/mid game), the strategy, the art direction, the sound effects, the music, the atmosphere are all really great. It just falls apart bit by bit the longer this game goes on, and unfortunately this game goes on for a WHILE.

So, to conclude: This is a good game that I would not recommend to anybody. Or if you do play it, don't feel pressured to beat it. Play as long as its fun, and don't feel ashamed if you have to drop it because it is too hard or feels too unfair, because it really can be on many occasions. There is a reason that only 6.5% of players have even beaten the game on any difficulty.

Shoutout to Dismas and Reynauld the GOATS for being with me until the end and getting me that achievement o7

A turn-based modern dungeon crawler that will make you shriek in horror, in all the best ways. Warning: this game is not for the faint of heart. Darkest Dungeon is difficult, and deaths are permanent. The frustration of losing a party member after sinking much time and effort into refining them as one of your own is at the forefront of what makes DD stand apart. You feel the loss more deeply because of the unforgiving mechanics, and are often burdened alongside your party's stress as if you are in the dungeon with them. The core gameplay and progression is very well done. The voice acting and art style is phenomenal. Only caveat is that some of the abilities feel underpowered or that they do not have a good use, and the game can be more frustrating than fun at times.