I love everything about this game apart from actually playing it.
I really enjoyed the setting and tone of the game, and the art style fits in perfectly. Combined with permadeath mechanics, it really makes each dungeon crawl feel dangerous and exciting. The turn based combat is very satisfying, and I appreciated the twists on turn-based combat like party positioning (push/pull moves, lunges, and even the surprise mechanic). The classes are interesting and fairly balanced such that there are a wide variety of viable party compositions.
I couldn't make it through the endgame because it felt like it required a bit too much luck/grind, but I very much enjoyed my time with it.
I couldn't make it through the endgame because it felt like it required a bit too much luck/grind, but I very much enjoyed my time with it.
A brutally hard and stress inducing game. I "enjoyed" my time with it, but probably won't be finishing it any time soon, if ever.
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
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
I like this a lot - or at least I like the thought of it a lot - but it exists in a strange limbo state between being too complex and not complex enough, and it's making me question how much I want to keep committing to it when the majority of gameplay is based on a fairly broad RNG spectrum. Getting into the groove for the first few hours is exciting, getting to see all the art is wonderful, and the punishment mechanics are interesting enough, but once I got to a certain point it started to feel a little tedious for how much variety it seemed to have at first, with so many classes and formations and randomized dungeons. It seems like it requires a lot of time to actually make any progress, and an equal amount to lose that progress. In other roguelikes, success and failure both lead to significant advancements over a few play sessions, but in Darkest Dungeon it feels like it could take a week or two of steady play just to make any leeway, and that feels like too much of a commitment for what it's doing.
I'm at the point where my party is hitting level 3, but I'm still taking early level parties on simple runs just to get money and artifacts and things, and the loop seems to be stuck a little bit where I'm defaulting to buying the same abilities for every class instead of experimenting with different tactics, because there definitely seems to be a best option when it comes to building your adventurers up. I'm not really progressing much at hour 10, because I can't take my level 3 party on level 1 boss fights, but the RNG doesn't like my level 1 parties and so I have to spend money filling in the gaps and taking exploration quests just for income. Looking at this quest list in the hub, there's so much I'm not even close to touching, and it kinda just feels like this is what the majority of the playtime is going to feel like - just trying to get enough money to scrape by and cycling out party members until something eventually breaks and I proceed to longer and more difficult quests with the same rewards in bigger quantities. Normally I'd be into that idea, but it feels less like resource management and more like grinding at a point in a JRPG where you're crazy underleveled and need the numbers to go up so you can progress. It also feels just randomized enough that failure doesn't always feel fair mechanically. I compare the system to Mork Borg, where failure is inevitable, but you're encouraged to play dirty to rebalance the odds. Darkest Dungeon pretends to be going for that same thing, but doesn't give you enough agency to make it feel true. Really good things can happen, sure, but they're sparse and generally don't make much of an impact long-term, which is imbalanced by the fact that the really bad things feel too random with a much bigger long-term impact, and make progress feel frustratingly hinged on luck. This would be more of an issue if you weren't allowed to return from quests early
The other problem is that your inventory is limited, so in later dungeons you'll have to throw out money to keep a potentially helpful utility item, so you're technically only bringing in as much loot as the game deems necessary. This is dissatisfying given that the dungeons are already limited, so you can only get so much loot in one run anyways, and I think it'd make more sense if there was an encumbrance system or just a separate inventory management system for utility items and artifacts, and money doesn't count towards those slots.
To further the balancing issue, not being able to take higher level adventurers on lower level quests means that buying new equipment and trinkets isn't necessarily an upgrade more than a necessity to stay at the same level as enemies, so I'm not getting much satisfaction out of spending money on better gear and items, especially when the loop stays pretty much the same through longer dungeons.
Bottom line: it's a great way to burn some time, but it really doesn't feel like it intends for you to get far unless you're the type of person who really gets into roguelikes, or else really clicks with this game specifically. Personally, I don't have enough time to justify getting too far into it because at a certain point I feel like the game's shown me everything it wants to and I'm ok with drawing that line and cheerily moving on to something else. Radiant mode might be the way to go here if you're like me and want to see what it has to offer without committing a ton of time.
I'm at the point where my party is hitting level 3, but I'm still taking early level parties on simple runs just to get money and artifacts and things, and the loop seems to be stuck a little bit where I'm defaulting to buying the same abilities for every class instead of experimenting with different tactics, because there definitely seems to be a best option when it comes to building your adventurers up. I'm not really progressing much at hour 10, because I can't take my level 3 party on level 1 boss fights, but the RNG doesn't like my level 1 parties and so I have to spend money filling in the gaps and taking exploration quests just for income. Looking at this quest list in the hub, there's so much I'm not even close to touching, and it kinda just feels like this is what the majority of the playtime is going to feel like - just trying to get enough money to scrape by and cycling out party members until something eventually breaks and I proceed to longer and more difficult quests with the same rewards in bigger quantities. Normally I'd be into that idea, but it feels less like resource management and more like grinding at a point in a JRPG where you're crazy underleveled and need the numbers to go up so you can progress. It also feels just randomized enough that failure doesn't always feel fair mechanically. I compare the system to Mork Borg, where failure is inevitable, but you're encouraged to play dirty to rebalance the odds. Darkest Dungeon pretends to be going for that same thing, but doesn't give you enough agency to make it feel true. Really good things can happen, sure, but they're sparse and generally don't make much of an impact long-term, which is imbalanced by the fact that the really bad things feel too random with a much bigger long-term impact, and make progress feel frustratingly hinged on luck. This would be more of an issue if you weren't allowed to return from quests early
The other problem is that your inventory is limited, so in later dungeons you'll have to throw out money to keep a potentially helpful utility item, so you're technically only bringing in as much loot as the game deems necessary. This is dissatisfying given that the dungeons are already limited, so you can only get so much loot in one run anyways, and I think it'd make more sense if there was an encumbrance system or just a separate inventory management system for utility items and artifacts, and money doesn't count towards those slots.
To further the balancing issue, not being able to take higher level adventurers on lower level quests means that buying new equipment and trinkets isn't necessarily an upgrade more than a necessity to stay at the same level as enemies, so I'm not getting much satisfaction out of spending money on better gear and items, especially when the loop stays pretty much the same through longer dungeons.
Bottom line: it's a great way to burn some time, but it really doesn't feel like it intends for you to get far unless you're the type of person who really gets into roguelikes, or else really clicks with this game specifically. Personally, I don't have enough time to justify getting too far into it because at a certain point I feel like the game's shown me everything it wants to and I'm ok with drawing that line and cheerily moving on to something else. Radiant mode might be the way to go here if you're like me and want to see what it has to offer without committing a ton of time.
How do you judge a game where bullshit is intended and a core part of the gameplay? Darkest Dungeon is fun, I like it, it looks great, the combat is fun and engaging and it's great to learn how it works. The "problem" is that the game does not play fairly. This is not necessarily an issue, I do think bullshit has a place in gaming and can be used well effectively gameplay-wise. One example that comes to mind is LISA: The Painful. The idea of this game is that even if you are extremely prepared, you can still lose one of your characters permanently (except a rare event). Losing a character is a HUGE gut punch and I know many people love this part of the game; the fact that the game isn't afraid to inconvenience the player in order to keep the atmosphere tense. I don't like it, it makes it a miserable experience. The most fun I've had in this game is breaking it, which is funny to think about because if it weren't this unfair, I wouldn't have enjoyed it as much. There are many exploits that are very easy to do and they trivialize the vast majority of the game. I wouldn't be as negative on this game if it didn't take a ton of hours to finish the campaign, it feels like padding. A more condensed experience with bullshit elements sounds good to me, which again reminds me of LISA. Despite all this, I've had a good time with this game and spent a lot of hours in it. It's one of those games that comes to mind when I see those meme templates that say "Worst game you like".
A very well-designed game that I just do not have the patience for. Extremely difficult gameplay means lots of planning and no small amount of grinding, but I found the in-game tools to be lacking in terms of planning, and grinding is only fun for so long. I definitely can see why this game was so well received but it isn't for me.
Great game with a lot of flaws. The art style and narrative design are excellent, and Wayne June's voice acting is impeccable. The gameplay loop is quite engaging and difficult if a bit repetitive. The endgame is punishing to the point of tedium.
cookie clicker for perverts (the way i play it)
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.
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.
A fascinating masterwork of design, where every step toward your final goal is precarious and paved with tragedy. Uses frustration and friction to its advantage and challenges the player to overcome ever-worsening odds. It’s all in service of a really incredible narrative, too.
An exercise in tedium. Super repetitive and extremely grindy, and not in a fun way either.
It's an awesome game with a cool atmosphere and art style for the first 10-20 hours, but after that you realize that you've been killing the exact same enemies over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again just to farm some gold/xp and you haven't even gotten that far, and uninstall this boring grindfest.
It's an awesome game with a cool atmosphere and art style for the first 10-20 hours, but after that you realize that you've been killing the exact same enemies over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again just to farm some gold/xp and you haven't even gotten that far, and uninstall this boring grindfest.
I enjoyed the combat for a while, but the repetition overstayed its welcome, and it takes to long to progress in a way that feels meaningful.
A masterpiece designed to test you and painfully punish you when you fail. The atmosphere of the game it's really well fleshed out. A must play even if you don't mean to finish it.
A shoutout to Bradley, my first Leper, who made it to and out many bosses and the Darkest Dungeon itself twice
A shoutout to Bradley, my first Leper, who made it to and out many bosses and the Darkest Dungeon itself twice
Ah yes, i WILL install literal head size tits for the characters. i WILL make all the enemies' some form of pornographic content. i WILL turn this horrific eldritch horror game about the human struggle of defying a potentially inevitable fate into a HARDE CORE, BOOBS AND ASS game where ALL the things are female and MOAN when they get hurt and FUCKING DIE.
10/10 killing myself yesterday.
10/10 killing myself yesterday.
Solid turn-based combat, but the rest of the game feels like an eternal procedurally-generated RnG grind. Characters come and go, there doesn't seem to be much of a story, so they have little in terms of personalities and you don't grow attached to them.
The atmosphere of dread is also not very compelling. Instead of writing good horror fiction, they just call things scary, which doesn't make them scary at all. The writing (as little of it as there is) in this game is pretty basic, and feels completely unnecessary.
It is addictive for a while, until you realize that you've basically been rolling dice the entire time.
The atmosphere of dread is also not very compelling. Instead of writing good horror fiction, they just call things scary, which doesn't make them scary at all. The writing (as little of it as there is) in this game is pretty basic, and feels completely unnecessary.
It is addictive for a while, until you realize that you've basically been rolling dice the entire time.
I don't have time for this. If you do, good for you!
Very fun rougelike that can get a tad repetitve in longer sessions overall very good
Utterly incredible aesthetic holding up a shaky, rng-based, mess of a game.
A one-of-a-kind rougelite with fantastic atmosphere, visuals, audio and design. Everything in this game is very cohesive and really makes for a great experience overall.
After you've beaten this challenging game, there's a lot mods out there. Some are giant projects which aim to be an expansion to the game with more bosses, items, characters and whatnot, whereas other mods are small QoL fixes.
Also there's an abundance of porn/hentai mods. I don't know why, but there's a lot. I'll admit, some of these are pretty nice.
After you've beaten this challenging game, there's a lot mods out there. Some are giant projects which aim to be an expansion to the game with more bosses, items, characters and whatnot, whereas other mods are small QoL fixes.
Also there's an abundance of porn/hentai mods. I don't know why, but there's a lot. I'll admit, some of these are pretty nice.
dis shit is awesom breh liek i dont even care waht u think its so sick
Despair. Despair everywhere. Despair among us. No hope. Death. Desolation.
Well this is pretty much how it is going in DD's world. But does this dark theme (use dark reader to preserve your sight wink wink) also applies to gameplay? That's actually a good question.
I would have answered a straight forward "yes" if you had asked me this several weeks ago. But a friend of mine brought his Switch for the new year party (don't judge us) and made me play this. I was very pleasantly surprised by how "accessible" it was. I put "accessible" between quote marks because we must remember it is a rogue lite marketed as hardcore. That means it isn't accessible for 99% of videogame players. But it isn't as hardcore as I thought.
And basically that's why I liked it. It's actually cool. It takes his time to correctly explain what's important and then... The game vanishes behind its gameplay. Which is actually the best thing it could have ever do. And I'm very happy with it.
Gameplay is "aux petits oignons" as we say in french. Literally, "as sweet as onions". It's the infamous "everything matters" rule. The game's based on squads composed of 4 characters. The position of your squad members is utterly important : knights should be in front to tank and reach the enemy while mages must be backward to safely cast AOE spells. On top of this you add a little bit of randomness and a system of double health gauge (actual health & stress health) and you obtain a very addictive game loop. Of course, because XCOM exists, all the things you loot must be reinvested in your base to upgrade your buildings, which allows you to upgrade your characters, which allows you to beat greater challenges with greater rewards. And that's basically it.
I quit with no regret once the game became a little hard, just before it became "unfair" in my opinion (How are you supposed to have enough healing power in your team without a vestal?). I played... Holy moly 10 hours! I thought it was only 6h! If that's not the sign it's a good game, I don't know what it is!
It's a cheap game that supports an indie studio, go buy it and play it ;)
Well this is pretty much how it is going in DD's world. But does this dark theme (use dark reader to preserve your sight wink wink) also applies to gameplay? That's actually a good question.
I would have answered a straight forward "yes" if you had asked me this several weeks ago. But a friend of mine brought his Switch for the new year party (don't judge us) and made me play this. I was very pleasantly surprised by how "accessible" it was. I put "accessible" between quote marks because we must remember it is a rogue lite marketed as hardcore. That means it isn't accessible for 99% of videogame players. But it isn't as hardcore as I thought.
And basically that's why I liked it. It's actually cool. It takes his time to correctly explain what's important and then... The game vanishes behind its gameplay. Which is actually the best thing it could have ever do. And I'm very happy with it.
Gameplay is "aux petits oignons" as we say in french. Literally, "as sweet as onions". It's the infamous "everything matters" rule. The game's based on squads composed of 4 characters. The position of your squad members is utterly important : knights should be in front to tank and reach the enemy while mages must be backward to safely cast AOE spells. On top of this you add a little bit of randomness and a system of double health gauge (actual health & stress health) and you obtain a very addictive game loop. Of course, because XCOM exists, all the things you loot must be reinvested in your base to upgrade your buildings, which allows you to upgrade your characters, which allows you to beat greater challenges with greater rewards. And that's basically it.
I quit with no regret once the game became a little hard, just before it became "unfair" in my opinion (How are you supposed to have enough healing power in your team without a vestal?). I played... Holy moly 10 hours! I thought it was only 6h! If that's not the sign it's a good game, I don't know what it is!
It's a cheap game that supports an indie studio, go buy it and play it ;)
This game will break you. The setting is just as gloomy and punishing as the gameplay is, with chance dictating your fate through horrifying circumstances that add to the theme of hope-testing loss and strife. Enjoyment of this game depends strongly on your levels of bullshit tolerance, but it's a unique and fun experience once you get into peeping the horror.
simplesmente a masmorra mais escura
Just goes unreasonably hard. Intense, brutal, so fucking cool. In time you will know the tragic extent of your failings (all of your heroes died because you didn't bring an extra shovel).
This review contains spoilers
I tried to complete this game on three different occasions, playing it on Steam and Epic.
Run 1: First look.
This could have been one of the best roguelike RPGs out there, but they destroyed the game by failing at one key point: Balance. They gave the enemies a spiked sledgehammer that shoots lightning, fire, and ice, and asked you to fight them with a broken spoon while poisoned, cursed, low HP, and death is permanent because "let's add some artificial difficulty, this is a serious game", which could be nice if this was an action-focused game where you could dodge and chip away at the enemy, but it's a turn-based RPG, and the enemy will hit you no matter what. And they do hit you, a lot. The only thing this game has going for it is the art and the actual Darkest Dungeon, which I'll never reach without spending 100 hours grinding and hoping for a lucky run. Fuck this game.
Run 2: Copium.
Attempting to complete this again was a mistake. I only got very frustrated for nothing, wishing this was a better game, I want this game to be good, but it just isn't fun, it's just a huge tag bait.
People pretend that this is a good game because "it's difficult" and looks very Lovecraftian, but the game itself sucks. The developers are just some random edgelords that hired a good artist, and good for them, the game looks awesome, but that doesn't make a good game.
I also found that if you get on the Steam files, you can edit the game and balance it yourself, but why would I do that? That's their job as developers, and it would take hours to learn how to understand the code and hours to edit the files without breaking the game.
I gave it another try. This time I spoiled myself with some guides, hoping to complete this game within reasonable times. Huge mistake. I still can't put my finger on what's so wrong with this game other than balance, but I think it's fundamentally broken.
Run 3: I can fix it.
I should have stopped on run 2, but I couldn't. Months passed, and I learned how to edit the game files to balance it myself.
I made healing work overall, lowered debuff chances and/or effects (for both sides), fixed how the Stress meter works, changed a lot of skills to either be relevant or at least usable instead of having a character just to spam 1 skill and nothing else, and added proper item stacking amounts, stacking items on such low numbers with a very limited inventory space is just stupid. I also buffed certain aspects of the enemies, resistances, abilities, frecuency, rarity, and overall stats. I added balanced buffs for the enemies and debuffs for the player. There are many garbage enemies that I made relevant and entertaining to fight against. I spent weeks getting down to the details of each single aspect of this game to fix it. And at the end, I got a very well-balanced game, it's still hard as fuck, but now it's playable, and the combat is enjoyable instead of complete torture. You'll still get sick, still die, still get debuffs that hinder your characters, and still get random encounters against unfair enemies, but now you can plan ahead and fight back instead of playing a dice game with your time.
After removing the dozens of hours spent editing files, I spent over 30 hours playing to "complete" the game from start to finish. And I say "complete" because there are 120 impossible achievements that are as unbalanced as the base game, for example: "Have a character survive 5 attacks at Death's Door in a single combat", Death's Door, for those who don't know, is when your character reaches 0 HP but is still alive, and every hit can and will most probably kill them forever, just thinking about the chances gives triggers PTSD attacks. Adding to that, even if you are the luckiest man alive and manage to get all the achievements from the base game, there are many achievements locked behind a paywall, so you'll never complete the game unless you pay them even more money after they tortured you with the bait of a great game and gave you the worst roguelike RPG that the world has ever seen.
After all that nonsense, I started to look at the game in a different way. I completed the Darkest Dungeon, and there was nothing else to do. The game just ends very unceremoniously, and allows you to keep playing for no reason, as if there was something else to do. The last boss wasn't even that good, it was more unfair, unbalanced, torturing shit, it was not worth it at all.
So there is no story, no exploration, no mystery to uncover, no endgame, not even coop to have fun with your friends or any other online interaction, and no feeling of completion as the achievements exist but are literally impossible to get unlses you cheat your way to each one of them, probably spending over 200 more hours to get them all. And then it hits, the game is just empty, it's a souless turn-based combat simulator that baits you with good art and false promises.
This game is 100% about combat efficiency, anything else outside of that is irrelevant. This is about how good can you plan ahead and adapt your party to the situation. But they failed at creating balanced encounters, balanced enemies, and worst of all, balanced characters, they failed at the one thing this game is all about, which makes it one of the worst roguelike RPGs that I have ever played, if not the absolute worst.
But there was something charming about it, one thing that the developers did not intend: This game is like buying a broken car just to fix it. I managed to do it, and it felt good after reaching a good balance, I had a lot more fun balancing the game than playing it.
Run 1: First look.
This could have been one of the best roguelike RPGs out there, but they destroyed the game by failing at one key point: Balance. They gave the enemies a spiked sledgehammer that shoots lightning, fire, and ice, and asked you to fight them with a broken spoon while poisoned, cursed, low HP, and death is permanent because "let's add some artificial difficulty, this is a serious game", which could be nice if this was an action-focused game where you could dodge and chip away at the enemy, but it's a turn-based RPG, and the enemy will hit you no matter what. And they do hit you, a lot. The only thing this game has going for it is the art and the actual Darkest Dungeon, which I'll never reach without spending 100 hours grinding and hoping for a lucky run. Fuck this game.
Run 2: Copium.
Attempting to complete this again was a mistake. I only got very frustrated for nothing, wishing this was a better game, I want this game to be good, but it just isn't fun, it's just a huge tag bait.
People pretend that this is a good game because "it's difficult" and looks very Lovecraftian, but the game itself sucks. The developers are just some random edgelords that hired a good artist, and good for them, the game looks awesome, but that doesn't make a good game.
I also found that if you get on the Steam files, you can edit the game and balance it yourself, but why would I do that? That's their job as developers, and it would take hours to learn how to understand the code and hours to edit the files without breaking the game.
I gave it another try. This time I spoiled myself with some guides, hoping to complete this game within reasonable times. Huge mistake. I still can't put my finger on what's so wrong with this game other than balance, but I think it's fundamentally broken.
Run 3: I can fix it.
I should have stopped on run 2, but I couldn't. Months passed, and I learned how to edit the game files to balance it myself.
I made healing work overall, lowered debuff chances and/or effects (for both sides), fixed how the Stress meter works, changed a lot of skills to either be relevant or at least usable instead of having a character just to spam 1 skill and nothing else, and added proper item stacking amounts, stacking items on such low numbers with a very limited inventory space is just stupid. I also buffed certain aspects of the enemies, resistances, abilities, frecuency, rarity, and overall stats. I added balanced buffs for the enemies and debuffs for the player. There are many garbage enemies that I made relevant and entertaining to fight against. I spent weeks getting down to the details of each single aspect of this game to fix it. And at the end, I got a very well-balanced game, it's still hard as fuck, but now it's playable, and the combat is enjoyable instead of complete torture. You'll still get sick, still die, still get debuffs that hinder your characters, and still get random encounters against unfair enemies, but now you can plan ahead and fight back instead of playing a dice game with your time.
After removing the dozens of hours spent editing files, I spent over 30 hours playing to "complete" the game from start to finish. And I say "complete" because there are 120 impossible achievements that are as unbalanced as the base game, for example: "Have a character survive 5 attacks at Death's Door in a single combat", Death's Door, for those who don't know, is when your character reaches 0 HP but is still alive, and every hit can and will most probably kill them forever, just thinking about the chances gives triggers PTSD attacks. Adding to that, even if you are the luckiest man alive and manage to get all the achievements from the base game, there are many achievements locked behind a paywall, so you'll never complete the game unless you pay them even more money after they tortured you with the bait of a great game and gave you the worst roguelike RPG that the world has ever seen.
After all that nonsense, I started to look at the game in a different way. I completed the Darkest Dungeon, and there was nothing else to do. The game just ends very unceremoniously, and allows you to keep playing for no reason, as if there was something else to do. The last boss wasn't even that good, it was more unfair, unbalanced, torturing shit, it was not worth it at all.
So there is no story, no exploration, no mystery to uncover, no endgame, not even coop to have fun with your friends or any other online interaction, and no feeling of completion as the achievements exist but are literally impossible to get unlses you cheat your way to each one of them, probably spending over 200 more hours to get them all. And then it hits, the game is just empty, it's a souless turn-based combat simulator that baits you with good art and false promises.
This game is 100% about combat efficiency, anything else outside of that is irrelevant. This is about how good can you plan ahead and adapt your party to the situation. But they failed at creating balanced encounters, balanced enemies, and worst of all, balanced characters, they failed at the one thing this game is all about, which makes it one of the worst roguelike RPGs that I have ever played, if not the absolute worst.
But there was something charming about it, one thing that the developers did not intend: This game is like buying a broken car just to fix it. I managed to do it, and it felt good after reaching a good balance, I had a lot more fun balancing the game than playing it.
As much as I wish I could love this game, the frustration I can't overcome stems from my feeling that this game does not respect my time. You can spend nearly ten hours building up a handful of characters, max their gear, stack them with good perks and minor flaws, send them into battle in one dungeon, for them to be absolutely devastated by bullshit rng. I love the way the game looks, I am actually satisfied with its level of difficulty. It's the lack of recovery that makes this game unappealing to me. The game will infuriate you, but if you have the stones to overcome what should be a level of rage never before seen, you might just be able to beat this game and claim whatever unimportant bragging rights you think you deserve.
my favorite turnbased game
Darkest Dungeon is a game with incredible presentation and surprisingly lacklustre gameplay.
Excessive randomness, tedious grind (even in the game's Radiant mode), and a feeling of repetition setting in around the mid-point meant I dropped this and won't be picking it up again. It's a real shame, because the aesthetic is top notch.
Excessive randomness, tedious grind (even in the game's Radiant mode), and a feeling of repetition setting in around the mid-point meant I dropped this and won't be picking it up again. It's a real shame, because the aesthetic is top notch.
an acquired taste, definitely. The "disaster management" part of the game feels like bullshit at first, but eventually you learn to sort of ride the wave of bad RNG and permanent deaths. Really fun game