The Darkness Below Steam Charts & Stats

Okay. This is Early Access, but it's not exactly cheap. And it has substantial issues that won't be ironed out easily, as they seem to belong to the core concept. Accordingly, only buy into this if you can stand the following: - A wild mix of AI art and stock art of vastly different styles. A hired NPC in the party will look nothing like he looked in the hiring window. - AI-generated text (which is not noted in the "AI content" disclaimer; somewhat dishonest) in quest and conversations that probably sounds better than what the author would have written on his own, but doesn't really fit the situation and (much worse) doesn't convey essential information, like which item you would require to enter a location, or where to return after you have solved a quest. Expect a lot of pointless backtracking and knocking on random doors. - A character design with stats and skills that doesn't let you decide which of those to advance when you level, the game decides it on its own - Puzzle design straight from 1992, where you sometimes can't pick up items needed for a puzzle unless you have officially obtained the respective quest in your quest log - An oblique spell-learning system, which doesn't allow any of my characters with the Soul Magic skill to use any of the very basic Soul-Magic spell-learning books. The "rulebook" is no help. - A combat system that leaves your non-spellcasters with exactly one option every turn, namely attacking with the equipped weapon. You see, they didn't have those fancy-schmany special attacks back in 1992. - Pointless and exhausting MASSES of monsters. After about a dozen maps of combat, combat, combat, simple puzzle, rest & return, repeat as necessary, I reached the Goldenfield desert and decided to quit. I've slaughtered something like 150 cacti now, and the game tells me I have explored 26% of the map. When you reach the "What am I doing with my life?" stage, it's time to go. - Sometimes the plot drives you onwards, but not here. The main quest is completely pointless in the first place - "The king has asked us to get rid of the Elder Evils. No one in the party knows what those are." - Well, either the king knows, then he should tell them, or he doesn't, then WHY THE QUEST? The AI text that accompanies the splash panels tries to sound ominous and foreboding, but of course it's completely generic and often doesn't take the specific situation into account. The game would be better off by having the text boxes include only a handful of sentences with the specific information, like the Might & Magic games of old, instead of this repetitive drivel. Alternatives: Legend of Amberland I & II follow the same gameplay of quick and easy combat and exploration, but they are polished, transparent in their systems and clear in their texts. Chronicles of Vaeltaja has charming and unique pixel art, more interesting battles, much more interesting dungeons with tons of secrets, and lets you develop your characters as you see fit.

The more I play this retro RPG game, the more it feels like a gem. It has great depth (story, characters, skills, weapons, etc) and impressive attention to detail. You just need some time at the beginning to learn how to fight, heal characters, buy and sell items, etc. Great work overall.

Seems like a great start so far for old school Might and Magic fans. Hopefully paper dolls get added some point I always enjoyed that aspect of Might and Magic 6-8

If you want a polished game this isn't for you, but I've been having a lot of fun with it. The game is far less open world than is advertised. The great thing about the Might And Magic games was the fact you could access very end level content very early. Very little stopped you from venturing into very dangerous places way too soon. In The Darkness Below I often found that there was exactly one way to go, and I often felt the need to clear other content to prepare for it. This made the game challenging, but not in a fun way. Pros: Character creation is fun and simple. Stats and other information is available simply by interacting with items. The equipment and stats menus are easy to navigate. The story telling is fantastic! There's multiple ways to play each class/character Combat is satisfying Cons: Skills take a long time to level. I was half way through the game before I was apprentice skill in anything. Many of the items you find, even in the very first dungeon, are unusable until end game. Some classes are entirely useless. The Thief class doesn't get a chance to steal anything, there's no locked boxes or trapped hallways/tiles and after 3 hours in game my thief character has never landed a melee hit with a dagger. Spells are too hard to come by. My barbarian does 20 damage a hit, my wizard has 2 chances to do around 5 damage 20 times before I have to rest. It was good in the beginning, but gets outclassed quick. I know the game is early access, and I DO recommend you play it. Some things that would easily fix some of these issues is allowing players to NG+ at any point, even from the start. Mark on the map what trainers do, or allow us to make map notes. Put trainers early on that allow the use of swords and 2h weapons. Still don't even know how to use greatsword or poleaxe, and I have had poleaxes in my bag for several levels. Lastly, I know its a tiny issue, but if you are dual wielding, it should show a number for each weapon you swing. I noticed I can dw, but it only gives me one number. I'm stoked to play this game in it's final form. Can't wait for full release.