Darkest Dungeon - roguelike dungeon crawler, **** the rng, this is too hard

Yeah, full release is out, and it's actually two totally different games, NG and NG+. I've had a big essay in the works about this game for a while now, and will probably link it here whenever it's done.

 

What's ng + do?

 

Not sure on the precise details, but you take all the stuff from NG, and then play through the game again, but this time, if you take longer than 91 weeks or accrue more than 13 deaths, you lose and your save gets wiped. Which, considering how the game is structured in NG, makes NG+ a fundamentally different experience in some weird ways.

 

Too much hassle to get to the mode which I wanted to play to begin with.

Edit: Also, I doubt the game is balanced for that kind of difficulty, which makes the regular game even less compelling.

Another edit: I guess I'm just bitter that the game feels like a bunch of wasted potential to me.

 

Nice art, trash gameplay.

 

Sound design would be the top part of the game for me; they freakin' nailed that. "Trash gameplay" is vague, but the mechanics are actually the main thing I find interesting about the game, mainly how DD is actually way more elegant, deeper, and more cruel than how the designers market it. Like, the actual moment-to-moment stuff is a comfortable drawl and can get a bit tedious, but taken together DD does some crazy stuff. It makes press releases saying things like “For all its unyielding focus on what can go wrong in an adventure, it showed why heroism is the only antidote for failed hope” more adorable than anything else.

 

I consider sound part of the art which I mentioned. And yes, sound, narration, graphics and everything showing how the game looks and feels is truely impressive and deserves great praise.

With that being said, every time I start the game I quit around the time that the things start going smoothly. Some of the glaring issues which really prevent it drawing me in are infinite heroes/lives meaning there really is no losing condition, escaping always being an easy option, simplistic combat and the fact that immersion established so well by the presentation of the game breaks horribly by a couple things. I have never felt any challenge in this game apart from the initial rush, before I realised that I can basically have infinite amount of everything over time.

What breaks immersion for me: "Mental health" being essentially a second health bar, primitive dungeon generation/dungeon setup with corridors always being 4 tile long, repeated lines by narrator/characters (I do realise that this one is not exactly fair, but it does weaken the impact for me), keep - building/management being a completely isolated part of the game in comparison to dungeon crawling.

The game feels a bit like a ******* spinoff of x-com and earlier final fantasy titles, while having a completely different c'thulu esque art and atmosphere. That's a GOOD thing in itself - i enjoyed both of these games and I love the atmosphere. But unlike in final fantasy, DD doesn't have thousands of lines of storyline to read and watch, and the elements "borrowed" from x-com are so simplified that I still prefer the respective games' implementation.

Maybe I'm writing too much, but I'm really sad that the game took the direction it took and basically stopped evolving 1-2 years ago. I was hoping that some of the stuff I wrote about would change, but it feels like nothing changed at all in the game, apart from adding more similar content.

edit: Seriously, basdard really shouldn't be censoured.

 

Yeah, that's... the understandable gut reaction of someone approaching the game from a particular perspective. Those things you dislike also happen to be why I like talking about the game.

 

i think they now have 'reinforcements' that join the fight if it drags out too long.

came back to the game after the town events update, dusted of my lvl 6 party, equipped my best trinkets, decided to do a lvl 5 boss run. party wipe. love it.
the only thing that bugs me about the game now are the random shambler spawns at 0 light. i feel like all that does is push players away from pushing on when the torches run out and that's a huge loss to the atmosphere of the game imo.

 

yes the shambler can jump you at any time in a hallway after your torch goes out. so if you were thinking of backtracking to that secret door after the rest of the mission is done you'd better be healthy or bring lots of torches.

 

I just downloaded a bunch of Bane Shift, including mods that has titty warriors so that's pretty dope