Recent reviews by Loreman The Lorening

Intro/Positives:
Oh boy, where do I even start? It's so great in my opinion that I just HAVE to tell the many positive and negative quirks about this game (see what I did there?), as well as some beginner tips and perhaps some persuasion to whether you might or might not want to get the game, and I won't force you to of course, it's all based off opinion after all. So let's get started with the great things about this now nearly done game. It has amazing art style and unique animations, especially the combat. When a character makes an action, whether it's the enemy, or player, there is a still image of that character making the action. That may sound weird at first, but it's well executed, it just matches the entire theme, maybe because I just like D&D board games, but whatever. It has a kickass soundtrack, making you just feel like you are really going to be into a nasty situation, whether it be at no light or getting ambushed by a wave of enemies, it is amazing. Another two smaller, but still intriguing topics I wish to talk about is the overall theme to the game. It's turn based, and I am a sucker when it comes to these types of strategic games. 2015 hasn't had a lot of good turn-based games in my opinion, and seeing this just makes me feel like I gained something out of the year, as well as the dark theme to the game, I like that. The other thing I was really intrigued about, was that this game is involved with H.P Lovecraft. And any game relating to that, things are about to get nasty, and I mean REALLY nasty. I just love anything relating to H.P Lovecraft, and seeing the eldritch in Darkest Dungeon is no exception. Overall the gameplay is great, the soundtrack is great, and the overall difficulty is a little unfair at times, but balanced.

Negatives:
Now that I went over the good things, I'll just quickly go over the more of the things that I did have trouble with, and no, I am not going to talk about the RNG, that is your own problem to face. For starters, the game is really challenging, I understand that. I have no problem with the challenge of the game, but see, knowing all this, your first moments will be the most confusing. If you don't get any help, you're most likely going to be stuck doing short missions in the ruins, and to a point where even that is difficult to do. The lack of help, and/or tips for the user, who just wants to play the game will most likely have a hard time with their first moments, and probably not have the motivation to do more, being overwhelmed with different things to upgrade, keeping stress low, etc. Another thing is the missions, from what I can count, there are only boss runs, skirmishes, exploration runs, and cleanse/collect missions (they're pretty much the same thing), and I am excluding shambler and collector, since they are just optional bosses you will eventually encounter thanks to RNGesus. I feel that some of the missions tend to be repetitive, especially if you start grinding and collecting, you'll start to realize that it get’s repetitive due to lack of unique missions to do, which I can understand. I'm just speaking in the point of view of someone who is not too fond of seeing the same thing over, and over, and over again, only difference is just it being in a different area and that's it. And yes, I am aware about the checklist of bosses to fight, and heroes to level up (the level cap is 6, per hero), as well as upgrading your town.

Beginner tips:
Now for those who are intrigued with the game and is new, I'm just go over basic and general tips to go over. First thing that the game is well known to revolve, stress, I cannot emphasize why this is a terrible thing. If it reaches up to stress level of a hundred, your character's resolve will be tested, and it's all up to RNGesus to do the favor. One of two things can happen: your character get's affected by an affliction or a virtue. An affliction is a bad quirk that causes major debuffs, like not accepting healing, passing turns on their own, hurting themselves, all the bad stuff, which can range from being paranoid to being masochistic. Virtues on the other hand is the exact opposite. You can do things like, heal stress per turn, heal per turn, accuracy boosts, so many resists, and good things. But yknow, RNGesus hates you most of the time, so you're stuck with afflictions most of the time, so it is a good idea to watch out for stress. Keep your torch light above 75%, since it's the threshold of not gaining extra stress, as well as taking care of the stress causing monsters who can do up to 25 stress, which is nothing that easy to just rub off. And don't worry, hamlet has plenty of options to relieve stress for your heroes who are feeling a bit tired, it will take one whole run for them to relieve of stress, so in the meantime, go for another run with a different set of characters. Another BIG thing I need to tell you about, it is VERY important you get used to this. If things get hairy, just book it. And yes, fleeing from battle means you abandon the entire mission, but it doesn't give you the right to cost the life of a precious party member, just because you wanted that one treasure chest in that room, or you were almost done with the quest. If your characters die, they stay dead. And don't worry, any gold, or trinkets, or heirlooms you find in the dungeon, you will keep, so keep that in mind and learn to accept defeat. Oh, and speaking of death, you might need to learn about this. If your characters reach the health of 0, they don't instantly die, they will instead reach "death's door". It means it's the second chance for your characters. They can go out of death's door by being healed, but they will face a major debuff. Another thing about death's door, is that each character has deathblow resistance, meanig even if they're about to die, they can still shrug off a few hits, and give your teamates have time to heal them, but remember to act quickly, there is no deathblow resistance of 100%, so they will die if you leave them be. Final few small tips, is to keep many torches as possible, as well as food, shovels, antivenoms. and bandages, other things if you wish. They can be bought from the provision before starting the mission, and dont bother keeping them, since they will just turn into cash at the end of a level, though, it not a lot. And be sure to watch your currency, you do not want to go poor when going into darkest dungeon, you will feel the difference between having supplies and not having supplies. Also, hold on to your old family heirlooms, they help upgrade your town, which will make your time in this game a lot less intense with lower costs and better usefulness.

Wrap up/Final decisions:
Overall, I think it's a great game, and I hope you will enjoy it too! Now for the people on the iffy side, I can reassure you to make a final decision of whether you will want to buy the game, or not. If you do want to buy the game, I recommend to look up some videos on youtube for different combinations and strategies, as well as looking up guides on steam, I'm pretty sure they're more professional than this crappy review that I'm doing. For those who doesn't have the money to, or just plain out don't want to, just look it up on youtube, there is plenty of content for you to watch, and decide for yourself whether it's worth the shot or not, I recommend to watch the boss runs since those are the most unique missions about the game, and I could say the more bigger thing to be working towards when playing the game too. Now like I said in the negatives section, it does get repetitive, and it starts to happen right after beating the first boss of the first dungeon, maybe even sooner. If you're ok with grinding similar missions, and working towards similar objectives, then great, but if not, this might not be for you. And don't forget, only the smart, and the brave, can make it through the darkest dungeon....