Iratus: Lord of the Dead

Finished 'eternal harvest I' There's no boring and endless grind. You're progressing or you lose. Many times I've hit the wall but a change of tactic was a key. Your decisions matter and you're getting feedback pretty quick. As the intro note says - you have to learn the game.

Iratus takes the ideas behind DD and improves the experience in a number of ways. Combat is a fair bit faster, with breaks in between each bout, so the dungeon is less of a death march. The spells and other upgrades to Iratus add another level of player engagement and strategy (do I cast that spell or save mana for next round?), and the crafting/upgrade system makes losing a minion a bit less punishing. Most important: Iratus is fun where DD was just a weird mixture of boring, annoying, and stressful. If DD is poor execution of a great concept, then Iratus takes that concept and improves upon it in almost every way. The only place where I find fault is the atmosphere: Iratus is not a particularly interesting or compelling character, and the minions themselves have little to no personality. In terms of storytelling (both narrative and environmental), DD worlds ahead.

If you have played Darkest Dungeon (DD), then Iratus should be quite familiar. It's almost a carbon copy, except you play as the bad guys. It has a few new concepts, like crafting, but otherwise there is nothing original here. The story, such as it is, is not compelling or interesting, and none of the characters stand out. This game is generally easier than DD, which means it also lacks DD's tension and excitement. DD isn't perfect by any means; it's grindy, poorly paced, and extremely repetitive. However, with a little modding, DD can be transformed into a very good game. I don't see that potential with Iratus. It's paced better and a bit less grindy, but its shallow and bland. You can customize your monsters, equip them, and rename them, but ultimately they are just undead creatures made of body parts from the last fight. I played this for about 4 hours and then quit once I reached an unwinnable fight. Unlike DD where you can lose a fight and then go grind out some new characters and equipment and come back to fight another day, you can't go backward in Iratus. If you come across a tough fight, that's it. You can't go around it or come back to fight another day after leveling up your team. You're done. Iratus might be worth a try for anyone who wants to play a DD clone without the tension, great narration, and, yes, the grind. However, it's an inferior game overall, so get it at a deep discount--or just stick with DD (and mods) and wait for DD2.

I got this game with the winter give away and tried it just for fun. There is nothing wrong with this game except that it gets quite repetitive quickly. I sometimes play it just to kill a bit of time and for that it suits. So that is fair to me.

A good game, im gonna let other reviews talk about its positives and just note my issues. For the first 2 and a half floors the game was great. Consequences to a loss, nicely paced combat. This changed as I had started the 4th floor. Then the game just became a very predictable slog, same encounters. Even if I let something die on my squad I got a brain every other fight so I could just instantly replace them at pretty much no cost. All tension and strategy had gone out the hill and I just looped the same manouvers everyfight all the way to the final boss. A good game but its best played in bursts.