![]() ![]() And there are others saying they need a break.ĭo you see what I mean - which other games do that? This fascination with flaws and negative traits is something that makes tabletop RPGs so interesting, and which makes any character in any story interesting, really, and so it does here. It's hard to see here, but on my character roster on the right, two heroes are already stressed out and out of action. Note the little squares underneath a character's health bar. Campfires are actually only one of the moments you'll catch a breath, and each character has a variety of things they can do during them. Now, this character will think it's all about them. Worse, if you let stress build high enough and fill a second gauge, your characters will have a heart attack! This is what happens when stress builds up. Or they might become cowardly and have a similar effect, as they cower during battle. They might become abusive, for instance, and start insulting other team-members while they fight, increasing their stress in the process. And if you let it build too high and fill a gauge, a character will get a permanent negative affliction. I wish more would, actually, because it's a really interesting idea delving into dungeons and being a hero would be stressful, wouldn't it? Especially if there's a powerful evil nearby, exuding an overwhelming sense of dread.Īnd stress is gained all the time in a number of ways: for taking damage, for simply walking along, as a result of certain spells, for not finishing a mission, for letting the dungeon get too dark, for being insulted - by your own team. Your health, it seems, is always going down.īut there's another danger to their health too: stress, and this is a key thing in the game - and it's one of the only role-playing games I know that plays around with it. They can take damage in battle, they can take damage from traps, and they can take damage from not having any food to eat, which is more common than it sounds. They can simply take too much damage and die - as in, permanently die. And on those missions, a number of things can happen to them. Think on it: in Darkest Dungeon, you send a team of four characters - I'm loath to call them heroes, actually, for most are anything but - into dungeons underneath and around the hamlet you're rebuilding. An extroardinary name for an extroardinary performance (and he's reprising his role in Darkest Dungeon 2). Also, I never fail to be impressed with the voice of the narrator while playing, who, I now know - I just looked it up - is a man called Wayne June. ![]() Watch on YouTube This game is timeless, I tell you, timeless. Why else would it pit so much against you? In many ways, Darkest Dungeon doesn't want you to win. Whereas in other games, you're invisibly looked after until the game feels you're comfortable with it and attached to it, here, you're eternally, mercilessly, dragged down. Cruelty towards the heroes you send into the depths and cruelty towards you, the player directing them. The entire premise of the game is cruelty. But Darkest Dungeon doesn't care Darkest Dungeon delights in it. ![]() Cross it, and you risk turning an audience away. Cross that line and a game becomes unfair. What stands Darkest Dungeon apart is an invisible line, drawn in the ground somewhere, that determines how far developers go - how far they're prepared to go - to challenge their audiences. But it's not that which really stands the game apart. That horror-movie voice over still shakes my bones, that paper-drawn art still oozes style. Blown up on my telly, this could easily be something new. It's astonishing how, eight years on and now freshly added to Game Pass, Darkest Dungeon still manages to feel unlike anything else. ![]()
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