This game is a lot of fun. The graphical style is awesome and the music, ambient sound and narrator dialogue are all near perfect. But what I love about this game is that it feels like a finished game, and for an early access game that is a great achievement. It manages to deliver a polished, playable and (above all else) fun gaming experience. Big game publishers should take note: This game is in a better state than many triple A titles are at release. And it is early access!

This is how early access should be done. See my full review : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJToNMkgJ5g

I got a letter from my Uncle last year saying that he had given up his questionable lifestyle choices in order to blow the family fortune on unearthing what he described as a "portal of antediluvian evil" that he proceeded to open. I thought at first that this was a cry for help regarding a puzzle in Portal 2 so I obligingly came over the the Darkest Estate to help.

Along the way I met a shady fellow with a musket and a SCAdian in a coach. After being waylaid by the local hoodie wearers we arrived at what is known locally as "the hamlet". It comprised a seedy old church, a run down sanitorium, and a tavern, as well as a woebegotten old "caretaker" who I am 90% sure is actually undead based on his distinctive "cologne". Take care indeed, he likes to mooch around taking advantage of the facilities on your penny. Heaven knows but he spends too much time in the brothel and the flagellation chambers.

So what can I say ? Uncle had shot himself with a dueling pistol, the old bandit, and left me with a property that is impossible to insure or sell. On the other hand there seem to be an endless supply of friendly imported labour eager to go and clean it out for me for the most spurious and ridiculous of reasons, and best of all, they bring back money, family antiques, and even paperwork to help me do up the hamlet.

Admittedly it is a bit hard on the folks I send up there. They generally come home gibbering mad, if they come home at all, but lately as I have been upgarding the hamlet's facilities and sorting out proper training programs and toys for the poor louts they are doing a lot better. The Sanitorium is immensely helpful at treating all of the stomach complaints they seem to get, (poor ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥s come home spurting from both ends half the time), not to mention how often they come home with syphilis and/or rabies. Yes ! I checked the Brothel (once I could get those Lezzie Vestals to pull out of for 5 minutes), they are definitely getting the syphilis from their expeditions and don't ask me where. I am sure it all gets a bit "Deliverance" up there at times, what with all the squealing we hear. We now have extensive facilities and have murdered the full litany of monster royalty in the ruins, weald and warrens. I am looking forwards to seeing what is in the Cove and the Manor itself. There are 23 new gravestones in the hamlet's "boot hill" and a roster of 20 more likely candidates, but lately they aren't dying nearly as much, which is probably a good thing. In fact I think I can see the light at the end of the Darkest Dungeon.

I hope to turn the place into a holiday resort and theme park. Please do come and see for yourself. You'll love it. Darkest Dungeon, like cold water, it's great once you get used to it. :)

Nobody cares about how the members of a party of heroes sent down to investigate a dungeon feel about it. It's not an easy job, you know?; descending into darkness, vanquishing monsters, keeping the torches lit... Nobody's SJW-ing for these guys and they kinda deserve it, seeing how they are there at their post in every other game you are playing. Well, no more of this, Darkest Dungeon cares about them and tries to make YOU care as well. It's the most psychologically accurate dungeon raiding simulator to date, hands down, guaranteed to make you aware of their feelings! Can you send another team down there never knowing what they feel like? Can you feel good about yourself knowing their rights are not properly enforced? SJW-ing for all dungeon crawlers everywhere! These guys deserve rights, do it now!

Most Early Access games are either uncomplete or unpolished. Some are great but is still need of fine tunning and that could take forever.

The Darkest Dungeon is one of those games that surpasses all of that and get's it right!

Might as well call this game "Dark Souls: Darkest Dungeon" because that is exactly how this game is played out. Heroes will die and will not come back. If you don't take care of them, they will either go insane or hinder any chance at completing a quest.

Now just because the classes look cool and 'might' help you. This game plays on "chance" meaning just because it's an apprentice level when your attempting an area doesn't mean it will go very well. It could go very well and that's great. Or it will go horribly and your party memebers will die over and over again

Upgrade your 'lands' and treat your heroes right. Luckily the game is forgiving in some ways whatever loot you have obtain thus far will be given to you if you decide retreat and live to fight another day. Also be warn if your thinking "Oh i can instant heal the stress meter on my guys and gals" you are sadly mistaken. You can only achieve this by going on a quest and either completing or coming back after retreating.

The only downside to this game and many people may have or already have pointed this out. But the game in a Dark Souls fashion does little to explain what's going on and what are all the gizmos and stuff that is in the game.

If you love Dark Souls & H. P. Lovecraft themes then this game is for you.

It's a def-

*YOU DIED*

Oh did you die? You should've not been reading this review then.

Grade: A
Time Play: 40 hours (mostly offline)

I want to state first that Darkest Dungeon is far and away the best and most complete early access game that I have played. The systems are basically finished, with the team mostly just fine tuning now. The art is fantastic and imaginative, both with characters and environments, There is plenty to do. The game is only really missing the final two areas and and a handful of character classes, which should be arriving shortly.

DD is a hard game. but it has an interesting fallback: heroes are free. You can recruit them endlessly, so it is nearly impossible to actually fail. Which is good because nasty things lurk in the depths. If you have read H.P. Lovecrafts works (and you should), then this will seem very familiar in a good way! Much like Lovecraft's protagonists, your heroes will mostly end their stories by going insane and dying.

This is one of the most interesting facets of the game: stress. In DD, your heroes are vulnerable and scared. They don't enjoy being assaulted by pig-men with bone clubs. Walking skeletons frighten them. Starvation is sad. Basically, they act a lot like real people, and its great!

The quirk system is similar. Your heroes acquire charactersitics as they plumb the depths, most of them weird. Your crusader may have been a holy hero once, but 10 weeks at the estate and he has become a nymphomaniac with syphillis and an obsession with corpses! Necrophilia, anyone? :P

Getting good at the game will likely take awhile. There are a lot of classes, and each one has numerous skills they can use in battle and while camping. Learning how to managae your money, provision your party for journies, and what buildings to upgrade first can also be confusing. It is all very do-able, it mostly just takes time because it is different. You will get used to it if you give it a chance.

Basically, DD takes a sort of George R.R. Martin view of adventuring. There are a lot of details that you do not encounter in, say, a Final Fantasy game. Heroes actually need food, for example. Torches don't last forever. Characters don't take crushing blows from a cleaver without reaction (sometimes they start screamng in unknown languages and then murder your hapless doctor...). It's a muddy, bloody good time. And larks for all ;)

Last Words: Experimental game-design done right, with some fantastic art direction and ideas, that results in a RPG masterpiece. Keep up the fantastic work Red Hook Games!!

If you haven't played this game I honestly don't know what you're waiting for. If you love a challenge and arent worried about throwing your controller through your screen, this game might be for you. It reminded me of a mix between Rogue Legacy (You had a main hub where you could upgrade various things before setting out into the dungeons, where you would gain gold to do this) Final Fantasy (turn based battle system) and Dark Souls (this game will compeltely crush you)

I've currently beaten all those bosses at all levels except 1, cant wait for more content. There is no reason for you not to be playing this game. Right now. Go. Buy it.

This game is very fresh and has a great art style and its still in early access but theres something that i want to point out that a love about the game. ITS HARD AS A ♥♥♥♥ this game will challenge u to ur limits and i had to restart this game many times because i lost to many heros. make sure ur prepared for the bosses some of them are easy but some of them you cant even beat (COUGH COUGH WIZARD HAG COUGH COUGH). But if u like challenging games i would reccomend if u dont like ur guys getting murdered by a maggot then just dont buy it because thats is whats going to happen

Likely one of the best games i've played in quite a while. Go out, slay a few monsters, watch those torches and get back to camp and deal with more metal illness than your psycho ex-girlfriend had. 9/10.

Oh boy, how to properly give this game it's due? Here's the thing: You're going to lose or suffer horrible setbacks. That's pretty non-negotiable. However, the game is seemingly made entirely around that concept and it works. Under ideal circumstances it really feels like you're walking on thin ice and at any given moment it can break. Then, one of your 4-member Dungeon crawling group goes temporarily insane and every action you can possibly take seems to have negative and dire consquences - and it's equal parts crushing, hilarious and entertaining while it happens.

Very quickly you will need to let go of any "perfect gameplay" style of gaming here. Even leveling up can bring negative quirks. Every magic item in the game has a bonus but also a drawback aspect to it. While many games start out easier and get harder as they go along, Darkest Dungeon seems to take the opposite direction, although so far I'd never say it gets "easy", it simply goes from your adventures almost always ending with someone dead or crippled to a situation where now and again you can scrape by. Victories are rare but all the more sweet for the rareness.

It's hard not to love this game.

Also, while it is a work in progress, much of the foundation appears to be laid. There is plenty of content here for a lot of gaming pleasure.

Hellion has both Nymphomaniac and Necromania. 10/10 Undead sex

Good game ,but I believe it is too harsh at times even though I know it meant to.
Played through it many times on different walkthroughs and the longest I have ever gone was probably 3 hours without losing my whole team.
Other than that it is a good game and allows for you to feel the pain of losing companions you feel that you had a bond with which is gone after a witch throwing him into her pot and slowing roasting his flesh.

Blood Pressure Raising Simulator 2014.

110/125, would stress again.

This game gave me syphilis. 10/10

A good game though i hade trouble booting it up it would get stuck on the red hook logo and i was having trouble finding a way to fix this so heres my advice right click DDungeon go down to properties and uncheck steam overlay and this should work :D! 8/10 stars

"Darkest Dungeon is a challenging gothic roguelike turn-based RPG about the psychological stresses of adventuring."

It means that YOU will be the one feeling the psychological effects in your very bones, you'll hold your breath during attacks, jump at every trap you step on, will sigh in relief when you make it out alive... and even if you have a successful dungeon run, you'll not feel triumph, you'll feel sad, depressed, tired, exhausted and will not want to go down there, on the other hand you will want to go down there hoping to find one more trinket so that you can upgrade that litt...

True story: I got in with 3 noobs and 1 semi noob plague doctor, in 2 turns the noobs died and plague doctor barely made it out alive, after seeing the horrible deaths of his comrades lost faith in god, now can only drink himself to stupor in the tavern. Oh and my silly jester lost his only artifact at the gambling table...

All in all... buy this game :)

This is great example of how to do early access. Game playable right from the go and new content rolls in to add more depth. Game mechanics are solid, aesthetics are great and atmosphere is superb. Highly recommended.

This game is very horny because it loves to F**K you all the time. Very furstating and challenging. Its awesome!

This game had me absurdly on-edge and deeply invested in every character, even my poor Simnir who died on his first quest. Managing resources is tense and extraordinarily well-handled, but keeping track of your characters mental states adds a powerful level of difficulty that makes not just every encounter but every step a carefully considered action. It's hard, but not impossible, and every once in a while you'll find that perfect combination of characters that just plows through dungeons. Y'know, until one goes insane and you have to craft and balance a new party while he's in the sanitarium recovering.

Ive only played for 85 minutes and im hooked completly.

RNG Will love and hate you, the game is utterly well designed and i love the beauty of the art style.

Creepy and eerie atmosphere where you have no idea whats to come.

10/10 Would recommend to any lovers of turn based games.

This game is absolutely great, even though the work on it is still in progress (and that implies it will be even better soon). Understanding it takes a while though, and that means dead heroes, warped minds and suicidal dungeon crawls. But then it gets really exciting, and you will be looking for greater heights to reach as you grind through high level quests and tricky bosses. Dont let the hardcore turn you away - let it turn you on instead!