Darkest
Dungeon:
Time to Beat: 60 Hours
It's rare to stop playing a game and return to it years later, like when I finished Papers, Please after a multi-year hiatus. It's rarer still to stop playing a game and return to it a few months later. Darkest Dungeon, by Red Hook Studios, is a game which makes one want to rip their hair out and laugh maniacally at the same time.
Darkest Dungeon,
a Steam Early Access darling, Kickstarted
in 2014, and arrived on Steam by 2015. It escaped Early Access in
2016, and two DLC updates followed in 2017 and 2018. Throughout the
entire process the development team tinkered
with the game, balancing heroes and monsters, and changing
gameplay elements.
In particular, two
changes
upset
early fans.
I preferred playing DD
after Red Hook Studios
released their DLCs and finalized their product. Though I sympathize
with the original players disturbed by the changes, one shouldn't be
surprised if an Early Access game sees moderate alterations, even
after the official launch.
A turn based
strategy game, where the play controls a collection of misfit
adventurers, Darkest Dungeon
is set in a fantasy medieval hamlet. Towering over town stands the
player's family estate where their ancestor unleashed an Eldritch
horror. The unnamed protagonist, who never appears in the game, must
hire a coterie of virtuous and less savory characters to explore the
Ruins, Warrens, Weald, and Cove, before eventually entering into the
Estate, underneath which lurks the Darkest Dungeon, a realm of
unknowable madness.
Darkest Dungeon
incorporates RPG, permadeath, and rouge-like elements. There are 15
classes in the base game, along with a few more in each DLC (which I
didn't play). Each class combines a collection of predetermined
attributes (health, dodge, speed, crit chance, damage, bleed resits,
poison resist, and more), along with seven combat skills and seven
camping skills. Each hero of a particular class begins with the
exact same attributes, but only four of their seven skills. Their
four combat skills and four camping skills are randomly determined.
But while each hero starts uniquely, the player can pay to unlock the
other three skills. As the hero level up, from zero to six, upgrade
skills requires further gold expenditures. Every member of a class
receives the same growth in their attributes. While the player could
alter every member of a class to be the same, I kept every character
exactly as they arrived. I never paid to unlock new abilities,
because it added distinction to the heroes. This choice allowed
experimentation with multiple versions of the same class to witness
their strengths and weaknesses, their different functions. Some
classes are flexible and can perform different functions, play
offense and defense. Jesters are an adaptable class, and the best
version of a Bard ever in an RPG. Others are one dimensional,
capable of only one function, like the Crusader class. In spite of
the attempt to differentiate the heroes, eventually one realizes that
heroes of the same class are indistinguishable from one another. It
isn't the limited skill differences, the hero levels, or the choice
of four different color costumes which set a hero apart, it is the
Quirks.
In the hamlet outside the
Ancestor's cursed estate, the heroes visit the Abbey, Blacksmith,
Guild, Wagon, Sanitarium, Stage Coach, Survivalist, and Tavern to
hire, train, equip, comfort, and prepare their gang for a mission.
Heroes improve their skills from level 1 to 5, or upgrade their
weapons and armor for enhanced damage and survivability. The Wagon
sells trinkets for heroes to carry into the dungeons. Some trinkets
are only for specific classes, while others are for anyone. Trinkets
offer powerful bonuses (additional damage, health, speed, etc), but
nearly all include a negative effect (additional stress, less armor,
etc). An artifact promises an improvement in one aspect, but a
decrease in another category.
The one aspect a
hero can never improve is their resistance to Stress. Darkest
Dungeon reflects the Lovecraftian
mythos where encounters with forces beyond comprehension inflict
mind-bending decay. Many enemies, instead of dealing damage to a
hero's health, increase the character's Stress. Critical hits, in
addition to dealing horrific injury, also elevate Stress levels.
Though every hero starts with zero Stress they are certain to suffer.
At one hundred heroes incur an Affliction, a negative state, such as
Fearful, Paranoid, or Masochistic. Afflictions cause the hero to
refuse healing, attack allies, or skip their turn. A small number
of heroes resist corruption and, after reaching one hundred Stress,
exhibit virtue instead of vice. A Stalwart, Courageous, or Focused
hero is more resistance to debuffs and can not be afflicted. Beyond
one hundred there is a more serious penalty. At two hundred Stress,
the character dies immediately of a heart attack. Afflictions and
Virtues only last for the remainder of the dungeon in which they
occur, but Stress remains. The player can spend gold to send an
overly stressed hero to a Monastery for religious comfort, or a
Tavern for earthly relief.
Equipped and trained
heroes must eventually venture into a dungeon. Underneath the title
for each of the four areas (plus the Darkest Dungeon), additional
icons indicate the available quests. Quests can be short, medium, or
long, with a difficulty of 1, 3, or 5 (the Darkest Dungeon is 6).
Four heroes journey into a dungeon at a time, but they will only go
on a quest they deem worthy. The quest must be no more than one
level beneath their own level. And if a character is forced into a
dungeon more than one level higher, they will suffer Stress damage at
the beginning of the quest. So a level four hero won't go on quest
lower than level three, and will resent assisting on a level six
quest.
The main strategy of
Darkest Dungeon
comes from determining which heroes to send on a quest, and how to
arrange them. The party travels in a line; A, B, C, D where A is in
the back and D in the front. They face from the rightward from the
left side of the screen, toward their destination and foe. When
monsters appear on the right side of the screen, they arrange
themselves, E, F, G, H, with E in front and H in back, facing
leftward. Determining a successful formation before entering a
dungeon is critical. Each character skill can only be used from
certain positions and can only target certain positions. A Crusader
is useful only in position C or D, where he can swing his sword and
shield his allies. A proper team requires balance: the ability to
hit enemies in the front, middle, and back. A squad requires at
least one core healer (Vestal or Occultist), at least one damage
dealer, and one versatile character capable of stuns, bleed/poison
damage, buffs, or debuffs. The fourth character should do a mixture.
Victory comes from the right heroes, in the right spots, with the
correct skills.
Even when a hero returns
from a dungeon, they never come back intact. The deep, devilish
darkness imbues strange Quirks in those it touches. Quirks can be
beneficial (Last Gasp, +1 Speed if Health below 50%) or detrimental
(Nervous, +10% stress). While most indicate their effect, some, like
Dacnomania only list a vague description, “Obsessed with Killing”.
These Quirks force the hero to touch the appropriate Curio in a
dungeon. Curios are interactable objects scattered throughout the
dungeons (more on them next article). At first the massive variety
of Quirks seems to add variety to the characters, but eventually the
blend together, and the player realizes that not even Quirks
differentiate one member of a class from another.
Next week, a history
of the exploration of the Darkest
Dungeon.
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