I'm really sad to have this game at such a low score, because I so desperately want to love it but I've got really confused about how to do things and it felt so much like minecraft it honestly made me want to quit and play Minecraft instead...
The music and graphics are amazing, I absolutely adore how sweet and cosy it looks, but the game really isn't for me and I absolutely do not want to seem like an idiot having to look up a guide to use the inventory properly (there's no tutorial at all really), so yeah. One day I'll get into it properly and have the time of my life, but for now, no cigar....

i have tried to finish darkest dungeon many times. it usually goes like this: i reinstall the game, play for a few days, and then delete my save and uninstall. i've gotten pretty far some of these times, but it always ends the same way.

as a game using its mechanics to make a point, darkest dungeon is fantastic. as an actual game though, it's not as good, as you are subjected to constant unbalanced rng, such as the fact that getting hit by one critical hit can kill your entire 30min+ venture into a dungeon, but landing one critical hit yourself basically means nothing in the long term.

the worst part about this is that there are no real stakes. a critical party member being killed doesn't result in interesting decisions being made, it simply means that you'll need to do 5 more hours of grinding to get someone else to the level where they can replace the fallen character. the intended way of playing is to slog through the game, upgrading your more powerful characters when possible, and treating lower level characters as disposable workers.

the best aspect of the game is its economy, and how it essentially pushes you to become a heartless capitalist, exploiting the free labor you are afforded each cycle by the game. and while the combat is flashy, weighty and fun, it doesn't do enough to sustain itself for the length of the game, or to make me feel like it's worth finishing

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.