Early Access Review

Darkest Dungeon has a strong Cthulhu theme with a few rogue-like elements. The game presents itself very well, and has an excellent art style.

AUDIO: The music is not stunning, but it is nice. The sound effects are fitting, and the narrator is a perfect choice. The lines given the narrator have a penchant for adjectives, and he may say "singular" a bit too much. The narrator says everything a bit too much really, as his lines are interesting but quickly repetitive. 4/5

VISUALS: The game has a distinct visual style which it uses very effectively. 5/5

INTERFACE: The interface is fairly well done, and gets better with every new iteration of the game. The "help" menu is a a bit laughable, but the tooltips are fine, and I never felt lost trying to play the game. 5/5

GAMEPLAY: Gameplay consists of recruiting heroes and taking them out on adventures. There are 4 types of adventure all taking place in unremarkable hallways and unremarkable rooms. That's not to say they aren't visually appealing, the art is great. They're just all the same basic hallway and all the same basic room. In rooms you can encounter treasure, enemies, objects, or nothing. In hallways you can encounter traps, hunger, objects, enemies, or nothing. There are four kinds of adventures: Find 3 things and interact with them, explore 90% of the rooms which are aligned in a more or less linear fashion, finish every enemy encounter that occurs in rooms, or find and kill a boss; which is always in the farthest room from where you start. After an adventure your heroes can recouperate, rest, and upgrade their skills/gear. The most interesting part of the game is the stress system. Various factors in the game increase the stress on your heroes. You gain stress by walking forward, walking backward, interacting with objects, getting hit by a trap, getting critical hit by enemies, and getting hit by certain types of regular enemy attacks. At 100 stress heroes either suffer an affliction (usually) or become heroic (very rarely). The afflictions are amusing, and do affect gameplay in interesting ways. Since battles are difficult and tactical, having an irrational hero refuse to be healed can be a death sentence... And death is permanent in this game. The gameplay gets very repetitive, and each outing is more or less the same. Nevertheless it is fun, and should keep you long enough to reach the end of the game (or what there is of it so far). Replay value is fairly low, unless you are looking to challenge yourself by limiting particular factors. This game is missing critical rogue-like elements which would make it endlessly enjoyable. 3/5

STORY: There is an introductory scene which gives a vague impression of story. The narrator occasionally talks about things which are vague and story like. That's about it for now. 1/5

OVERALL: Worth the price. 4/5
I doubt that the game will develop into something more than currently presented, but as is, it's still an enjoyable experience, if only for a little while.

Early Access Review Darkest Dungeon has a strong Cthulhu theme with a few rogue-like elements. The game presents itself very well, and has an excellent art style. AUDIO: The music is not stunning, but it is nice. The sound effects are fitting, and the narrator is a perfect choice. The lines given the narrator have a penchant for adjectives, and he may say "singular" a bit too much. The narrator says everything a bit too much really, as his lines are interesting but quickly repetitive. 4/5 VISUALS: The game has a distinct visual style which it uses very effectively. 5/5 INTERFACE: The interface is fairly well done, and gets better with every new iteration of the game. The "help" menu is a a bit laughable, but the tooltips are fine, and I never felt lost trying to play the game. 5/5 GAMEPLAY: Gameplay consists of recruiting heroes and taking them out on adventures. There are 4 types of adventure all taking place in unremarkable hallways and unremarkable rooms. That's not to say they aren't visually appealing, the art is great. They're just all the same basic hallway and all the same basic room. In rooms you can encounter treasure, enemies, objects, or nothing. In hallways you can encounter traps, hunger, objects, enemies, or nothing. There are four kinds of adventures: Find 3 things and interact with them, explore 90% of the rooms which are aligned in a more or less linear fashion, finish every enemy encounter that occurs in rooms, or find and kill a boss; which is always in the farthest room from where you start. After an adventure your heroes can recouperate, rest, and upgrade their skills/gear. The most interesting part of the game is the stress system. Various factors in the game increase the stress on your heroes. You gain stress by walking forward, walking backward, interacting with objects, getting hit by a trap, getting critical hit by enemies, and getting hit by certain types of regular enemy attacks. At 100 stress heroes either suffer an affliction (usually) or become heroic (very rarely). The afflictions are amusing, and do affect gameplay in interesting ways. Since battles are difficult and tactical, having an irrational hero refuse to be healed can be a death sentence... And death is permanent in this game. The gameplay gets very repetitive, and each outing is more or less the same. Nevertheless it is fun, and should keep you long enough to reach the end of the game (or what there is of it so far). Replay value is fairly low, unless you are looking to challenge yourself by limiting particular factors. This game is missing critical rogue-like elements which would make it endlessly enjoyable. 3/5 STORY: There is an introductory scene which gives a vague impression of story. The narrator occasionally talks about things which are vague and story like. That's about it for now. 1/5 OVERALL: Worth the price. 4/5 I doubt that the game will develop into something more than currently presented, but as is, it's still an enjoyable experience, if only for a little while.