If you don't find grinding out hours to learn strategy and preparing for all scenarios(and still failing due to RNG) fun then consider this recommend poisonous, stay away from the game. It's meant to frustrate you and challenge you to do better. Lots of people don't find joy in that sort of challenge for a video game.

Your characters arrive, grind, expire or are in dire need of respite. The story is a nice setup but quickly gets lost in the grind. My god, are you going to grind in this game. Even updating your Stage Coach to bring in more characters at higher levels will do little to stop the never ending need to grind up characters because of the games systems. Whether it by dying to stress or bad rolls. The non-character mechanics(ex. Town Events, torch light, spawning of mini-bosses) in the game are nice and not only match the themes of dire times but also keep the player constantly managing more than just character gear. Leveling up things in your town home base was wildly helpful but nothing screamed over powered. There's a variety of characters and each has their own move set(with the exception of Arbelast and Musketeer, they're identical. Musketeer is a reskin and DLC that as of right now is free), gear, and 'trinkets'(items that go into one of two slots per character that can influence them. Generic or class-specific). The quirks your characters can get from the dungeon add even more to consider, or to cure, anytime they delve and get stressed out. The narration is nice even if it starts to sound mocking after a certain amount of time with repetition, and the designs overall are very cool.

This game isn't perfectly balanced but it has so much going for it. I highly recommend it for players like me who enjoy being constantly challenged and beating the odds. If that's not your preference the game goes on sale often for under $5 USD, and even then I would recommend it for it's interesting mechanics for a short while. The DLC aren't anything I would rave about enough to mention in the base game review.

Generic tips and tricks for the interested;

-Upgrade your Stage Coach early! It brings in new characters to use. The more slots it can show the better the odds of showing a class you want to use. Even better, there may be characters above level one so you don't invest as much time into a fresh prospect for the dungeons

-Watch out for your Stress. It can drag a team down and be deadly, as you'll soon find out. How do you manage Stress besides the obvious of 'keep light nearby'? Kill enemies that begin in positions 3, and 4. They tend to have more Stress-based abilities

-Stun is your most powerful friend, if you can get an enemy to have that condition

-Trinkets are always underrated

-The Cove is a deadly area on Stygian, just flat out avoid it

A Singular Strike!

RIP Henry June. Your voice work changed my life. This game is fun, but your voice work made this an experience.

I was in a pretty dark place when I played this back in 2023 (ha, get it, dark – like the dungeons) and I don’t remember much of it but I know this is a good game. I plan to return to it at some point in time once the game is no longer tainted by the memories.

♥♥♥♥ this game


(with peace and love)

I got this on a big sale a while ago (it's -85% off right now too), and I just had it sitting in my library for a while before finally giving it a try. I'm only a couple hours in, but I have to say I'm enjoying this one immensely. I'm genuinely surprised, because while I love the idea and the gameplay loop of these types of games, and have enjoyed a bit of Slay the Spire and Monster Train, for example, those others never quite hit right for me. Slay the Spire just really bores me, personally, and Monster Train is kinda similar in that I just feel like I'm doing the same thing over and over. In Darkest Dungeon, having to wok on your soldiers' stress levels, upgrade skills, upgrade equipment, hire new soldiers, etc., just adds so much for me that the other similar games are missing (once again, for me personally). Sometimes your best troop is super stressed so you have to take your #2 tank or something, and sometimes you lose a team member, and they're perma-dead (I didn't realize you could retreat until after my first death haha). The team management and town upgrading just adds so much compared to the other similar games I've played. Also, the different dungeon types having different monsters so different strategies/team compositions will work better in different dungeons, is a huge plus.

I haven't tried any of the DLCs, but they're all on sale for -75% off now too, and I'm sure will be again since I got the base game on sale a few months ago and it is already on sale again now. Anyway, as I write this the game is on sale for $3.74 so it's less than a XL cup of coffee. You basically can't go wrong at that point ($3.74 for a game with 126.6k reviews "Very Positive"), and even at the full price of $25 I'd think this one is probably worth it for anyone who enjoys these types of games.

i hate this game

I really like this game in concept, but in practice a lot of little things annoy me and make me lose interest in a playthrough within a few hours.

BUT there's thousands of mods, which can fix more or less any problem you've got with the game. So I recommend it, just don't be too afraid to get some QoL mods.

simply awesome

I recommend this, but only for people who enjoy being punished in games. It achieves exactly what it sets out to be - a turn based game with very, very punishing penalties and slow meta-progression. It's only the third turn-based combat I've played after playing ones that are much more forgiving and I'm still mostly enjoying it, but I've got to take a break from it as it can be a bit overwhelming and again - very slow progression. I'm 30 hours in and have only upgrades the buildings in the hub about 40-50% of the way (and that's not including the perma-boost upgrades using crystals/memories) and one character a level 5 with most sitting around levels 3 and 4.

I'm honestly not sure I will be finishing it, but even so I do still wholeheartedly recommend it - it's just not a game that's really meant for me.