Darkest Dungeon PC Review

Darkest Dungeon is a PC side scrolling RPG with permadeath mechanics. This game has been out for a little over a year and after a solid 20 hours of gameplay I feel I can justifiably write a review. Let’s take a look as we judge this unique gameplay experience.

Darkest Souls

Permadeath being a strong mechanic of this game ultimately decides for you whether or not you are able to set out on your next mission. The game operates in a cool-down fashion where you are set on a quest, afterward returning back to your town where you restock, and make strategic decisions for the next endeavor.

Gameplay:

Darkest Dungeon is focused on dungeon grinding through 4 similarly designed dungeons, the fifth one being the finale. It’s a side scrolling 2D survival RPG (lots of genres mixed into one here) with characters being able to get armor upgrades, skill upgrades, and treatments from the town depending on how much of your estate you upgrade from completing dungeons, making this a fairly addictive game.

Stress, Health, Status Inflictions - Fight Or Flight?

Darkest Dungeon has some really hard moments, with a system that lets you feel the burden of every turn. Whether you get hit with blight, a status infliction similar to poison, bleed, which is also similar, or other debuffs, these can stack or work hand in hand against your team as far as taking away health points. Additionally, one of DD’s biggest mechanics that is accurately named “Stressed” whenever you get hit, or put in a pinch - your team will begin to crumble from the knees down. Stress adds up to a certain point where you hit a wall and that character will enter a state of mind changing their view on the battle.

Most of the time, (unless you have items gearing toward heroism) your character is going to crack and enter a couple of behavior changing approaches. From masochistic, selfish, fearful, to the luckily heroism side of things, like courageous, powerful, etc. If you enter a negative “zone” when you hit high stress, you will begin to pull apart your team and watch them slowly demoralize themselves, alternatively if you have a heroism (hero’s resolve)  stat that is high, you will enter a positive zone which buffers your team resistance from stress. Hitting high levels of stress will eventually kill your hard earned character from a heart attack, vice versa the heroism zone will prevent this from happening by lowering stress levels every turn.

Half of the time spent in DD will be with you questioning if it’s worth to push forward harder, or turn tail saving your characters, and items you’ve retrieved. Leaving the dungeon will ultimately sacrifice your end reward (which at times I was very close to obtaining) leaving behind the most satisfying of the dungeons completion.

Camps, Items, Refreshments

A big aspect of Darkest Dungeon is planning for what you can. At some dungeons you will start with firewood, this lets you establish a camp later which you will need food in your provisions if you wish for the camp to be of any benefit. The start of every dungeon allows access to buying provisions, usually torches, wound wraps, food, keys, shovels, etc. All necessities to planning a victory - based on your choosing. If for any reason you don’t buy torches for example, you’re going to have a bad time. When the torch light dips you will face difficult hordes of monsters with superior attack, with chances of calling in reinforcements, a payoff being high rewards. This is a clever way to choose your difficulty for the dungeon. Camping lets your team of 4 use skills that can benefit everyone’s survivability - from lowering stress, healing status infliction, gaining status boost, preventing camp overnight invasion - etc.

Soul Crushing Moments

One of my biggest gripes in Darkest Dungeon is the unfair difficulty spikes. You’ll be cruising along in a dungeon and in a next seconds moment you will be up against a boss that will completely rip apart your team. These boss battles are HARD. If you are unprepared by the end of the dungeon or midway, whenever you run into the boss, it can turn around your entire progress. Losing in a dungeon is super defeating, resulting in characters being permanently wiped off from roster, as well as loss of any reward gained along the way. Some people may love this kind of difficulty but it may of been the last nail in my DD coffin, literally.

A Small Repetitive Roster

To be fair, I was impressed with the roster set at the start of the game, but combing through the game for over 30 hours of gameplay, I began to get a bit tired of the same kind of characters appearing on my recruitment wagon. Each character has their own perks, but you don’t really have a classification in battle that can lay out a strategic map. For example, “Man-At-Arms” is a tanky character which has high health, defense, low atk. His one move that “supposedly” grabs hate allows you to make him “marked” which means if he is hit he will take more damage, but this is coupled with another move - Riposte which allows him to strike back. However, enemies in DD are extremely smart, so they will usually avoid him when you use this move and attack surrounding units. This game can be played in an open fashion however to it’s downfall you don’t get to really control how you want it to unfold.  

What makes me consider the roster small is that I felt some of the classes are completely obsolete. A few more classes have been added, but compared to games like Fire Emblem, you can get a little tired of seeing the same recycled heroes in your recruitment when looking especially when you go through them at a quick pace. Losing a unit can almost be game defeating and admittingly make you want to give up.

The Good, Bad, and Ugly

Darkest Dungeon can be a fantastic game with tons of hours to provide but almost with little pay off. After the 25 hour mark I found myself beginning to slowly get tired of the repetitive mechanics while some may find it otherwise, I am usually looking for something that keeps me coming back to the game. I think that is the biggest problem with this game, is once you get the idea of what is going on and almost able to read the layout of how the dungeon will play, the estate bonuses being virtually the same after awhile, and little to no further character progression or payoff with small driven story, I myself begin to sit there and go “So..now what?”

DD can really challenge any gamer to climb impossible hurdles, probably one of the most charming aspects about this game. If you are into Souls series, and want a different spin, this game is highly recommended. I believe all games should be judged fairly even despite MY personal problems with the game, I can see them as positive quirks for other games, so I plan on ending this game with a quite positive reception just because my gaming style does not match others.  

Had you decided to get this game, be known that it is full and heavy with text based status effects with knowledge that makes the game “mindful” when playing, you need to be paying full attention, it’s not the type where you can just kind of boot up and play while talking or half attentively into. If that isn’t your thing you are going to want to steer clear, otherwise you may find yourself a bit more stressed than your team :)

Right now the game is going for $24.00 I got it for $15.00 during a sale, I do suggest waiting and adding this game to your gem list because for that price, it offers a unique and creative experience you won’t see in many games these days.

FINAL VERDICT: 8/10