Darkest Dungeon - Review @ Gameinformer

HiddenX · January 19, 2016

Today is the release day of Darkest Dungeon - Gameinformer has reviewed the game:

Darkest Dungeon

Aphotic, Atmospheric, And Awesome

Despair overtakes you as your houndmaster misses an all-important attack on an enemy fusilier, the lighter of the brigand’s massive boss cannon. The cannon is going to fire this turn, and there’s nothing left you can do to stop it. While your leper and bounty hunter land the finishing blows on the massive machine, your plague doctor and houndmaster fail to survive the encounter, joining the legions of the dead that occupy the hamlet’s graveyard. Dead champions never return, but their memory will haunt you through all the battles and dungeons yet to come.

Tremendous highs and tumultuous lows combine in the Lovecraft-inspired, turn-based dungeon-crawler Darkest Dungeon. You’re always one hit point or one mind sliver away from complete collapse as you explore winding halls of ruins, warrens, coves, and the titular Darkest Dungeon itself. Featuring permadeath, procedurally generated levels, and some aspects of permanent progression as the player builds up the decrepit hamlet into a bustling economy, the game is ultimately about finding combinations of curious glory seekers and treasure hunters and putting them to work against swarms of deadly and debilitating monsters.

[...]

Score: 9.25/10

Concept: Assemble various teams of unique characters to battle against against deadly dungeons and bosses in stylized turn-based combat

Graphics: The stylish look is one all its own and works incredibly well with the dire themes and environments

Sound:The narration – done by Wayne June of Lovecraft audiobook fame – is stunning and makes the game feel like turning the pages of a Cthulhu nightmare

Playability: The game is unforgivingly difficult, making it perfect for those looking for a dungeon crawling challenge. Easily frustrated players will have a tough time adapting to the gameplay

Entertainment: While the game can feel grindy at times and losing a critical team permanently is soul crushing, taking down big bosses, collecting treasure, and restoring the fallen hamlet to glory is challenging and fun

Replay: High

More information.

luj1 · January 19, 2016

One of the most innovative games in recent years deffo

Swann · January 19, 2016

Excellent concept art. But I am an easilly frustrated player and I do not play anymore.
Different optional difficult levels does not hurt IMO.

Hastar · January 19, 2016

Kickstarted this bad boy. Should I wait a few patches or start right away?

Decisions

Pongo · January 19, 2016

It's on my wishlist, but I heard the devs made changes during development that made the experience a bit frustrating - something to do with heart attacks I think. Can't remember the details but folk were angry about it six months ago or so. Has it improved again? Defo looks ace, the graphic style is wonderful.

screeg · January 19, 2016

Your team can now have a Heart Attacks when their stress reaches 200 and potentially cack it. People complained, they made it optional (along with the completely ridiculous corpse-wall dropping). Then in a recent update they made Heart Attacks non-optional.

Vitirr · January 19, 2016

I had a blast when I played last year at some point in the early access, and actually didn't find it so difficult (that was before the heart attacks and corpses, and didn't play anymore though). However your heroes will die, period. You just have to get used to it.

The part that I'm not sure about is repetition, because you need to have a large set of heroes leveled up, and when they die you have to train new ones from scratch. So in the long run I think it might get a bit tedious.

In any case I'm really looking forward to play the last version as soon as I have some time.

rjshae · January 19, 2016

A different take on the rogue-like, I suppose. I liked the overall concept, the grittiness, and the art style.

Hastar · January 19, 2016

Started to play today. I am enjoying it. Seems like you can keep your heroes alive by retreating but they will need to rest in taverns and the church to get their stress back down. So you will have to lvl up multiple characters. Very unique game and that alone makes it worthwhile in my book.

wolfing · January 19, 2016

Hastar said:
Started to play today. I am enjoying it. Seems like you can keep your heroes alive by retreating but they will need to rest in taverns and the church to get their stress back down. So you will have to lvl up multiple characters. Very unique game and that alone makes it worthwhile in my book.

Yes you need to have a couple of teams, plus a throwaway team. From the throwaway team eventually one or two members will make it to team B when someone in team B dies. Likewise, someone in team B will make it to team A when someone in team A dies. The throwaway team basically you just dismiss any character that gets bad traits. It's cheaper to bring a new character up than to try and cure a really cursed character.

Hastar · January 19, 2016

Cool thanks for the info. I can see my one problem is that I get too attached to my characters in games. I will reload saves in strategy games if one of my favorite units die

Hadoken13 · January 20, 2016

Hastar it has been patched quite a bit.. Dive right in prepare for the pain and to enjoy that pain lol.

Lots of RNG chaos early game when I played Early Access versions. I expect that to still hold with patch 1 of final build and just gotta roll with the punches and have fun lol.

FYI.. Your starting party is DED.. DED.. Embrace permadeath and cull weak (paranoia afflictions with no traits, etc) party members before they wreck whole parties.

Hastar · January 20, 2016

Nice thanks for info. I played way too late last night and I do enjoy challenging games like this. Ran out of food so I could not eat towards end of a dungeon run. That was dumb and a big stress hit

Yme · January 20, 2016

Town events and one more class is coming, I'll wait until those are implemented before I dive back in.

ChienAboyeur · January 20, 2016

Things coming to plan, as announced months ago.

Spend 40 hours more on farming one dungeon after another in the dullest, most brainless, riskless, suspenseless, tension, predicable way possible to level up a roster of over 20 blank heroes that never emerge to personality to later throw them in the lastest dungeon, that has been made into a death trap (awesome means to achieve that point)

Rince, repeat.

As predicted, a serious contender, even the favourite for the 2016 grinder award.

Bears no rival, even self acknowledged, self assumed grinders like Punch Club, are no match.

Sacred_Path · January 20, 2016

You make it sound like an instabuy Chien.

wolfing · January 20, 2016

Sacred_Path said:
You make it sound like an instabuy Chien.

Chien has been critic of the game since like a year ago, each conversation about the game will have a post from him complaining how the game is not the "you're lucky if one person survives each dungeon run" type of game he thought it would be.

KaosWarMonk · January 21, 2016

Sounds like some people in an SCL thread.

On topic - is on my wishlist, mainly cause it's something new and looks interesting.

They Live · January 21, 2016

i have 100+ hours in this game but i can't say i'm happy with it.
In its early builds it had simple mechanics, few tactical options but was somewhat fun. now it has simple but clunky mechanics, few tactical options and it is tedious, basically an infinite grind with limited itemization options.
I won't speak about class balance, fake difficulty and many other flaws that plague the game, let's just say i wouldn't recommend it.

fadedc · January 21, 2016

I disagree with They Live. I've been playing on and off through beta, and with the live version and I think almost all of the changes have been good and that many of them have been necessary. However there will always be people unhappy about any change that forces them to alter their play style. Bottom line though is that I enjoy the game, and that while it's not for everyone, I suspect that there are many people here who will enjoy it as well.

Darkest Dungeon - Review @ Gameinformer

The Elder Spy

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