It's been a long time since a game captivated me like Darkest Dungeon did. It's a rather original mix of a tactical dungeon crawling gameplay and strategic hero- and town management. But be warned: this game is not suited for casual play! You really have to understand the game mechanics to progress AND put a lot of time into it, to make it through. If you like numbercrunching and experimenting with different party compositions skill layouts and such, you're in for endless hours of fun. If you just want to leisurely experience a well written narrative, better play something else.
That being said, Darkest Dungeon does a lot of things surprisingly good. Gameplay is compelling and deep, art design is simple but elegant with a memorable narrator. Due to it's unforgiving nature it can become a bit grindy towards the end. The recently introduced radiant mode helps with this, as does a good strategy. The only thing I need to critisize (depite lacking a true "easy mode" for casual players) is that a lot of important game mechanics aren't really well explaind ingame (if at all). This contributes a lot to the initial difficulty and I for myself don't think that difficulty by obscurity is good game design. I want to know by which rules I'm playing before I place my bet. Fortunately there is good very good Wiki on the web for this game.
I sometimes wonder if all the negative reviews about the difficulty aren't secretly a grassroots advertising campaign to get more people to play this game.
In this game, you alternate between maintaining a stable of heroes, preparing them for battle, and sending them into the dark depths beneath your accursed ancestral home in order to scourge the evil that now dwells there. Your goal is to eventually raise a team to take on the Darkest Dungeon. Survive just a few trips to it, and you win the game! Sounds easy enough, but only the most battle-hardened veterans stand a chance in that insane gauntlet, and it's a slim one even then.
What seems to frustrate a lot of people is the permanent loss of progress one suffers if heroes are lost during a mission. Personally I never cared. To me, every dungeon crawl requires careful preparation and winds up truly thrilling between the uncertainty, brutal characters and moves, spot-on narration, and creepy graphics.
The game does get repetitive - there are different "dungeons" and "quests" but the execution of a dungeon crawl is basically the same every time. What keeps it fresh is the fact that you always have to choose who to send in each week, and it's almost never the same. Between classes, quirks, variable skills, and position dependent roles, the number of possible parties and strategies shatters my fragile human mind to comprehend.
Then there's all the other stuff that just makes it a one-of-a-kind game: stress, affliction, madness, resource management, Lovecraft, and blind lepers jamming meat cleavers into 2-story tall blind pigs who also have meat cleavers.
If you enjoy one dungeon in this game, I think you'll enjoy them all. The fact that so many people have openly rebuked it for its difficulty is just icing on the cake (albeit, a cake you will not likely taste until you have filled a cemetery with heroes and put several dozen hours into this game). This is one of my favorite turn based RPGs ever.
Darkest Dungeon is about methodically leveling a large group of characters for a final dungeon fight. It is a turned based RPG dungeon crawler with permadeath for individual characters. People lump it in with Roguelikes because they are fashionable, but really it's just difficult.
And it is an actual RPG as each class plays a specific role. But the real power is the synergy you can stumble upon trying different formations and skills together. For example, the highwayman and the crusader in spot 2 and 3 have great shuffle skills that work fantastically together, but it could take you 20 hours before you figure that out.
Everything about this game is planning and sacrifice, so if you don't like to spend lots of time agonizing over which skills or what class to bring, what loot to leave behind, and how to best attack a specific dungeon, it might not be the game for you. It is not a straight forward Diablo like hack and slash. If you try to hack your way through a dungeon with brute force and zero planning you will die.
Stress is a huge factor and learning how to deal with stress with camping, items, in-combat skills, and out of combat management is a huge part of the game. Stress will eventually kill you, and leads to debuffs and other nasty side-effects. There are also diseases and quirks both positive and negative which will alter how your character behaves. Again, managing those is a huge part of the planning of the game.
The game is not that RNG heavy. If you find RNG is kill you, you haven't learned enough or planned appropriately. Dungeon also has a steep advancement curve, so if you've made too many mistakes you might need to grind a bit to get your parties to a place where they can succeed.
The biggest positives are the Art, Sound narration, and overall satisfaction of bringing a character from zero to hero. The game borrows heavily from Lovecraft and his dark stories about macabre creatures and gods. Misery, torture, death, and blood. The narrator will constantly highlight your actions with fantastic vocabulary and voice acting, and the music and sound effects are super creepy. The artist for this game should also get a raise because there is so much originality and creativity in the designs that it's a joy to watch.
My biggest problems with the game are the item inventory screen, and the total lack of any direction when it comes to strategy. First, you only have two small rows to carry items and if you have to cap twice two of those slots are taken by firewood. It's frustrating to leave a lot of loot behind in a dungeon crawler because you have so little item space. I feel that a second page to carry things as an upgrade is vastly needed. I am not sure if this is just an oversight by the devs, or an added layer or difficulty where you must decide what is worth keeping and what is worth leaving behind. I would lean toward the former and hope they address it.
Secondly, the game doesn't give much of a tutorial on combat, and this may confuse people who don't like to figure out things on their own. Understanding how stuns, bleeds, row shuffling skills, and camping perks really works comes from trial and error more from the game itself, which is fine with me, but the casual player won't get it in time to enjoy the game. Though, I will say everything is fairly intuitive and descriptive, there is no real tutorial level other than a short combat example on the road to the hamlet.
I don't feel these negatives warrant taking a star away from the game, as they are minor annoyances.
All and all, Darkest Dungeon is a fantastic way to waste your time if you like to be methodical and then see that planning pay off. Combat is a big rush IF you're prepared for it, and the story and visual style is a treat for any gamer.
PROS:
+ graphics and art style are superb
+ narrator nails it
+ bleeds atmosphere
+ game mechanics are complex and innovative, especially sanity & resolve are just as important as hit points
+ upgrade your "heroes" and hamlet
+ your heroes are pawns. The hamlet is the real "hero"
CONS:
- often times unfair. Bad dice rolls can be frustrating
- simplistic 2D dungeon-crawling
- heroes only can level up twice (to level 3)
BOTTOM LINE:
DARKEST DUNGEON is hard and not for people who are easily frustrated. It lives up to the moniker "rogue-like": it's brutal but the risk-reward balance is very good and victory is sweet.
The DLCs "THE COLOR OF MADNESS" (H.P. Lovecraft inspired) and "THE CRIMSON COURT" (Bram Stoker's Dracula inspired) are definitely worth getting, but avoid the poorly balanced DLC classes.
The style of this game is second to none, the gameplay is really tactical and replayable due to tons of viable team comps, some heroes even have a lot of diverse play styles on their own as you can pick 4 skills out of 7.
