Darkest Dungeon is a difficult rouge-like with RPG elements and turn based combat. Sounds like match made in heaven for me, because I love these kinds of games. Unfortunately few things hindered the gameplay to the point where I'm really struggling to get back into it. You have surely seen a lot of positive reviews, so you know the good things - beautiful art style, amazing narrator (arguably even better than the one from Bastion), really interesting and responsive tactical combat system, etc. The game is great in those regards. Unfortunately few things make it barely playable: 1) insanely high entry barrier - if you haven't played Early Access version, you're gonna suffer. First 50 hours will be a learning experience only and if you won't give up on the game you'll get to the next problem which is 2) grinding - your heroes will die. The problem is that you have to level up next people to take their place and it takes time. Time that consist of going through the same dungeons with low level team which is even more fragile than the buffed one. 3) RNG - you can lose battles, because you were unlucky. This I can't forgive, skill should be the determining factor. Not RNG deciding that your 5 first attacks miss because of crappy dice rolls. 4) permadeath - this is what you expect out of difficult dungeon crawler. But not in the situation where you invested like 20 hours into buffing these 4 characters that you flat out lose because RNG screwed you over in one or two battles. Why can't I revive my character that I've invested so much time into? Why can't I heal him during the battle (medkits of some sort)? No, he's dead, all your efforts go directly down the toilet, enjoy 20 hours of getting back to the place you've been before. I really wanted to like this game, but it doesn't look like it rewards skill. It's a repetitive memory test with infuriating luck based combat that can throw 20 hours of your life down the drain in one string of bad luck.
Nice, fluent puzzle-platforming action, I love it :)
