DO NOT BUY Darkest Dungeon 2 - Disappointing Game

Hello, welcome back to a new video game

review. So recently the second in the

series of Darkest Dungeon came out. The

sequel Darkest Dungeon 2 released today,

and as an avid fan of the original game,

I just had to buy this game and make a

review. Now things I really liked from the

original game were the atmosphere, the

music, the amazing voice actor, and the

overall tone and feeling of the game. I

really liked how dark and brooding it was,

and the gameplay was very addictive. So as

you could imagine, I was really excited to

hear that a sequel was being made.

Unfortunately, after playing the sequel

for several hours, I have to say that it

is not up to my standards, and I got

pretty bored of it fairly quickly. So in

the original game, you had a village and

you could recruit fighters to the village

and form teams and send the teams into

dungeons And then you go through the

dungeon and you fight monsters, you get

loot. That's why it's called Darkest

Dungeon. And then you could upgrade the

village buildings, and each building in

the village served a purpose. Some

buildings could heal members, some

buildings could upgrade members' skills,

some buildings could recruit new members.

And I just really like this whole setup.

I like the whole concept of having a base

and then recruiting heroes to the base and

sending them out. Unfortunately, in the

sequel to Darkest Dungeon, in Darkest

Dungeon 2, they've completely scrapped

this gameplay mechanic and replaced

replaced it with something that's much

worse. Remember in the beginning of the

first Darkest Dungeon, there was that

little intro with the stagecoach, and your

first hero arrives at the village or the

hamlet in the stagecoach. And for some

reason, I have no idea why, but they've

decided to take the intro of the first

game and make that into the entirety of

the second game. So it's kind of like this

weird minigame where you control the

stagecoach and you've got to drive it and

you've got to steer it down a path. And

you've got several options, directions you

can choose from as the stagecoach is

moving, moving forwards. You could choose

battles, or you could choose items, or you

could choose like a mystery lane that

would give you an unexpected outcome. And

to be honest, I just find this whole

stagecoach thing to be really kind of lame

and boring. You spend the whole time just

pressing W to go forwards and then

steering left or right. And then the only

decision-making is if you want to choose a

battle or if you want to avoid a battle.

And then there's landmarks on the way,

like there's an inn, there's different

buildings, outposts, and you can enter the

buildings and then there's battles in

there as well. Now, the only reason why

you would want to play Darkest Dungeon is

for the addictive turn-based action RPG

kind of gameplay. And I don't want to be

spending half the time, or possibly even

more than half the time, pressing W and

steering a stagecoach, because that's what

it felt like. I played for a total of 4

hours and I felt like I was just steering

the stagecoach for 75% of the time. And

then, and then in between all of the

driving and the steering, you finally get

some action, you get to do a bit of

combat, and then it's back to the boring

steering the stupid stagecoach thing

again. And then at certain stops at inns,

you can upgrade the stagecoach, and then

you give items and buffs to your heroes

who are resting and probably tired.

There's just no challenge or anything fun

about the stagecoach bit. You steer it

along the path or the road, and you have

to avoid obstacles, and you have to crash

into crates to get items. It's just kind

of boring. I wish you could skip it. I

wish you could just do auto drive,

autopilot, and then skip to the next

location where there's a battle. Okay, so

the gameplay, when you finally get to it,

is pretty much exactly the same as the

first game. I didn't really notice

anything different. Even the skills and

the names of the skills of each hero are

exactly the same. You get exact same types

of heroes you got in the first one, but

the major difference is you can't really

mix and match different heroes in a party.

So in the first game you could have 4 of

the same type of hero, which could be

pretty funny. You could have 4 of the

rogues or 4 of the plague doctors or 4 of

the man-at-arms if you wanted to. But in

this game, you can only choose one of each

of the heroes, which makes customizing and

choosing and creating a party kind of

boring. And it was also really frustrating

because I kept dying, and you can't really

recruit new members if you lose a member

in your party. On the road, you can't

recruit a new one whilst you're on the

road. So you end up losing members along

the way until you get to a point where you

can't really fight and win anymore, and

then you lose everyone, and then it's like

game over. You get sent straight back to

the beginning of the chapter. Chapter 1 is

called Denial. I've had to start over from

the beginning of Denial at least 4 times

now, and I still cannot get to the end. I

don't even know what's at the end. At

least in the original game, if you lose

your entire party, you just end up back at

the hamlet, and then you can recruit new

heroes and then create a new party. And

then if anyone gets injured, you can put

them into a healing building like the

brothel or the inn or the hospital. In

this one, there's not really anything you

can do when your party starts, starts to

die. Now, my second problem with the game

is the art style. So the original art

style had a very 2D flat kind of comic

book art style And the second game,

Darkest Dungeon 2, still has that same

kind of art style, but for some reason

they've made it look 3D, which is really

weird and I don't like it. So in the first

one— so the first one, they kind of just

had a very flat static animation. When

they were standing there, they would kind

of jiggle, bounce up and down, so it

looked like they were moving, but they

weren't really animated or 3D dynamically

moving. And when they attacked, there were

just a few, a few frames of attack

animation. You could barely even call it

animation. It was like a slideshow of some

sort, but I really liked it. And in this

new one, Darkest Dungeon 2, they've got

this weird 3D kind of look. It just seems

very out of place. And also they've made

the heads of the characters more realistic

in size. So in the first one, they had

really big heads. And it kind of gave them

a bit of a charming, cute, adorable look,

even though it was in like this grim,

depressing, dark atmosphere. Now they've

got realistic-looking heads, each of the

characters and the enemies. They, they

look more realistic, but that isn't a good

thing because I liked the way how they

look kind of cartoony in the first game.

Now that kind of cartoony charm from the

first game has, has gone a little bit,

which is a real shame. So yeah, I don't

know if I could really recommend this game

because even though I love the franchise

and the original one, it's like the second

one is exactly the same as the first one

but kind of worse. I don't really feel

like there's anything about the second one

that is any better. I don't know what it

does better than the first one. I would

much rather play Darkest Dungeon 1, to be

honest, and do the whole Hamlet hero

recruitment concept gameplay, which I find

much more interesting than this stagecoach

thing. I don't know if the entire game is,

is all stagecoach driving. Maybe later in

the game or in the other chapters you get

to be in a village and then you can

upgrade the village. I'm not sure if I

would have the patience to continue

playing the game to get to that point,

but so far, um, I mean,

you can see they tried something new

because they couldn't just copy and paste

the exact same game. But really, it

doesn't feel much like a sequel. It feels

more like an add-on, like an extra bonus

minigame added on to the original game.

It just doesn't really feel like a fully

fledged sequel. So yeah, I would have to

give it a 4.5 out of 10,

unfortunately.