I have played this game for over 42 hours and unlocked every achievement. And yet, I do not recommend it?

Well, it is not a horrible game, but a flawed one. And this flawed game costs 22,99 €.

The worst flaw is the very start of the game: There is no proper tutorial and you are quickly overwhelmed by all the things the game throws at you. Level one is a small training session. In the very next level you make a stand against twentyish attackers.

It also doesn't help that each of your characters always has four weapons and one active ability. Abilities like moving other characters, healing or immobilizing one enemy for one turn. The weapons are always from these four categories: Power, crit, accuracy and balance. Which one ist good for each of your characters and worthy upgrading? Find out.

Your characters also have passive abilities. I won't go into detail here. But what has to said is that a bit later the game you will get new characters that are already be able to switch to an upgraded class. Being able to means that you have to choose the upgraded class. This is nice for people who know the game. But for beginners it feels like even more numbers to compare, stuff to read and having to make a decision - even before you get to know this character.

There are also unique items in the game that grant passive bonuses, e.g. Magic resistance or swapped stats. Each character can have one of these.

So, yes, it can be overhelming. But can it also be fun for beginners? Yes, it can. First of all, play on mortal mode. If you want to make it easier, you can click on "customize campagn" at the bottom right of the screen (before clicking on mortal mode).

If you like these kind of games, you can give it a try. But it is not a game I can „recommend“ to others. Especially not for this price - four years after release.

So I have finally 100% Dark Deity....these are my closing thoughts. The gameplay was enjoyable overall, with many distinct units and play styles, which made me come back to beat the game on Deity difficulty. However I do have many criticisms of the game itself, first was the lack of defensive bonuses for terrain and the often bland nature of many of the maps designs. A lot of the maps were just blank square boxes without any obstacles. The final boss was also rather weak and uninteresting; Destroy turrets, throw your soldiers at the boss, profit. The story was quite bad as well, in my opinion, consisting of many, many characters which I hardly cared about, alongside its often times bland story overall. I thought the Isekei character was interesting though. The combat animations were well crafted in my opinion, and for all my other criticisms, I did find the combat system worth investing in and ultimately 100%. I still would recommend the game on a sale and if you are a fan of tactical rpgs and turn based combat. While this video game is heavily flawed, from the reasons I listed alongside many others, Overall, I did enjoy the hours spent playing this video game, and I have give my recommendation.

The narrative of Dark Deity revolves around a group of students, recent graduates from a military academy, who are put into increasingly dangerous missions by their King, Varic. As the narrative plays out, it becomes clear that King Varic has nefarious intentions for the land, having allied with the likes of powerful necromancers, and longhaired men who monologue at their subordinates. Thankfully for the students, their journey brings them across a cast of colorful allies, who join their rebellion against King Varic. The game features a "bond" system, which allows characters to progress small narratives between each other, provided they're included on enough missions. Overall, the story is... frankly not very good, with Dark Deity practically tripping over itself to include tactical RPG cliches. The depth of the story rarely rises above "we have to rebel against the evil empire," as the cadets slowly trek around the map trying to win the war. Unfortunately, the dialogue also fails to makeup for the game's narrative shortcomings, with companions having personalities with defining traits, such as a love of beans. There are dozens of interparty interactions via the bond system, but the cast lacks fundamental charisma and chemistry to make these interactions very appealing.

The gameplay of Dark Deity focuses on turn-based party combat, with the entire squad operating on the same initiative, and then collectively passing the initiative over to the AI to take its turn. There are 28 missions in Dark Deity, with most of them swapping up the win conditions from one mission to the next. For example, in one mission the goal might be to eliminate all the enemy units as fast as possible, whereas others might promote survivability, as the party is required to survive waves of enemies to reach an extraction point. Characters gain experience not only by engaging in combat (win or lose), but also by doing utility based tasks, such as pushing characters around the map, and healing. Once sufficient experience is attained, characters get a randomized number of stat increases, and then can advance their class tiers at level 10 and 30, offering them access to different class feats. In addition to class features, each character also has a unique feat, such as an aura that boosts nearby ally defenses. Each character has four weapons, which must be independently upgraded using resources only obtainable on missions, or via the shop. When a character attacks an enemy, you can cycle between weapons to use a weapon which emphasizes something like high damage, over accuracy or visa versa. Towards the middle of the game, the party will also gain items called "aspects" which can augment various things when equipped, such as boosting dodge rates, or swapping stats.

Dark Deity suffers from the implementation of the aforementioned system, with a poor initial understanding of gameplay mechanics potentially forcing you to restart the game, losing hours on a save file. One main reason for this is that while the game seems like it offers a lot of build variety, it quickly becomes apparent that if you do not have a party with highly specialized units, you will significantly struggle. Given Dark Deity has THIRTY playable characters, you also come to realize how bizarre it is that you're incentivized to only invest in a party of 14 (max mission size). Every time a character falls in battle, they take a permanent stat loss, and the cost of items to boost stats are among the most expensive in the entire game. Thus, there is really no margin for experimentation, or error, as a character which falls in battle is likely to do it again, feeding a slippery slope until they're unusable. There's no minimum to hit percentage or damage reduction, so unless by mid-to-late game you have specialized "blasters" for each unit type, there will be missions which could theoretically be unwinnable based on party composition.

While I enjoyed Dark Deity, it is a really hard game for me to outright recommend to others, given not only the abundance of games in this genre, but also due to the weaker aspects of Dark Deity's execution. I've heard many of the weaknesses are addressed in the game's sequel, which I also own and am looking forward to playing eventually. For others who might still be interested, even considering the weaknesses, my suggestion would be to look for the deep sales on this one.