Darkest Dungeon II

[Fedora Master]

Good. Let them die.

 

[quixotic]

I know Behaviour Interactive and Red Hook are both retarded, but out of all the franchises they could’ve namedropped, they chose Dragon Age?
Yeah, they’re dead men walking.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[KVVRR]

They're adding the abomination back? That's cool, it's the one character that I wanted them to add to the sequel.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

They're adding the abomination back? That's cool, it's the one character that I wanted them to add to the sequel.

Just play the original, fam.

 

[KVVRR]

They're adding the abomination back? That's cool, it's the one character that I wanted them to add to the sequel.

Just play the original, fam.

I never enjoyed the way the original managed the characters. I get the point of it being a revolving door and you shoving more and more people into the meatgrinder to get rid of an unfixable problem, but it's just really REALLY tedious to have to balance yourself around who's alive, who died, which of my 3 y characters is up and able to fight and high enough level to do so in x level dungeon, etc
The second game's more simplistic but a lot less tedious imo. And I like that I only can use one character class per run and keep them around for the next if they survive.

 

[PlayerEmers]

eeeeeh... I like abomination, but I really dont care about DD2 anymore... I guess I will give the game and abomination a try when the new game mode releases.

 

[Axel_am]

I hope they do something more with the DD art style. I've seen some games on Steam have started imitating it already, but it would be sweet if it's pushed even more. It would be a waste if we don't see something like a platformer with simillar aesthethics and vibes.

As for Darkest Dungeon - the name doesn't excite me anymore as it used to. I imagine a lot of people feel the same way too. And no adding of old classes is going to change that. DDII was mid at release and worse it felt overpriced and still feels overpriced even with the -40% price slash.

 

[Tarkleigh]

I finally played and finished this in August and wanted to write down my thoughts here but kept forgetting about it - which should give you some idea about my enthusiasm for this game. As my avatar probably told you, I was a big fan of Darkest Dungeon 1 and played a lot of it, including all DLCs. Still, I completely bounced off Darkest Dungeon 2 the first time I tried it (last year) and even this time it was a very rough start. In the end it was an okay game and I did not regret playing it but this is a massive decline after the great experience I had with DD1.

With this out of the way, here is what I still remember about playing the game:

• The biggest problem I had at first was the UI. It is much worse than in DD1 and often just shows cryptic symbols with no mouse-over or text explanation. So you see a lot of skills that say something like this "+50% CRIT when Target <cryptic symbol here>". This is terrible since there are maybe 8 different symbols to keep track off right from the beginning and while there is a glossary that maps text to symbols, it is not in the skill explanations. Combine this with the complex skills and combat crawled to a halt as I had to double-check what the skills do all the time. It was very frustrating as this problem is completely unnecessary and they could have just stuck to text (or text and symbols). It got better with time but still was my number one complaint
• They got rid of the roster management which is a double-edged sword. It removes some grind and improves the game's flow but at the same time destroyes almost all meta-progression. As a result, the runs are much more random than before and you have far less options to tip the odds in your favor with proper preparation. Overall, I think this was a mistake as it can make the game quite frustrating if you get bad rolls a few times in a row. It also removes the incentive to do optional fights like the Shambler and erases the tension you feel all the time in DD1.
• The relationships between heros suck but everybody already talked this to death, so let's skip it
• The difficulty is very uneven. The first and third boss were difficult for me (with the Focussed Fault being by far the most difficult challenge in the whole playthrough), while others were a cake walk and the final boss was long but suprisingly easy. Overall, I think DD1 handled this much better
• Enemy design and atmosphere are still good even though not quite one the same level as in DD1
• Having Wayne June back as a narrator is great, but I find it quite confusing that he voices a completely different character

Wtih Red Hook being bought now, I don't think we will see a Darkest Dungeon 3 and at the moment, I am okay with this. They did excellent work with part one but it seems like this was a once in a lifetime moment.

 

[Silva]

How is this now? Thinking about getting it for the PS5. While I loved DD1 conceptually in practice the grind and micro were too much for me, and I could never go back to my campaign (at the door of the final dungeon). So it ended up being this platonic love more than something I really played as much as I could, if that makes sense. Knowing this one is more like Slay the Spire, Into the Breach or Hades is actually an attractive in my book.

So I think my question is: for those who judged the design here on it's on merits (and not as a DD 1.5), how does it fair?

 

[KVVRR]

How is this now? Thinking about getting it for the PS5. While I loved DD1 conceptually in practice the grind and micro were too much for me, and I could never go back to my campaign (at the door of the final dungeon). So it ended up being this platonic love more than something I really played as much as I could, if that makes sense. Knowing this one is more like Slay the Spire, Into the Breach or Hades is actually an attractive in my book.

So I think my question is: for those who judged the design here on it's on merits (and not as a DD 1.5), how does it fair?

it's alright, fun for a while. Wouldn't call it revolutionary or a must play but I found it fun and the pace is chill enough that you can just do other things inbetween fights if that's your thing (personally i just did some light exercise while doing later runs).
Can get a bit tedious after a while (nowhere near DD1 though). It could use some more maps and enemy variety for sure, it just doesn't have enough for the amount of runs the game wants you to do imo.
I'd say get it on a sale and try it out for yourself.

 

[Silva]

How is this now? Thinking about getting it for the PS5. While I loved DD1 conceptually in practice the grind and micro were too much for me, and I could never go back to my campaign (at the door of the final dungeon). So it ended up being this platonic love more than something I really played as much as I could, if that makes sense. Knowing this one is more like Slay the Spire, Into the Breach or Hades is actually an attractive in my book.

So I think my question is: for those who judged the design here on it's on merits (and not as a DD 1.5), how does it fair?

it's alright, fun for a while. Wouldn't call it revolutionary or a must play but I found it fun and the pace is chill enough that you can just do other things inbetween fights if that's your thing (personally i just did some light exercise while doing later runs).
Can get a bit tedious after a while (nowhere near DD1 though). It could use some more maps and enemy variety for sure, it just doesn't have enough for the amount of runs the game wants you to do imo.
I'd say get it on a sale and try it out for yourself.

Thanks. I got it and put some hours into it already. My initial impression is pretty positive, as I feel the core of Darkest Dungeon spirit is better served in a combat-centered roguelike structure like this more than the base management and RPG one of the previous one. That said, I already see things that could get tiresome fast, like the "Valley" intro area that repeats again and again and this carriage mini-game that feels kinda innocous.

Which leads to the questions:

1) Can I skip this "valley" intro somehow and start right at the first inn?

2) Can I speed up the carriage steering mini-game? If not, would it be too damaging to just let it go straight / ignore the zig-zaging?

and a more strategical one..

3) Should I upgrade the "usual suspects" to a decent place first before unlocking new heroes? Seems better..

 

[KVVRR]

How is this now? Thinking about getting it for the PS5. While I loved DD1 conceptually in practice the grind and micro were too much for me, and I could never go back to my campaign (at the door of the final dungeon). So it ended up being this platonic love more than something I really played as much as I could, if that makes sense. Knowing this one is more like Slay the Spire, Into the Breach or Hades is actually an attractive in my book.

So I think my question is: for those who judged the design here on it's on merits (and not as a DD 1.5), how does it fair?

it's alright, fun for a while. Wouldn't call it revolutionary or a must play but I found it fun and the pace is chill enough that you can just do other things inbetween fights if that's your thing (personally i just did some light exercise while doing later runs).
Can get a bit tedious after a while (nowhere near DD1 though). It could use some more maps and enemy variety for sure, it just doesn't have enough for the amount of runs the game wants you to do imo.
I'd say get it on a sale and try it out for yourself.

Thanks. I got it and put some hours into it already. My initial impression is pretty positive, as I feel the core of Darkest Dungeon spirit is better served in a combat-centered roguelike structure like this more than the base management and RPG one of the previous one. That said, I already see things that could get tiresome fast, like the "Valley" intro area that repeats again and again and this carriage mini-game that feels kinda innocous.

Which leads to the questions:

1) Can I skip this "valley" intro somehow and start right at the first inn?

2) Can I speed up the carriage steering mini-game? If not, would it be too damaging to just let it go straight / ignore the zig-zaging?

and a more strategical one..

3) Should I upgrade the "usual suspects" to a decent place first before unlocking new heroes? Seems better..

AFAIK there's no way to just start at the first inn, and yeah the valley is just kind of a waste of time after a while. It used to be that it took 4 times as long to travel too lol

I don't think you can but maybe there's an option in the settings or a mod in the workshop that changes the speed of the thing, I'd check over there. The loot you can get by hitting them with the carriage are a nice little bonus and might get you out of a tight spot but it shouldn't be necessary to win the run unless you're playing with an infernal flame (hard mode) or something.

Honestly that just depends on how much you enjoy the initial roster vs the ones you can unlock. I think that I just started unlocking new characters either immediately or soon after finishing one of the 4's initial stories. The first few runs are basically just "test" runs anyways so just explore and try to amass as many candles as possible, then decide what you want to do with them.