Darkest Dungeon - You won't be the same person after playing this.

It will change you, forever.

 

Friend's from our new studio Red Hook Studios must kind of hate me. Turns out this in-game implemented sanity system also affects you in real life aswell. You will be going insane. Insane in order to make your meat survive.

First things first.

Yes it's Early Access and I hate that idea. But it's actually not Early Access comparing to other game's with same status. It feels almost done like it's right there. And it has came beyond my expectations.

Far beyond actually. Watching videos, trailers, screenshots made me expect much less than what it is right now. I knew the game itself is hard. I love a good challange and in most of dungeon crawlers or roguelikes (mentioning them because they usually come as hard games to beat) there's always a certain moment where you find yourself playing the game more easily. This game has these moments too. Just to humiliate you and put you back in place right away, you filth!

Yes, there's a lot of visual beauty found in it's gruesome filthyness. I love dark colors, schemes and design overall, that's why I don't find many games amusing enough these days, even when it comes to dugeon crawlers, rpg's or rouglelikes. They may use a bit washed out colors but this piece of art? Oh boy, you'll definitely know the difference between Black Hole Black and Blackest Black after playing this game. Or not 50, not 100 but more than 500 shades of gray and brown. It's insanely (yes, I will be using this word alot) and brutally climatic when comes to visual and sound asthetic.

Here's some ink on your eyes.

The minute I've seen the intro, first town, dungeon and monsters, the game just bought me. It's a visual anti-exctasy climax for grim, twisted pepole like me. Chris, please paint my house one day. I love every single aspect of it and actually it makes a huge psychological influence on players. The more you've spent playing it, the more grim and insane your world becomes. And I mean it, literally, I have suprised even myself by playing straight near 2 hours and then I became kind of "aggressive" and having suicidal thought's about my hero's, being more worried and seeing thing's really grim from now on, especially when I was low on gold

I wish I could just pick on something connected with visual astethic's and if ever then I'd point out no variety in "animations" (or shall I say, gestures?) of single character's same attack and abilities, yet, they're not animated. In most of the cases you won't even notice that because you will be concerned with actual fight and keeping your brave - well... Not hero's, let's not call them like that - fresh meat  -that's more like it - alive. But when your cannon fodder gains experience and is about to die... This will be rough, physically and mentally. Be sure to have a straitjacket nearby with doctors ready to inject you with something to ease out.

The enemy and character design is amazing! I haven't seen a huge variety of enemy types or models, but still I'm just 6 hours in. There are skeletons, bandits some kind of cultists and manpigs. Yes, rotting manpigs that can vomit on you and make you sick. Ugh. I just hope to see more of enemy variety, yet I haven't done higher level quests (don't ask... ok my hero's are dead, happy now?) so who knows what lies in there? They're full of darkness and filth, someone had a great imagination. They're by no means scary, mostly because it's overall nice pencil and coal-like artsyle (that kicks butts!), but I don't know where would they fit better if not to this game. It's a perfect match with perfect design. I just want to see more, more and more!

When comes to the city and dungeons themselves - I'll just answer that right away - no, they are not dull, you won't become bored with their looks and design, I guess mostly because how well they look. There's always something new to spot for your eye that just got used to deep darkness that lies within. Prepare for one of darkest, most depressing color fest you've ever seen. If you won't harm yourself physically, prepare for getting psychically and mentally crushed, severly beaten, slashed with a sickle into pieces and sawn back together - wrong - just to face varied madness that awaits you again, until you give up. There is no end to this madness...

And now some into your ears...

You just can't expect such great narration from an indie title. There's not that many sounds in the game itself. But... Do your nightmares have alot of different sounds? That's right. They don't.

It start's you off with a harsh, sucked out of life narrator that has lost all of it's hope and now awaits his destiny - death. But not an easy, painless death. Thankfully, it continues to carry on with you. Later, you might say, sometimes sounding positive... Just to slam you back on the ground once again. As the game does not have that many sounds and the narrator is above all, it has a huge role in the gameplay and by all the evil powers, I don't think that narrator could be any better! It's excellent, brilliant, harsh, lifeless yet sometimes cheerful for a single second and it continues to play with you througout your journeys. Then, whenever you're back to your small town, it crushes you once again, making you believe that whatever you do is hopeless.

It's not your regular old man voice. It sounds younger, with a little bit of vigor left yet hopeless, I'd say around 40-50 years old. It's perfect for it's job, generates alot of tention and affetcs players mood in  signifant amounts. However, there aren't many lines when it comes to battles. I've played about 6 hours and i've been hearing alot of repetition while in the dungeon. It happend to me once or twice that I've thought to myself "Oh, he said it again." but that happend in situations of discovering loot. Although... The most repetitive part is about traps, all of them. You will hear it alot. That or I'm really bad at defusing traps.

This is a great example of art by storytelling. You will be listening to every single word, waiting to be spoken and put some light, even the smallest slightest bit of it on the lore/story. Haven't encountered any bugs or something particullary annoying with sound design (besides some repeating parts). It's solid, dark and cover's you with a mist of constant anxiety in your head.

Music also comes into one of darkest soundtracks I've heard in a while. It's so climatic that you won't notice much at the beginning in the Hamlet, because you will soak in it! I'd love to have a copy of soundtrack only, it's really well done, top-shelf quality wihout many electronics which I love. I'm not sure if all of the instruments are real, however they sound like it'd be live music jamming around you while you're mowing through enemies. Brings an awesome sweet feel and haven't heard anything of that in a while, and I am happy that it struck me - I love spookyness like that, never heard dark fantasy theme like something would go wrong just in a second. It's definiately not peaceful, slow, but has alot of tention and it's full of emotions that successfully passes on you.

The meat you need, but hate to have.

Bounty hunter's/seekers, are nicely varied. You can tell right away that there are characters that are more holy, unholy or have different opinions about certain things, for example, black magic. I have encountered 7 classes:

* Knight - 2h sword, offensive, tank.

*Grave robber - anti-trap, has a pickaxe, melee and ranged.

*Highwayman - pistol and knife, bleed effects.

*Vestal - holy(I guess), healer.

*Leper - holy(?), 2h sword, differs from knight a bit, tank.

*Occultist - unholy(?), healer (+bleed chance on heal), offense.

*Jester - lute and dirk, bleed effects, team buff.

Each class has 7 different abilities, that aren't unlocked unless you "research" your guild and learn them (by paying gold) and upgrade. Also, what is interesting, each class has 7 survival abilities, sometimes the same, sometimes they differ. Can be unlocked and upgraded when you've unlocked survivalist and requied upgrades within itself.

Every character has 4 slots - 2 for weapons and armor and 2 for trinkets/artefacts that grant you buffs. Of course your wep's and armor can be upgraded at blacksmith - again, by upgrading blacksmith building.

Every single time you return from the dungeon, there will be new recruits waiting for you to pick and hire them (for free, but without experience) and righfully so because you will get your characters killed at some point.

Character's don't have personal stories, usually share same text messeges, don't have voice at all etc. However, when you hire them they already have different perks, that don't need to be only good of course. There is such a vast variety of good and bad perks that there's alot to talk about: from being a nypho (yep) through rabies to being a masochist that greatly enhance or weaken your flesh-puppet in many different ways.

Perks are earned in dungeons in most of the cases by random events and activities, say, by praying in confessional, searching through books or getting stuck in an old iron maiden sarcophagus. However, there's always a chance that everything, and I mean it, every single usable item (besides doors, so far) may grant you a "bonus" to your stress level. Stress level is affected by events, like above, status of health, being poisoned, bleeding and so on and so forth. Reaching it's maximum level, will cause your character to panic and lose control over him sometimes, also he will demoralize (increase stress) of other expedition members. However, there's a chance that hero will become inspired instead, that enables him to keep your teams hopes up for longer. This is surely an interesting system, because let me tell you, while in the middle of a boss fight your whole team goes haywire, you're going to have a baaaaad day in the dungeon.

After completion of a dungeon you may get additional quirks. Both, good and bad.

Stress can be relieved by visiting abbey or tavern, for obvious reason. Negative perks though can be cured at Sanitarium. In both cases, to relieve stress or cure something, you will need to pay vast amounts of gold, so you better watch out for your puppets as being wihout gold is a risk that you don't want to take! To upgrade any building you need two types of heirlooms of those: crests, deeds, portraits and busts. There is also Nomad Wagon that sells you magical items/artifacts for use, usually for really high prices.

Every single aspect of Hamlet (the city/villiage you own) is upgradeable by collecting heirloom from quest,dungeons and chests and serve your hero's very well, for example will lower the costs of treatments or extend the abilities of your blacksmith.

Higher "levels" of characters will contribute with access to more upgrades to abilities, weapons and  making them better in fight overall. Lower lever characters will not want to go to higher level dungeons, and high level ones, won't accopany others in low lever dungeons. So basically, when your character dies, you will need to make a few quests in lowest possible dungeon, with your new cannon fodder to train him up, get gold, pay for hist equipment, traning and then finally move into a higher level dungeon. Losing ONE character that has a higher level is a great disadvantage and it will make sure to chew even more time than you think. It will start to bring you down eventually, and then, game will start winning with you.

Into some dungeons your characters will bring firewood, sometimes even 2. This means this dungeon is pretty long, therefore, really hard to beat. When you start a fireplace, it's time for your expedition to rest, heal, eat and buff themselves, also to cheer up (relieve stress) if available. Watch out, as you may be ambushed at night!

Looting in game itself is very hard. You don't have much space, there's only 16 slots. Thats alot? Well, take a few away for say, torches, food, shovel and bandages. You will need them really bad, and you still can take some herbs, anti-poison mixture, holy water, fireplace (on mission only) etc. This brings you to a very harsh inventory management system ( as a hoarded in games, I hate it but love aswell) because it makes the game really stressful.  Which is good. You need to decide whether you prefer 1500 gold (max stack) or 12 of your heirlooms (max stack, seperate types) or maybe that gem worth 500 gold. Sometimes it drags you to insanity, especially when it's a matter of good item vs gold.

Character scrren. Simplistic, yet still murky and very informative.

And finally, one of very curious implementations within the game is the light system. The level of light that your torch provides afflicts the gameplay in many ways. The brighter it is, the greater chance of suprising enemies (you have more turns), spot traps and scout. However, if it's dim or goes out... You get additional crital chace and much  more loot and alot more stress, but it also buffs your enemies - they are more accurate, deal more damage and can suprise you. So basically, there is no difficulty system in the game, even when you keep your torch lit, the game is unforgivingly hard anyway, and when it's out it's just a matter of time before they die. Of course you can abandon a quest but this will leave a mark on the members of the expedition.

This is not a game. It's a piece of art.

You can describe the game alot and talk about it wihout shutting your mouth. But it will never, ever give that thrill when you play. It's one of those games that actually put pressure on you and make you feel some emotions. Writing all of this was really hard for me, mostly because it's hard to express and talk about yourself. This game is made by a group of mad pepole, for other pepole that are as mad as they are and enjoy the heck out of their imagination that came to life within this art form.

I won't even hesitate, and it's still Early Access, but for me, this game is a real masterpiece, their very own "Danse Macabre", a form of art. The way they connected every single aspect of the game - by visuals, sounds, lore and narration, is just plain amazing and if it's not art then please prove me wrong and do it better by yourself. This team must have similar dark imagination and understand eachother better than most companies these days. I've been awaiting such grim theme for a long time, probably after I've finished playing the original Majesty with the Expansion pack. And finally it has cometh. It's a game that will change some point of views that you have, that will change you, even long after you're done with it. This game, story, and gameplay, told by relatively simple (but by no means bad, one of the greatest - for me) asthetics yet awesome soundtrack and amazing narration, cannot be forgotten even in the next 20 years. Is it going to change the gaming market? Certainly not. Only certain and small group of pepole will fully anjoy it's grim experience.. Mad, twisted, crazy pepole created this filthy, dark but beautiful "abomination" for other mad and crazy pepole. Other players will certainly enjoy the experience aswell, no doubts about that. It's one of not that many titles that you need to play in your life at least once. And hell, it's not even finished yet.  

Wihout a doubt, Darkest Dungeon is my personal gem and one of the best experiences I've ever had.