5/5 ★ – Kalle_Deimos's review of Darkest Dungeon.

TLDR: Glittering gold, trinkets and baubles. Paid for in blood. Gameplay: Darkest Dungeon is not a 100% perfect game, but it is a masterpiece. One of the best indie games ever in my opinion. A horror tactical strategy dungeon crawler RPG with classes and permadeath. All words that make me hot and heavy. It is vaguely reminescent of XCOM in that you have a roster of characters who can be customized and die but can also be replaced, so death is a feature and not so much a setback as it would be in say, Fire Emblem. Unlike XCOM however there are about 16 classes to choose from who are all completely and utterly unique in their abilities, stats, trinkets and strategies. And all of the classes are good, fufilling some kind of role. So Darkest Dungeon is now a game all about testing out team compositions, getting lucky and getting destroyed. Darkest Dungeon is one of the hardest games I've ever played. In Darkest Dungeon you need strategy AND luck. If you do not have both you are going to be destroyed. It's not a question on if the game is gonna tell you to go fuck yourself, it's WHEN the game is gonna tell you to go fuck yourself. Heroes may be lost, but death is never the end. Unless you play on Stygian. You can take as long as you need to beat the game so Darkest Dungeon actually becomes a calming yet addicting experience that is occasionally extremely stressful. And Darkest Dungeon is about stress, the stress of your party and YOUR stress. When playing you may imagine a real life strese meter above your own head as your entire plan (or lack of one) goes to shit. It's a marvelous game that plays like no other. Any fan of RPG's should check it out. Story: Make your way to the disgraced Hamlet and discover the downfall of your ancestor. That's all you really have to go off of initially, that and the buttery voice of the Ancestor who guides you and drops deep lore about how he tried to make a fish sexy or something. And something you realize once you near the end is that the entire game is cyclical, events doomed to repeat themselves. Graphics: Essentially created it's own art style. Dark character designs. Eyes obscured by shadows. It's perfect. The "Iron Crown" motif for madness is constantly present as an ominous force. The spritework is create, the portraits are great, the icons are great, everything is great. Sound: Soundtrack is amazing. Every area has an incremental soundtrack that changes depending on the light level. Full light gives you moderate ambience and as the light fades that ambience because oppressive and frightening. My favorite has to be The Warrens, where on full darkness you hearing is assulting with the sounds of squealing pig creatures that could be just off screen. And the sound effects are even better. This is one of those games that has all of the sound effects up on the wiki for each character because you'll love hearing them. Extra: Lots of quests. Endless quests. Make your heroes the best they can be, lest they accidentally befall an early grave. Complete all of the Caretaker's Goals and really return the Hamlet to it's former glory. Favorite Thing: Success so clearly in view...or is it just a trick of the light? Not My Favorite Thing: Crocodilian can suck my nuts (I have been fighting against him improperly everytime)