Darkest Dungeon® Reviews

Don't get attached, don't grow over confident, and always pack a torch. Great game if consequences don't bother you.

Fun game, you're gonna lose a lot but that's part of the fun. Spent way too much time on this :)

By the gods themselves, this game is HARD. When i tell you i've played this on Xbox, PlayStation and PC, this game and its.... many... many unique instances, events and challenges even modded characters aren't even close to being overpowered should say my spite for me. This game consists of four things i have noticed: Character choices making a difference (cant and shouldn't run same party even twice in a row), Stress almost number one killer in the game (funny how similar to real life it is), Being prepared and RNGesus still saying... mmmm.. Nahhh (hurts to bring in sooo many torches and enough food for your party to still die of stress in the dark or of hunger at a camp site), And last but surely not least the pure RNG of trying to gather the materials needed for the many upgrades needed (however as you aren't guaranteed even 1 of them, you could spend several runs just trying to gather meager portions of what you need) Overall very well made game have enjoyed it even through the struggles and will continue to do so even through the second game too. 8)

Gorgeous art, really fun and creative mechanics, plus I love the music and the flavour text! Great game if you just want to chill out for the afternoon.

Fun game, if you like: turn based combat, interesting systems, immaculate style/atmosphere, and good music you will enjoy darkest dungeon :)

The game finally became just too much, too much of the same. It is a 2D game crawling through dungeons fighting similar battles over and over. It is challenging with many opportunities of your team being eliminated. Like others in this genre of game, it is very easy to enter a death spiral that is impossible to escape. I spent hours searching for a baron in one dungeon and never found him, despite going through many dozens of rooms and corridors. There were only two rooms left but I could not enter because I could not find the keys. IKt just became way too tedious. 40/100

A fun game with great art design and gameplay loop.

I really like this game in concept, but in practice a lot of little things annoy me and make me lose interest in a playthrough within a few hours. BUT there's thousands of mods, which can fix more or less any problem you've got with the game. So I recommend it, just don't be too afraid to get some QoL mods.

This is not only a great tactical game with a beautifully presented grimdark style, embodied visually, with original game mechanics and exciting music, but also, as it turned out during the game, one of the best infusions of Lovecraftian ideas into the game world! Never really liked or understood "Lovecraftian" in games, probably due to poor implementation and often poor balanced mixing with other styles. In this case, I saw, in my opinion, a perfectly smooth and moderate injection into the medieval dark fantasy world! Things are not revealed much, which makes you look for answers, many of which will remain open for your imagination! Thank you for this experience! I'm your fan now!

If you don't find grinding out hours to learn strategy and preparing for all scenarios(and still failing due to RNG) fun then consider this recommend poisonous, stay away from the game. It's meant to frustrate you and challenge you to do better. Lots of people don't find joy in that sort of challenge for a video game. Your characters arrive, grind, expire or are in dire need of respite. The story is a nice setup but quickly gets lost in the grind. My god, are you going to grind in this game. Even updating your Stage Coach to bring in more characters at higher levels will do little to stop the never ending need to grind up characters because of the games systems. Whether it by dying to stress or bad rolls. The non-character mechanics(ex. Town Events, torch light, spawning of mini-bosses) in the game are nice and not only match the themes of dire times but also keep the player constantly managing more than just character gear. Leveling up things in your town home base was wildly helpful but nothing screamed over powered. There's a variety of characters and each has their own move set(with the exception of Arbelast and Musketeer, they're identical. Musketeer is a reskin and DLC that as of right now is free), gear, and 'trinkets'(items that go into one of two slots per character that can influence them. Generic or class-specific). The quirks your characters can get from the dungeon add even more to consider, or to cure, anytime they delve and get stressed out. The narration is nice even if it starts to sound mocking after a certain amount of time with repetition, and the designs overall are very cool. This game isn't perfectly balanced but it has so much going for it. I highly recommend it for players like me who enjoy being constantly challenged and beating the odds. If that's not your preference the game goes on sale often for under $5 USD, and even then I would recommend it for it's interesting mechanics for a short while. The DLC aren't anything I would rave about enough to mention in the base game review. Generic tips and tricks for the interested; -Upgrade your Stage Coach early! It brings in new characters to use. The more slots it can show the better the odds of showing a class you want to use. Even better, there may be characters above level one so you don't invest as much time into a fresh prospect for the dungeons -Watch out for your Stress. It can drag a team down and be deadly, as you'll soon find out. How do you manage Stress besides the obvious of 'keep light nearby'? Kill enemies that begin in positions 3, and 4. They tend to have more Stress-based abilities -Stun is your most powerful friend, if you can get an enemy to have that condition -Trinkets are always underrated -The Cove is a deadly area on Stygian, just flat out avoid it