Iratus: Lord of the Dead

Complex tactics, deep RPG elements, satisfying visual and sound design. Add a few more dungeon levels and this would be my one game to have on a desert island.

While this game is fine on it's own, when compared to the other big title with this kind of gameplay, it falls short not by a significant margin, but a noticeable. The biggest example of this "noticeable margin" is the difference in the minion character in each game. In Darkest Dungeon, characters generally have two different builds you can take them with their abilities alone. The Highwayman character can be used as an up close damage dealer or a range crowd control and sniper. These abilities are focused on either the front end or the back end, and you can change your character build by swapping abilities outside of a dungeon. You can only have four abilities active on each character, and there is no "ultimate" ability. In Iratus, characters do have differing styles, but these are minute alterations that change the specifics, and do not majorly impact the role the character has. The Werewolf will always be an up close high damage brawler. There are characters that emulate Darkest Dungeon, but the fact is that overall they are quite set in what they are. There are other things, but I don't want to write an essay. Overall Iratus is an alright game, but to be honest it just makes me want to play Darkest Dungeon. Props to the devs and good luck with their next project.

Did I get into it and for 2 days during work I was burning to play it? And when I finished work I played till past midnight on both occasions? Yes. Addictive. Funny and witty narrator. Really worth it for the 3.89british pounds I paid for it (on 84% discount in June 2024)! A thousand times would make this choice. The game hooks you in, and I have some characters to unlock so I am still somewhat excited about that so I will return to continue to play it. My feel is that the fights become repetitive and there is a bit of a grind to unlock the next character and then you are forced to use your talent points so you can then use a spell, to unlock another character... And then you have to finish the game on the hard difficulty (which would be no easy task) to unlock 3 characters... (that is really the carrot at the end of the stick...) I think for up to 10 dollars it is well worth it: good mechanics, keeps you entertained. Good graphics. Witty comments form the narrator.

Comparisons to Darkest Dungeon were going to inevitable considering how blatant an homage this is. The good news is that Iratus does enough right that it isn't immediately rendered obsolete by the game that preceded it. Combat is the same 4 v 4 position based affair as Darkest Dungeon, where the abilities a unit can use differ depending on where in the lineup they are. It's got the same kind of joys to it. The units all have fun designs and learning how they work and interact with one another remains satisfying. One minion seems largely useless at first as all of its abilities come with a buff to the enemy squad, until you notice a number of other unit's abilities deal bonus damage against buffed enemies, or that her ultimate ability removes all buffs from the enemies and applies a substantial buff to your team. All of that stuff works well. Some gripes. -Going back to your base after every fight is a nice idea, but kills any sense of pacing or tension. -The stress mechanics feel lackluster, essentially serving as a second health bar that might debuff or buff an enemy but isn't guaranteed to kill them unlike the standard health bar. -Unlocking and creating new minions should be one of the highlights in a game about necromancy, but can feel like a chore. There are some exceptions, but for the most part they unlock through arbitrary challenges like doing X damage to your own units. After they're unlocked they can be made infinitely so long as you have the appropriate parts, with better parts only adding additional stat points to use up front. Some correlation between the enemies killed and the parts dropped might've been nice, parts from an archer giving a bonus to accuracy or something, maybe force players to decided to pursue tougher fights for better parts, IDK. It's a good game, one I'd recommend (don't let the three stars fool you). I just can't shake the feeling there's a better game somewhere in here.

The game is good. Gathering parts to buuild your own minions sounds like a pretty compelling and fun game mechanic, and the game definitely doesn't disappoint in that regard. There are overall 5 levels, each with its very own distict enemies and overall aesthetic. You have dwarves, elves, human and all sorts of classes going against you. Where I think the game stubmles a bit is the overall feel. The initial presentation gave me the impression that this would be a very dark game. I mean, you are an invading necromancer after all. Sadly, after a while that evolved into a more lighthearted experience, filled with all manners of jokes. Sure, you are collecting bones to raise minions but more often than not the narrator cracks a joke about power, the undead or how he's going to conquer the world ahead of schedule. Overall, if you want a grim dark experience, you won't really find it here. What you will find here is a pretty compelling minion building, resource management and exploring experience. Oh, and, if you think the game is easy, yeah, just wait until you get to the final boss.