The first complex thing you have to consider is that each character has seven skills, such as the Highwayman’s bleed-inflicting Open Vein or the Grave Robber’s blight-loaded Poison Dart. It’s impressive how many different factors you have to consider when putting together a four-member team from the 14 distinctly different classes that not only has complementary abilities, but also taking care that no member is affected by weaknesses that might make them vulnerable to the perils of a particular dungeon run. A Deep Hole of ComplexitySo it’s all about maximizing your odds of survival in these unforgiving places, though that’s easier said than done. Like in poker, knowing when to fold a bad hand and retreat is as important as knowing how to play a good one. It would be unforgivable for a game to put us in no-win situations with catastrophic consequences that can wipe away hours of progress, but Darkest Dungeon sidesteps that problem by giving us an eject button that allows you to bail out of a run that’s going south at nearly any time (it does have a chance to fail, like everything else), even in combat, and save your surviving characters at the cost of forfeiting your mission rewards. “It might feel unfair at times - because it is - but that’s where the tension comes from. The grotesque bosses are especially noteworthy for their unique and powerful abilities, which include a transforming lump of flesh and a Siren that temporarily seduces one of your party to her side. Battle is fought against a wide variety of bandits, skeleton warriors, fish men, filthy pig monsters, Eldritch horrors, and all manner of creatively designed monstrosities in between.

Using just a few frames of animation and some parallax movement, Darkest Dungeon conveys action and excitement, and the monster designs are varied and often creative.

Mostly when beginning boss-level dungeons, he’ll give some background on how each unholy horror came to be and what role they played in his own mad quest, and it’s all fantastically grim and delivered with great gravitas. The deep-voiced speaker, who portrays an ancestor of yours who first unearthed the dungeons before recognizing his folly, also doles out bits of loose, Lovecraftian story more as flavor than a meaningful plot. “The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat are intensified by outstanding narration that frequently interjects with grim warnings and exclamations in response to events like critical hits or discovering potentially dangerous loot.

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