Darkest Dungeon — Review

I should've written this two years ago, but it's one of those games that you play for a while, take a break from, and then come back to. Darkest Dungeon looks like a very simple game on the surface, but it's actually fairly deep and complex. It's a very classic rogue-like in a sense, but still feels modern.

Graphics

Darkest Dungeon is a 2D game with quite simple graphics. Still, it works very well for this game. The style is beautiful and even if the animations are simple, some camera tricks make it work very well.

Audio

The audio is fantastic. Especially the narrator giving one-liners throughout the game as well as some longer speeches. The game also has nice music.

User Interface

The interface is simple but most things are quite clear, except for some tooltips for skills.

Gameplay

You start out with two characters on your way to a hamlet, fighting two battles to get there. In your hamlet, you can recruit more characters, upgrade buildings and buy/sell trinkets. Each turn in the hamlet represents a week, and you have to complete one dungeon each week. You usually have multiple dungeons to pick from, and it's important to make the right choices with the characters you have.

During a dungeon crawl, characters will be stressed or die. Stress is a very important part of the game and can ruin a run if you're not careful. Characters can also receive positive and negative quirks. Both stress and quirks can be managed at the hamlet, but it will cost you. All combat is turn based, giving you a chance to make good tactical decisions if you know your character skills and enemies well.

Summary

This is a great game, and I recommend it to everyone who likes RPGs, rogue-likes and tactical games. Even if you're not sure if you like it, pick it up on a sale and try it out!