Episode 184 - Bring Me the Cellos - Darkest Dungeon

In time, you will know the tragic extent of my podcast, Welcome to
Fanbruary! For our first listener suggested title this year, we’re
talking about Darkest Dungeon, an RPG with Lovecraftian themes and
light roguelike elements. Darkest Dungeon is known to be a
difficult game, and it sticks to this design ethos with a
commendable level of commitment. Depending on who you are, maybe
too much commitment. With a large number of random factors
affecting everything from what characters you get offered, the
results of looting and in-combat effects, playing through the
game’s dungeons feels like a Rube Goldberg machine of quirks,
diseases, attacks and more triggering in a sequence that is almost
always bad for you. This makes the climb for upgrades and
ever-higher-leveled characters slow, but (I imagine) rewarding for
dedicated players. And if you’re looking to become one of those
dedicated players, don’t despair, or do despair, I guess, because
the game’s non-gameplay elements do a great job of selling an
atmosphere of hopelessness and fear, underscored by a charismatic
and slightly shmaltzy narrator. This game has a lot going for it,
but your enjoyment is ultimately going to be decided by your level
of patience and how much you like turn based combat. We talk about
the game’s difficulty and what parts of it we felt we could
adequately prepare for, our biggest tribulations, and we discuss
how part of the game could have been better if it was more like a
pretzel. Thank you for joining us again this week, and thank you
for all your submissions for Fanbruary! I’m sure this is starting
to sound like a thing I just say every episode, but as usual, we
are running a bit behind this month, but we will get four episodes
out for Fanbruary that just might bleed a bit into March. This game
tried and successfully defeated us, unfortunately, but I’d be
curious to hear from more long-term players if they’ve found
consistent strategies or what high level play actually looks like,
given that I only exhibited low level play. Let us know in the
comments or over on Discord! Next time, we’re going to be talking
about Castlevania 64, another game with a bit of a dismal
atmosphere, but perhaps lightened by the jank of early 3D games, so
we hope you’ll join us then.