Darkest Dungeon Critique

Game Title: Darkest Dungeon

Publisher: Red Hook Studios

Year: 2016

ESRB Rating: Teen                                                                          

Platform: PC     

Genre: Turn-Based Combat, Dark Fantasy, Rogue-like

·         Fun Factor

Darkest Dungeon is a unique take on the rogue-like genre involving turn base combat, which is not seen very often in other rogue like titles.  You are set out to manage a group of hand-picked mercenaries to complete missions in different locations around the Hamlet, the main town in Darkest Dungeon. When you are managing your mercenaries, you grow attached to them, it makes it more heart breaking when you lose them. This is part of why Darkest Dungeon is so fun to play, it immensely adds to the intensity of each battle not knowing if you are going to come out alive. 

·         Learning Curve

Darkest Dungeon is throwing you straight on the burner, leaving you with little knowledge of what is to come. It leaves you in the dark on what to expect from different dungeon types, enemies, and the interactable objects within. The learning curve extends outside the dungeon as well. Deciding what would be a successful party composition, out of the 15 different base game mercenaries, could be a bit overwhelming to newer players. Learning your characters stats such as accuracy, dodge, critics, protection, speed, etc could be a bit confusing at first. Trinkets, essential equip able stat modifiers, could also be daunting not knowing if the trinket will negatively or positively affect your mercenary. Darkest Dungeon will give you the tools to be successful, but it is up to you to learn from previous failures to find a play style that works for you. 

·         Graphics

Darkest Dungeon’s art style is heavily inspired off the writings of H.P Lovecraft. You see the inspiration with the dark gothic style of the world and the fiction horror seen in the creatures. The game has a 2D, side scroller, parallax looks to it. Parallax meaning there is a foreground and a background image as the player moves through the dungeon. The whole game has smooth digitally drawn artwork, like other modern indie games such as Hollow Knight, Binding of Isaac, and Forgotten Anne. Although it looks similar, Darkest Dungeon has a grimmer feeling, almost like everything lacks joy.

·         Audio

The audio is probably one of my favorite qualities of Darkest Dungeon. To start off, the music in each dungeon perfectly fits the game’s atmosphere. As you are traversing the hallways from room to room you feel on edge. The ambient sound/music gives you this constant sense of danger, the feeling that any moment you could be thrown into a possibly deadly confrontation. Then once you are met with that battle the music picks up, adding on to the intensity. Something that Darkest Dungeon does that many other games do not, is changing the complexity or theme, as your situation changes. For example, once you run out of light from your torch the percussion and the volume of the music picks up, with the addition of different instruments slowly being added on to the composition. The last detail I want to discuss is the narration done in Darkest Dungeon. The first thing that will come to mind when you mention Darkest Dungeon, would be one of the many lines spoken by the narrator. The surreal and archaic writing voiced by Wayne June really helps create memorable lines. 

·         Controls

The controls are easy to learn, if you wanted, you could play this game with only a mouse. Optionally, you can use the keyboard for moving your team or interacting with objects by using the A, W, and D keys. However, I find it easier to just use the mouse while using your other hand to wipe away tears after your team gets killed. The tutorial has little to no need, controls are easy to figure out especially with its simple graphical user interface. Overall, very easy to use controls, the game does a good job making it all feel natural.

·         Story

The story starts with a cutscene of you receiving a letter from a relative, that you are rightful inheritance of his estate. Your ancestors, prior to the letter, were looking for long lost treasures beneath his manner. In the process, they opened the gates to other dark dimensions, releasing evil creatures across the surrounding land. After your ancestor takes his own life, he tasks you to save the land and the people within by hiring mercenaries, adventures, and heroes to cleanse the dungeons. 

·         Characters

You play as the unnamed relative of the ancestor, tasked with undoing all his mistakes. The ancestor at the beginning of the game seemed to be a decent person. As you play through the game, you slowly learn through dialog of all the terrible things he has done, in their pursuit of knowledge and power. This can be seen with many of the lore behind many of the bosses you face. For example, the Prophet, (one of the bosses), somehow gains knowledge of the Ancestor’s goals, and in return tries to silence him with torture and assassination attempts. Here’s a quote from the game, “This raving creature had to be silenced. But doing so proved maddeningly impossible. How had he survived the stockades, the icy waters, and the knives I delivered so enthusiastically into his back? How had he returned, time and time again, to rouse the townsfolk with his wild speculations and prophecies?” Something else that I feel is worth mentioning is that every mercenary class in Darkest Dungeon have their own mini back story told through the dialog of the narrator and short story comics outside the game.

·         Level Design

When you boil down the level design of Darkest Dungeon, the game is mostly made up of corridors and rooms. However, considering that each level is randomly generated, it helps keeping you alert and focused. The different variety in encounters and interactables, makes every level feel different enough not to get to repetitive. Preplanning supplies, to bring with and deciding the optimal route, also complements how each level plays. As you progress through the game, the difficulty of the dungeons increases. Despite that, I feel like the story of the game does not progresses enough between boss battles.

·         Changes

What would I change about Darkest Dungeon? I would like to see more details presented on certain stats and how they affect your characters. For example, the speed stat decides how quickly your character attacks during battles. Seeing a turn order before entering a dungeon could make a massive difference on how your crew performs. It would also save the player time looking through each of their mercenaries’ stats. Something else I would like to see is more uniqueness to each of your mercenaries, and to elaborate, different skins for your mercenaries other than changing colors. The look of your character’s changing depending on the trinkets or skills that are equipped. Changing your characters stance based on the positioning (front of the battle or in the back?); and if a character were to face a negative or phobia trait, it gives the chance of making that trait worse or better.

·         Recommendation?

I would recommend this game to anyone who is into rogue-like genres or turn based combat games. Darkest Dungeon is also one of those games where you could play it in short succession and serves as a great time filler. For me personally this serves as a good introduction to turn based combat, before darkest dungeon I have not really played any other turns-based combat games other than XCOM. Lastly anyone who enjoys fictional horror story telling, Darkest Dungeon takes heavy inspiration from writers such as H.P Lovecraft.