if only Darkest Dungeon looked this good, too bad this is not Darkest Dungeon.

The good:
* Visuals
* The voice actor

The bad:
* Carriage driving, hitting garbage is tedious but is incentivized with resources. If there was a toggle for auto trash collection no one would be subjecting themselves to the driving feature so why is it in the game.
* No sense of character progression or sentimental attachments as basically everything is reset for each run.
* Negative relationship boons are too severe for how random they are.
* Runs are way too long for a game where accidental losses can happen so quickly.
* Putting fan favorite Crusader behind a DLC, this was pre-planned wasn't it. I thought he was dead for good lore wise, now I wish that was the case.

The darkest:
Despite the thematic similarities it is not a "Darkest Dungeon" game. DD1 was a town management / dungeon crawler with prep. DD2 is a rougelike, no town, no dungeon crawling, no progression and no wonder fans of the first game can't bond with the sequel.

I yearn to replay DD1 in the future, same feeling does not come when thinking of DD2.

Darkest Dungeon II is fun and challenging game with fundamental changes, mechanically and visually to the original title. Prior to any deep investigation, I will tell you that I prefer the original Darkest Dungeon in pretty much all aspects, which unfortunately colours DD2 in a less than flattering shade. However, I will also point out that while this disappointment is only in the comparison of the two titles, and to those who have not played either or who prefer some of the changes in DD2, it does make significant changes to appeal to a different style of play and player.

Like DD1, DD2 is a rogue like turn based RPG where each run has you pitting a force of 4 heroes from a darkly colourful rogue's gallery against ever-encroaching Lovecraftian horrors. Many of the heroes from the first game return, though sadly a number of my favorites are missing, or were. Since my original stint playing the game, the Crusader has been added as DLC, though the Houndmaster remains at large, the Abomination is MIA, and the Arbalest, Musketeer, and Shieldbreaker are missing, and Bounty Hunter only works part time.

The characters are all now 3D, with more unique silhouettes though I miss the general style of DD1. The environments are also 3D, or 2.5D at least. Rather than a long serious of dungeons, you are bundled into a wagon traversing the dangers of the road towards the frigid and maddening peaks. The game also plays with the idea of how much of the environment and the apocalypse in progress is real and how much is a delusion caused by the unseen player character's fragmented and deluded mind. Another theory is that the living nightmare of the world, while real, is non the less born of the player's mind, a twisted reflection of madness made manifest by your and the narrator's forays into forbidden knowledge and ritual.

In either case, you are tasked with taking the light of hope up to the mountain of madness, and banishing the dawning horrors found glaring back at humanity from the antediluvian abyss. Each run has you moving through a number of areas in the wagon, with no guarantee of when you will meet your grizzly end. Unlike the first game, DD2 leans more heavily into the Rogue-like elements. Each run is separate with no worry of losing a beloved hero to a misplayed, or unprepared encounter. This allows far greater freedom to be reckless in DD2, since you'll always have all the heroes you've thus far unlocked to choose from on death. As well, unlike DD1, heroes now select an 'Class' on selection which grants certain effects which influence precisely how they play, such as bonuses to crit, or damage, or healing, etc. Selecting these, and your moves will be important to success.

Rather than recruiting new heroes for your Roster, you now unlock new heroes by spending 'Candles of Hope' a meta resource much like the gold and antiquities collected in DD1 to upgrade your hamlet. In DD2, you collect candles through various means, such as completing side goals on the road or collecting them as items. Some of these you always keep, but others can be lost if you die along your journey to the mountain. At the end, you use your collected candles to purchase permanent upgrades and unlock new heroes.

Combat plays much the same as DD1, where each character acts in turn using 1 of 4 abilities you assign from a larger total set belonging to each hero. Learning an enemies moves and weaknesses is every bit as important as your own strengths. Each zone has an end boss as well, who will offer you an incredible bounty should you defeat it on your way up the mountain. Just like DD1 heroes also acquire quirks and diseases, altering their stats, abilities, and disposition. Unlike DD1, you have less ability to mitigate these effects, as you don't have a hamlet to return to heal them of their myriad neurosis.

Instead of the Hamlet, there is now an Inn at the end of each area. Here your heroes can rest and recuperate. You can also upgrade their skills for the run by spending 'Mastery Points' gained on the journey thus far. Gold can be spent on provisions to heal your party, as well as improve their disposition to one another. This is a particular new mechanic in DD2, which can make or break each run. After leaving the inn your party members may like or love each other, be apathetic to one another, or despise one another. It characters like one another they will gain temporary boosts to particular skills or other boons. While negative interactions can cause particular abilities to be severely debuffed. If the wrong skills are debuffed it can really destroy your strategy for the run, if you rely on a particular set of abilities. Likewise blessed abilities can form the backbone of your tactics, greatly increasing your combat effectiveness or mitigating stress and other effects.

Each run consists traversing a number of regions, with players selecting which region is next at the inn. Only the starting tutorial region (the Valley) and the final region (the Mountain) are the same each run. Each Region then also has a modifier which various from run to run, which can be positive or negative, such as lower light drain rate, more nodes of a particular type, or just plain minuses to resistances. Choosing the right path can be helpful, but all routes will have their challenges. Naturally, certain party compositions excel against particular monsters and bosses, so some forethought greatly helps.

Get to the Mountain and you'll fight a final boss which varies by 'Chapter' which you select for each run. 5 Chapters exist in total with the main road gameplay being essentially the same, but with increasing difficulty and a different final boss at the end when you reach the mountain. Learning the bosses mechanics and waiting to see the next chapter boss can be quite fun, though it can also be frustrating when you arrive at the mountain too damaged to stand a fair chance at completing the chapter.

Overall DD2 is a fun game in its own right. Where most of its criticisms come from are in comparisons to DD1, which I still feel is a stronger title. DD2 really re-embraced the rogue like element, making each run its own. However, the long thoughtful progress of DD1 is substituted for a far more random experience. At it's most frustrating I found DD1 was difficult because the challenges themselves were difficult. In DD2, I was frustrated more because I got a bad run with poor RNG, and I was waiting for a better stroke of luck. Certainly you can apply your skills and tactics in DD2, but you are only allowed 1 of each Hero, limiting your team compositions drastically compared to the first game, while also being at the mercy of whatever paths and forks the game decides to give you.

Ultimately while DD2 is a fun game, it feels more mindless to me than DD1. Combined with my preference for DD1's story, art, and presentation I was left somewhat disappointed, though in the light of reason and hindsight, DD2 is still a fun game I played all the way through, and showcases a developer willing to take risks with its formula, for better or worse. I still recommend DD2, but DD1 remains my personal favorite.

    
• In most roguelights you acquire random power ups while playing; making each run unique. Not here. You select your starting characters and then get trinkets with “cool” stuff like: when you meet a condition then you get a big 5% chance of a temporary bonus. This means there is no real variation between runs.
      
• There is very little enemy variety.
      
• You end up fighting the same fight multiple times in the SAME run.
      
• Runs take significantly longer than other roguelights. Multiple hours instead of a few minutes.
      
• The difficulty is mainly based on memorization. You are meant to memorize every detail of every enemy or more likely play with the external wiki open.
      
• A lot of UI issues. For example when you select a path (loadout) for a character it tells you WHICH skills change. However it does not tell you HOW they change. This means you have to select one path, select the skill and try to remember every detail. Then you select the new path, select the skill again and then compare the new values with the old values from memory. Just to see that with this path this skill is slightly more likely to hit. You then have to do this for all the changed skills. A simple overview could change this interaction from minutes to seconds.

    
• Beautiful presentation