Symphony of War: The Nephilim Saga (2022) by Dancing Dragon Games

The Nephilim Saga is a breath of fresh air for those of us who've spent the past three decades wishing and hoping that turn-based tactics games like Ogre Battle and Fire Emblem would make their way to our beloved PC gaming platform.

PC has long been a platform dominated by real-time strategy and turn-based strategy, but woefully bereft of quality entries in the turn-based tactics subgenre of strategy games. While consoles and handhelds saw the fantastic Fire Emblem, Ogre Battle, Tactics Ogre, and Final Fantasy Tactics series flourish, we watched from afar. Total War, Starcraft, Command and Conquer are fine games, of course, but there's just something about a good turn-based tactics game that scratches the itch like none other for those of us who love the subgenre.

Enter Symphony of War: The Nephilim Saga. This game brilliantly blends Ogre Battle's classic squad-based unit formation with Fire Emblem's general aesthetic and grid map, and it does it wonderfully. There is something superbly satisfying about building your squads and then watching them in action. If you've played a Fire Emblem game before, you will more or less know what to expect here. If you haven't, but you're looking for a solid turn-based tactics game, The Nephilim Saga will be a good place for you to start.

There are a number of complaints I have with the game, though. This game is the first in a new series by a small indie developer, and it shows in some respects. Although the sprite art in the combat screens is absolutely fantastic and certainly inspired by the old GBA Fire Emblem games, and the Sage Frontier-esque super-deformed narrative sprite art is quite compelling, there are certain instances in which the art direction of the game falls well below the standard set by many gorgeous indie titles of the modern day. A prime example is the character portrait art that pops up during narrative scene alongside speech boxes. It is so amateurish that it looks more like a Playstation-era render of a player character; very plain, very wooden. It pulled me out of the narrative so strongly that I wished I had the option to turn off the portraits and just leave a plain speech box, so I could instead focus on the sprite characters. I hope there eventually is an option to turn them off, or a mod to replace the character portraits with better art.

Although the sprite art in the combat screen is really phenomenal and gives you a distinct appreciation of promoting your units, the animation is unfortunately quite limited. Fire Emblem had a real weighted feel to its animations; watching a General attack in the old GBA Fire Emblem games led you almost to feel the weight of their armor and the power of their swing. Unfortunately The Nephilim Saga lacks this same sort of satisfaction; it settles instead for flinging its characters across the screen and having them whack lightly at their enemies, which is a bit disappointing considering how good the sprite art is otherwise.

In addition to this, the user interface is really poor. It's extremely ugly and very clunky to use. There is no option to set resolution, leaving the player only fullscreen, large window, or small window. Additionally, there is no way to rebind keys, which is unfortunate. But even more damning is that there is no way to view keybinds at all, leaving the player to blindly stumble their way through what the controls are in the first place. It took me ages to figure out how to scroll down the right side of the screen in the Tutorial screen, for example. The mouse wheel being functional would be another nice thing to see.

I would also like to see some achievements added. This is a relatively minor complaint, but the achievements we currently have are rather limited and bland, and having some quirky ones thrown into the mix would be a delight for a game as challenging as The Nephilim Saga has it in itself to be.

Despite these complaints, this game has it where it counts. It's got a lot of heart and it gives you the strong dopamine kick that comes along with turn-based tactics in the form of building your units, promoting them into utterly bad-ass looking high-level sprites, and granting you the satisfaction of a proper strategy working out well. There is also the option to turn on permadeath, a la Fire Emblem, should one prefer it.

This is a fantastic first effort and I look forward to future developer support in the form of patches to smooth out some of the rough edges, and I sincerely hope that this series sees some sequels down the road, because this is a greatly enjoyable game once you get past some of its quirks. Rejoice, turn-based tactics fans, the subgenre has finally come to PC!

⭐⭐⭐

Control (2019) by Remedy

As someone who loves a game with great atmosphere, I can recommend Remedy's Control wholeheartedly. This game absolutely bleeds style and a sense of otherworldliness. The sound design is exceptional, lighting and particle effects look absolutely fantastic. The design of the setting, too, is carefully crafted—lots of sharp angles, lots of really polished color palettes going on. You can tell the minds at work designing this world had a specific aesthetic quality they were going for, and I appreciate that. They've succeeded in spades, although some of the ham-fisted referential treatments inspired by governmental bureaucracy were a bit hokey for my tastes.

Apart from the artistic design of its spaces and lighting, the game is an absolute powerhouse technically, particularly with its lighting and reflections (check out the reflection of the desk lamp on the whiteboard—chef's. freaking. kiss.) Ray tracing is utterly amazing and some of the graphics I've seen in this game are unmatched by any game I've ever played. Slick, oily gray hallways whose only sources of light are cream-colored desklamps pouring through plate glass; a sickly looking industrial maintenance room lit by wan, elegiac yellow-greens; or inky basalt corridors bleeding with the warm orange glows emanating from the larger room ahead. The stuff they do with lighting in this game is absurdly gorgeous, with a touch of the morbid and weird. I love it. In general, it looks incredible; but I did have to rely a lot on DLSS (Nvidia's cutting edge AI upscaling technology) to do some heavy lifting, and its implementation in this game is not perfect. There are certain instances where textures are mucked up by DLSS, which seems that it can't quite manage full resolution images in certain cases; namely with certain paintings on the wall, and some decals which appear regularly. You're going to want to play in DirectX 12, though, and enable DLSS despite these issues, because ray tracing makes this game look so incredible that it's worth the drawback. I ticked down shadow resolution to help with framerate, but left most other settings on Medium to High. I am playing on a I9-9900K @ 5.0ghz and an RTX 2080 Super at 1440p and saw between 60-80 frames per second with mixed Medium/High settings. Your mileage may vary.

If you're looking for a good third-person action shooter, you're going to love this. The game seems to balance its pace between exploration—in which you exist within this compelling, affecting atmosphere and learn more about the lore behind the game's events—and all-out gun battles with challenging enemies, including boss fights that should satisfy most players. There's a significant ramp-up in difficulty here from other shooters you may be used to, and that leads me into my biggest criticism of this game.

The checkpoints. Oh, the checkpoints. Those buggers.

For some background: I hate checkpoints. I hate them universally and I hate them fiercely. I wish they didn't exist. I wish every developer allowed me the opportunity to save whenever I wanted, as many games do.

Checkpoints are always bad in my book. But! Sometimes checkpoints are not horribly, experience-destroyingly bad. Unfortunately with Control, this is not the case. Your checkpoints are limited to certain areas within the game, and the setting tends to be a bit convoluted and not so easy to navigate. While this imparts a genuine, lived-in feel for most of the game, it really becomes frustrating when you spend a lot of time hunting for goodies, checking all the nooks and crannies and not paying much attention to where you are... Only to get killed and have to respawn across the entire level to where that one point you saved at was, back 45 minutes ago.

These checkpoints are putridly awful because, not only do you have to traverse across territory you've already seen, but you've now got to fight additional peon enemies to get back to where you were. I'm all for challenging the player and punishing them when they make a mistake, but so much of my enjoyment of Control came from being fully immersed in its weird, creepy atmosphere, and helped along by its incredible visuals. Many times I found myself manually walking, fully in character, trying to figure out what the heck was going on here. When I died and was forced back to where I was half an hour ago, I was immediately pulled from the engrossing experience I was having and simply sprinted through these amazing environments, no longer caring about it and just wanting to get back where I was. It wasn't something like in From Software's Dark Souls, where each route was a challenge to be overcome by learning more and more—rather, in Control, it's a jarring interruption filled with disposable enemies, and dying, instead of being a learning experience, only served to make the gameplay a jagged, regular shift between being fully immersed and doing busywork walking from place to place. It seems the devs insisted on aping the bonfire system from Dark Souls without realizing what made that system so compelling and addictive.

This is a problem solved relatively easily. Checkpoints in Control are too few, too far between, and, in my opinion, it harms the experience as-is. A simple way to fix this would be to rely on a more precise, arbitrary checkpointing system rather than the rigid system in place. Remove the respawn functionality strictly tied to Control Points, and use them just as fast travel beacons and level-up hubs (which they already feature), and simply spawn the player at the beginning of the room before which they just died, and allow them to continue their progress sans tedium. But perhaps this would make the experience a bit too easy? Again, your mileage may vary! This may not bother you, but it substantially harmed a lot of the experience for me. I'm a bit embarrassed to say I've used the Assist mode more than once to bypass these frustrating instances so I could get back to doing what I enjoyed most in this game: Wandering around, being weirded out, and being constantly made tense by this wonderfully crafted setting. I know, I know: I'm not a real gamer; I'm a disgusting loser and I should get good. Noted.

Despite some of my harsher criticisms, if you're looking for an action-packed technical specimen of a third-person shooter, a graphical work of atmospheric art, or a weird, creepy story penned by Sam Lake which will keep you guessing, you should pick this up. It's worth it—if your machine can handle it, and if you can handle its putrid checkpointing.

⭐⭐⭐

Halo 3 (2007) by Bungie

Space bros

This PC release of Halo 3 is a bit of an uneven experience, which surprised me because I've heard some reviews calling it "the best remaster of the bunch thus far". I strongly disagree with this, but I still consider this game worth playing—especially for the $10 asking price.

While Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2 both featured extraordinarily remastered graphics, Halo 3 falls a bit behind them. Perhaps this is because the devs believed they could get away with simply porting the newer generation graphics, but the difference is remarkably noticeable when coming from the fully remastered Halo 2 to the simply ported Halo 3.

In addition to this, the awful sound quality from the Halo: Reach port, which was absent in Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2 (both of which have great, remastered sound) is unfortunately back in Halo 3. Guns have very soft sounds with extremely low impact, and they sound ridiculously silly when compared to the gun sound effects of modern day shooters.

Despite the poorer remaster granted to Halo 3 than the previous two titles, it remains worth playing mostly due to how strongly it improves on the faults of its predecessors. Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2 both suffer greatly from portions of cookie-cutter level design repeated ad nauseam. Thankfully, the level design in Halo 3 is far more enjoyable. Each stage seems far fresher than the last, and the improvements made to the storytelling in Halo 2's campaign continue here. While I personally do not consider Halo 3's campaign superior to that of ODST or Reach, it's still well worth playing as it concludes the stories from the past two games in relatively satisfying fashion.

Halo 3 is well worth playing, especially if you played and enjoyed Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2. It's worth paying full price, and a supreme bargain on a discount. But make sure to manage your expectations properly; don't expect it to look and like a shooter from 2020, despite the remaster.

⭐⭐⭐

Kind Words (2019) by Popcannibal

We're all in need of encouragement from time-to-time, even if such encouragement is often brief or shallow.

This is a game in which you write letters to other players (real people) while listening to music. That's all! Kind Words isn't subtle about what it wishes to accomplish, but it's so forthcoming in its earnestness that it's hard not to be charmed by it. I could see loading up this game becoming a sort of morning routine for me, as I drink my coffee before heading off to work for the day. The background, soundtrack, and act of writing letters all contribute to a vastly cathartic feeling that's puzzlingly simple but somehow so satisfying in which to engage. I spent my first moments of the game simply writing out 14-line letters to some of the more thought-provoking prompts I came across before ever requesting any letters for myself.

Somehow the developers moderate strictly enough to ensure that I haven't seen any internet trolling slip through the cracks. Such a thing is no small feat—as we all know by now, with anonymity comes callous cruelty in the form of words. I can only imagine the putrid garbage the devs must sort through on a daily basis to accomplish this, but from what little I've experienced thus far, it works beautifully and ensures that only positive requests and messages are sent out.

While the game appears wholesome and altruistic—and surely does feature those virtues—in the end, it's about you. It's about empathizing with the faceless human being on the other side of the screen and prompting yourself to treat them as you would like to be treated. I can talk all day about the attractive simplicity of the game, its charming art style, or its wonderful soundtrack. But what makes this game so worthwhile is how it spreads kindness and how it teaches people empathy; a valuable ability that we seem to be losing at an alarming rate.

Perhaps most astonishing was that after spending a mere hour playing Kind Words, I found the positivity urged by the game spilling out into other avenues of my life. Suddenly, all of my comments on social media were of an encouraging nature. I was stopping to appreciate my dog on my way to the kitchen. I admired the way the sun shone in through the blinds. The kind of positive thinking prompted by the game is contagious; it weaves its way into your mood and your actions and propagates itself outward. Quite a surprising experience!

This is a wonderful little game, highly recommended at full price. If you like writing (which I do, as you can tell) then you'll love it. And even if you don't, this game will likely have a positive effect on your life—even if only for an hour, or a day. Give it a chance!

⭐⭐⭐

The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings (2011) by CD Projekt Red

Witcher 2 is a mix of positives and negatives whose positives ultimately far outweigh the minor complaints I have with the game.

It shares some of this roughness with its predecessor, The Witcher, which I find to be so rough as to be almost unplayable nowadays. The Witcher 2 had similarly convoluted, poorly designed levels which make it a chore to navigate to and fro while completing quests and exploring. The forest outside Flotsam is guilty of this. It's exceptionally difficult to get where you need to go without circling around hedges and trees and carving through numerous cannon-fodder caliber enemies. Additionally, looting and interacting with the environment is a huge chore given the cooldown on your amulet scanning ability, and the way the game locks out looting for what feels like an eternity once combat starts. Crafting and inventory management is a gigantic chore due to the obtuse user interface, which I felt like I had to fight with constantly. I also experienced a few lock-ups in which Geralt would get stuck in an animation, and a few crashes here and there. Transitions into different areas of the map are bothersome as well. There are numerous small complaints like this that show some of the roughness the previous game also exhibited, albeit far less of them overall.

But there are significant improvements, too. This game looks beautiful, especially when compared to the previous game. I was surprised by how high a quality some of the textures were, and the art design in general is noticeably improved from the first game. The character and monster designs are fantastic, with some of the sorceresses and Geralt's outfits being particularly stunning. Even just the background of the dice poker board, or the deranged drawings on the wall of the burnt out asylum are artistically impressive. Due to this mix of artistic prowess and a powerful new engine, a lot of the visuals on display in Witcher 2 still hold up today, nearly a decade after its original release in 2011. This is made more impressive by the use of developer CD Projekt Red's in-house REDengine, which they developed and used for the first time with this game, to glorious effect. Although I dealt with a few crashes, the game otherwise runs superbly (I'm near 150 fps at all times with max settings) and it still looks great despite being nine years old. It's a pretty impressive achievement for what was a small studio at the time to develop such a solid engine, and the game is made much stronger than the first Witcher, which used the ancient Aurora Engine, licensed from BioWare.

The combat is also substantially improved, ditching the previous game's ridiculous and shallow faux-rhythm system for classic third person combat which is far more satisfying to execute. It feels a bit loose to me, especially when compared to The Witcher 3, but it's still miles better than the first game's combat and far more intuitive. Enough depth has been added to make things more interesting throughout.

Where The Witcher 2 really shines, though, is in terms of narrative, quest design, and providing the player agency. The strongest thing The Witcher 1 did was weaving its quests together, so you feel especially detective-like once you begin uncovering all the pieces. This is also true of Witcher 2. For example, in Chapter 1 you very quickly obtain a series of side quests very early, simply by talking to people. Almost all of these quests turn out to be intertwined in some way: An incense-maker turned fisstech dealer and a drunken troll turn out to be related. Sounds far-fetched, but the common ground not only turns out to be reasonable and compelling, but also teaches you more about the political situation in the game's setting of the Pontar Valley. And if you're looking for a game in which you have the power to impact the story with your choices, then look no further—The Witcher 2 features perhaps the best example of "your choices matter" that I've ever seen in a game.

CD Projekt Red took a massive chance in the way they designed this game, because there's a significant choice to be made at the end of Chapter 1 that leads to two nearly exclusive routes through the plot. Meaning that no matter your choice, you will end up missing out on about a third of the story content in this game because the two paths moving forward from this choice are so different from one another.

It's a ballsy choice by the developer, because these people had to be designing these entire areas and questlines knowing that half of their players would likely never experience them (unless you're a nerd like me and replay the game to take the other route). The consequences of this choice further reinforces the fact that you are actually impacting what is occurring in the narrative. Few games take player choice to this extreme, and the fact that CD Projekt Red did makes The Witcher 2 something special for that reason alone. Furthermore, the choice is packaged appropriately—you likely won't even realize that you just made a game-altering choice, even though you still realize the gravity of the choice when you made it. The game won't pause and give you any hint that a massive choice is about to occur, which I love. It's an exceptional, ambitious move that is perfectly executed and it makes this game far more memorable and impactful than it'd be without it. Bravo to the developers for making the difficult decision to include two branching paths like this.

If for nothing else, this game is worth playing due to the quality of its narrative. It's a politically-driven game with strong social commentary and genuinely interesting characters, and it gives you the opportunity to pass judgment and act within this world as you see fit. It's constantly satisfying in this manner and it left me thinking about my own moral code regularly. Although Witcher 2 does not feature the classic, epic story that is featured in Witcher 3, I appreciated the narrower scale and the stronger focus on the political machinations of this world's elites. It might take some concentration, but once you grasp what's going on in the narrative, it's quite compelling.

The Witcher 2 is not without its warts, but it shows a staggering improvement over its predecessor and it remains more than enjoyable today. If you're in the mood for a good story, check it out. You'll probably be well-satisfied.

⭐⭐⭐

Fallout (1997) by Interplay

I just recently wrapped up playing Assassin's Creed Odyssey. In general, I liked it a lot, but couldn't help being greatly disappointed by its story and writing at nearly every turn. An otherwise great game is consistently marred by wooden dialogue, shallow characters, contrived plotting, and--perhaps most importantly--the illusion of choice.

After completing Odyssey I found myself wanting a quality writing experience to cleanse myself of some of the pitfalls of the game. I've already played and replayed the Mass Effect series and the Witcher series ad nauseam, so I decided to jump into a genre of game I have only marginal experience in: The classic cRPG.

I already own (but had yet to play) both Baldur's Gates and each of the first three Fallouts (1, 2, and Tactics), so I decided to start at the earliest release of the bunch: Fallout.

I fully prepared myself for a dated experience, as many of the game's fans caution that it has aged extremely poorly. And that is certainly true. The interface is obtuse and nearly unusable if you don't have the patience to constantly grapple with it. The graphics are obviously as dated as one would expect from a game from 1997. Friendly AI and the combat system, which resembles more a tactical RPG than what I expected from a classic cRPG, are all a far cry from modern gaming. That isn't to say that combat isn't fun at times, but it is quite shallow. I was surprised to see that the recent Shadowrun revival games seemed to draw strong influence from Fallout, though those games are quite a bit deeper than this one is.

Despite these negatives and the wear of age, Fallout is also unexpectedly modern--And even better than a lot of modern games--in other ways. The character building (which you'll be familiar with if you've played Fallout 3 or New Vegas) is superb, featuring deep perks and skills that allow you to affect the world in great ways. It reminded how solid the character building in the more recent Fallout 3 and New Vegas were, and how disappointed I was with the stripped-down system in Fallout 4. The roleplaying is also excellent, providing for different dialogue options that you aren't even aware of until you play the game with a different character build. Following this are the meaningful choices you're given throughout the game, something that even modern game writers are still struggling with implementing. I was shocked to see how refined and modern the roleplaying aspects of this game were, considering how badly its other aspects had aged, and after playing Fallout I was convinced that its fans are not just clouded by nostalgia, or living in the past, but completely correct that some of these cRPGs are truly the high-water mark of roleplaying video games. Fallout has left me excited for what's to come. I'll be playing its sequel, Fallout 2, in addition to Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate II, and Planescape: Torment. I'll try and write reviews for each game.

In conclusion, the original Fallout makes it clear just how far video games have come as a medium. They're a far more polished experience, way more user-friendly, with most having easier-to-use combat that requires less imagination to become immersed, with flashier visuals, and far better user interfaces. However playing through this game has also highlighted how much games have not changed from the late '90s, and how much work they have to go to reach the writing quality of television or feature film. There are many games released only in the past five years whose writing doesn't even come close to the quality of Fallout's in terms of dialogue and/or plotting--Even other RPGs are seldom this credible in these aspects--a great example being BioWare's most recent Mass Effect Andromeda, which, although made by a company with a history of classic, great RPGs such as Baldur's Gate, suffered from the same poor characterization, contrived plotting, poor character building, and awful dialogue that I lambasted Assassin's Creed Odyssey--a game made by an action/open world studio--for having.

RPGs seldom feature this kind of quality writing and worldbuilding, so I'd recommend this to anyone reading if you have a strong interest in roleplaying games. It's a worthwhile roleplaying experience, with solid plotting and great character building. However if you have trouble playing dated games and have found in the past that you can't get into them, then this game will certainly not be your bread-and-butter, as its UI is obtuse, its combat AI is abysmal, and its visuals are greatly dated.

⭐⭐⭐

Darkest Dungeon (2016) by Red Hook Studios

I was drawn to Darkest Dungeon almost immediately upon first hearing of it back when it was in Early Access. The art style is incredibly well-crafted and perfectly to my tastes, the narrator is amazingly written and performed by Wayne June, and I'm a sucker for team- and base-building RPGs like this one. However, I was always turned off by complaints of rampant RNG and excessive grinding during its endgame; two things that always manage to turn me off of games. I thus avoided this game for nearly three full years until finally purchasing it this summer sale for just under $8.

The complaints about RNG and grinding are completely warranted. They both plague the game. If there were no Radiant mode and no mods with which to lighten the impact of these two features then I'd probably really dislike this game. However, with a few mods to soften the impact of RNG, and with Radiant mode to lighten the grinding, I'm finding great enjoyment playing this game.

Even though it's not a tactical game, I can't help but compare it to XCOM: Enemy Unknown and XCOM 2.They're very similar in the way you upgrade your base and level and manage your squad, and they both see you growing attached to certain characters simply by playing the game and seeing them in action. You begin to remember times when somebody nailed an insane crit to save a fight, and the flavor speech they use after such moments and when at rest in town really adds to my enjoyment of the game. Growing your characters into true bad-asses (and the threat of losing them) reminds me a ton of tactical RPGs such as the aforementioned XCOM games and old Japanese "SRPGs" like Final Fantasy Tactics, and slowly progressing on improving your hamlet, and seeing the amazing results depicted in this phenomenal artwork as your town goes from a squalid, ruined squat for homeless heroin addicts into an 18th century proper English hamlet is so satisfying. I haven't felt this way about base management since Assassin's Creed II's Monteriggioni -- And Darkest Dungeon's improvements are far more deep and game-affecting than AC2's once you get under the surface. Going through missions and slowly upgrading the town and seeing the characters change are probably my favorite aspects of this game, and what gives me unmanageable "Just One More Mission Before Bed" syndrome. Seriously, I'm losing sleep here.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the heavily stylized, thick-lined artwork that somehow still manages to remain colorful despite being supergrimdark. I know the art is a great selling point right up-front, but I really can't rave about it enough. This game is a pleasure to look at in every aspect. The characters and monsters are exceptionally well-designed and thoughtful. I'm wowed mostly by the fact that the team seems to have taken great pains to ensure that there are no generic classes in this game. There's no "soldier, archer, mage" or anything like that. Instead you have a Crusader who's fought many holy wars, an arbalest with a crossbow, a plague doctor specializing in curing and inflicting ailments. You get a Houndmaster, whose only real ability is that he has an awesome dog. Instead of a tanky solider-type class with bulky armor, you get a freaking Leper. A guy who is literally dying of leprosy. And all of these class types bleed over into their actual abilities, both in combat and when camping. For example, the Leper has the option to segregate himself from the squad, which will reduce the squads' stress levels (presumably by worrying less about catching his leprosy), but increasing his own by sleeping alone in a dark, scary place. This sort of singular design and the depth with which its accomplished are seen throughout the game, and it separates this game from other dark fantasies, which have become a rote and overdone genre, especially in RPGs.

Another huge positive is the sheer amount of depth that's been put into this game. I'm always surprised with just how many systems are at work. You're not only engaging the enemy in combat, but you're also battling to keep your characters sane as well. Fights become about more than just hitting the enemy until they die and healing your own guys. In addition to raiding dungeons with the goal of killing bosses, you're also collecting journals for worldbuilding flavor, and you're unlocking more superb June narration upon setting out to fight each boss. You're learning how to deal with each enemy in each area, yes, but you're also learning how to interact with objects to gain loot, or abilities; and they're vastly different in each area. There are set bosses for each, and other sub bosses which either roam the entire game looking for you and can chance upon you at any moment, or can be summoned by interacting with certain objects. This game could have survived and sold plenty just based on its great art, its narrator, and its promise of near-masochistic levels of difficulty. But the team that kickstarted it really went all-out and added as much depth as they possibly could to this experience — And they're still adding it with DLC. There are layers upon layers here that serve to keep the game fresh as you continue to dive through dungeons and build your team and your base. I didn't care much about the story or the world, at first, but after reading the journals and hearing more about the narrator's story, I found myself becoming more interested.

I do have some complaints, though. I'm really not a fan of the soundtrack, which struck as falling into the same generic pitfall of overdone dark fantasy that the class designs do a great job at avoiding. I ended up muting the musics and just listening to my own only 10ish hours into the game. And, as mentioned before, the punishing grind and the excessive RNG are just not for everybody. But if you like RNG, grinding, and punishing difficulty, or are willing to dampen those features with the use of Radiant mode and/or mods, then this game should absolutely be played — Especially if you have an interest in turn-based RPGs, or the art style appeals to you. Bonus points for fans of dark fantasy as well.

It took me a while, but I'm very glad I finally took the leap and tried out Darkest Dungeon. Kudos to the team over at Red Hook: They have obviously given it their all to make the game they wanted to. It's unapologetic, exceptionally well-crafted, and worth playing. But it's definitely not for everybody.

⭐⭐⭐