Darkest Dungeon Reviews
Punishing and beautifully crafted, Darkest Dungeon is cruelty at its classiest.
A wonderfully executed, brilliantly stressful reinvention of party-based dungeon-crawling, Darkest Dungeon is great fun, even when it's cruel.
Darkest Dungeon is a grim and merciless tactical strategy game whose great tension comes from its many layers of complexity, unpredictable randomization, and willingness to put our fragile characters in mortal danger if we dare to venture into its depths in search of treasure and glory. Brilliant narration and stiff yet surprisingly expressive animation make it easy to be drawn into its vague but tantalizing world, though the end feels artificially out of reach.
A fantastically well designed and presented roguelike, that makes your heroes' mental health just as important as their physical well-being.
While the game can feel grindy at times and losing a critical team permanently is soul crushing, taking down big bosses, collecting treasure, and restoring the fallen hamlet to glory is challenging and fun
In its best moments, Darkest Dungeon makes me feel crazy and hopeless. There's something I can't say for most games: The times when I most felt that I had irrevocably fucked up were also the times when the game was at its strongest. Though some of Darkest Dungeon's more annoying design concessions detract from the overall experience, I'd be foolish not to recommend such a singular experience.
A richly satisfying and wonderfully executed masterpiece.
Being a hero has consequences, and Darkest Dungeon lays them bare.
I can't say enough nice things about Darkest Dungeon. Its presentation is brilliant, its systems are smart and well-constructed, and it does a lot to subvert what we should expect from the average dungeon crawler. For a game built around slowly grinding up multiple parties of adventurers, it's remarkable how fresh it can feel even after more than 50 hours. It's only January, but Darkest Dungeon is already one of my favorite games of the year.
Despite the grind, despite the perhaps undue commitment to brutality, and despite what I feel is a joke at the player's expense at the end, Darkest Dungeon still manages to be one of the most engaging and intriguing roguelikes I've ever played and I'll probably still be diving dungeons and trying new party compositions weeks from now. After all, it would be madness to stop at this point.
Darkest Dungeon has found itself high up in my games of the year list, and I'll be playing it for a long time to come.
Darkest Dungeon takes the staples of roguelikes and adds the atmosphere and themes of Lovecraftian Horror and does so with incredible success. The game captures the feeling of battling an unending wave of nightmarish abominations with little to no chance of hope. But when you do succeed you feel like a million bucks. The difficulty may deter many people from trying this game out, but if you are brave enough you will be rewarded with a rich experience.
An awesome port that may not be easy for newcomers but offers an interesting and deep gameplay proposal that can drow you into its world almost forever.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
I can't say enough nice things about Darkest Dungeon. Its presentation is brilliant, its systems are smart and well-constructed, and it does a lot to subvert what we should expect from the average dungeon crawler. For a game built around slowly grinding up multiple parties of adventurers, it's remarkable how fresh it can feel even after more than 50 hours. It's only January, but Darkest Dungeon is already one of my favorite games of the year.
Darkest Dungeon will push even the most hardcore gamers to their breaking points, but those who are brave enough to take it on are in for a dastardly roguelike rivaled by few others.
Darkest Dungeon is one of the most atmospheric games I've played in a very long time, it nails its core concept and delivers an exceptionally well-crafted and interesting dungeon crawler that will take you hundreds of terrifying hours to see through to its ludicrous ending.
You'll cry. And cry and cry and cry. But I think you'll love it.
Hours and hours of content await for players who need a time sink. I'll confess I'm still battling my way through it, though I've sunk many slogging hours into the thing – plenty to have a good rounded view of the experience. There's so much to chew through, and so many tasks to complete, that you'll find yourself more than satisfied if you're a content hound.
A Kickstarter campaign from two years ago has led to the long-awaited release of Darkest Dungeon, one of the best roguelike RPG titles we've ever played.