Darkest Dungeon

Score - 28

Release: 2016

Platform Played: Steam

Developer: Red Hook Studios

Overview

Darkest Dungeon is a turn-based roguelike RPG built around stress, attrition, and long-term management. The game’s entire identity is its atmosphere and its difficulty. It’s a punishing experience and really tests your resilience. It has a strong identity and some unique mechanics and features the dangerous permadeath mechanic.

The Good

The atmosphere is great. It has its own niche art style, narrator, and it creates a memorable identity. The core concept is unique. Managing health and stress adds an extra layer to the game before you even get to the combat. The idea of building the roster is always a fun one and the game has one of the better designs in the industry.

The Bad

The game is quite frankly a punishment. The game forces unexplainable amounts of grinding just to restart you back from square 1 as soon as something unfortunate happens. The very end of the game introduces a completely new mechanic and when you without a doubt fail to be prepared you have to re grind the characters you spent the last 20 hours leveling. I can appreciate a challenge. But random RNG that erases a dozen hours of progression is pretty disrespectful of a player’s time and I’m not going to blindly justify the mechanic for the sake of proving myself.

Final Verdict

Darkest Dungeon is edgy and has an awesome atmosphere. It has a great degree of difficulty that quickly goes from a pro to a con when the difficulty is surrounded by randomness and permanency. By the time you finish this game you won’t be feeling accomplished or proud, you’ll just be saying “Thank God that’s over.” When a game feels like work it’s going to lose some points.