insane content for 40 bucks

Pretty fun to play on the steam deck

TL;DR: 6/10 game, each run being disconnected from each other cripples the game as it kills every sense of progression. Game also feels very short with not much replay ability.

This is not a DARKEST DUNGEON game. If this was named something else I would’ve given a good review, but this is named DARKEST DUNGEON 2, so it is to be expected that this game would build upon what made DARKEST DUNGEON 1 and improve it, but what happened is that everything that made DD1 great is absent.

DARKEST DUNGEON 2 had so much potential, it has incredible new mechanics that makes it almost unbelievable that they were able to mess up the game, but they did by making the memory system be so bare bones that each run feels independent of each other. In DD1 you would do multiple runs to the dungeons to level up the character and finally face a boss, on this game all those runs are combined into 1, where what happened to your character only saves if they beat the very hard final boss, and once they die they reset. This means that every time you go on a run you HAVE to kill the final boss regardless of bad RNG as if you abandon the quest all your characters die. They could very easily fix the entire game by adding "Big" and "Small" Memories, the heroes would get a small memory when they abandon expedition at an Inn or complete a goal, and a big one when they beat the final boss.

The final boss of each area is VERY HARD and you WILL DIE. So since the characters only get memories when you beat it each run will feel very independent of each other and the stakes will be very low as you don't lose anything if you die.

In DD1 you would have multiple of the same hero but they all felt unique, every time you saw your hero survive an impossible scenario or fumble the easiest one you got more attached to them, and when they finally fell to the dungeon it wasn’t only a blow because you lost a high level hero with good trinkets but you lost a legend. The stories made on that game were incredible, and on DD2 even if you beat the impossible when you go for another run it feels demotivating as the only way for your characters to stay alive is to beat the final boss of the next area.

This game still feels in early access as there aren’t many heroes to choose to play. Each hero has a lot more background and different playstyles but the game feels repetitive when you are always using the same people, specially as there is no incentive to change as each run will start with the party fully healed with no stress. On DD1 the stress carried over so you were encouraged to give your most used characters a break and try different ones which sometimes revealed awesome strategies.

Conclusion: If we were able to keep the characters and trinkets from each run the game would be 10/10, succeeding or dying has no impact as everything is reset for the next run.

10/10 OST
10/10 Gameplay
Def buy

10/10 soundtrack, only con is that i had horrible screen-tear, but game is amazing

10/10 the Soundtrack alone, a must buy

>colonist gets headshoted during raid
>colonist ends up with permanent brain damage, taking 5x more time to do stuff
>put colonist in cryptosleep casket to not waste food until find synthetic brain
>main colonist gets artery blockage
>remove brain dead colonist from casket
>harvest brain dead's heart
>gets colonist with surgery success chance of 102% to install hearth in main colonist
> catastrophic disaster
>main colonists head gets chopped off
>rage quit

10/10 would transplant heart again

cool to play with friends, too bad i dont have any
11/10

Flawless, braseros embers are to play with your friends, i have 17 braseros embers and 0 friends.
1000/10
GOTY

Im addicted...
Praise the Sun!
1000/100 GOTY