Darkest Dungeon II

Genre: Turn-Based RPG / Roguelike

Players: 1

.

Review:

When I originally reviewed the Nintendo Switch release of the original Darkest Dungeon over 6 years ago, I was not thrilled with it. While the game’s dark themes didn’t personally appeal to me, what really dragged the game down in my eyes was the terrible confusing control scheme and menu system that made the game unnecessarily confusing. Zoom ahead to the release of Darkest Dungeon II, which came out in 2023 on PC and then in 2024 on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch, and I admit I was somewhat apprehensive to review the game. As it turns out, my experience this time around was somewhat different, though some of the same issues are present.

Darkest Dungeon II is a Turn-Based RPG with Roguelike elements, which is now split into two game modes. Confessions is derived from the experience of the original Darkest Dungeons, giving players a Roguelike experience where their heroes ride a carriage through dark and dangerous territory trying to survive through various procedurally-generated encounters, with a traditional tree-like map structure. Meanwhile, Kingdoms changes the map structure to something more like a game board, with players traveling to points of interest to deal with threats as they arise, while more or less keeping the remaining game structure intact.

Overall, I found this game improved on the original formula to make things a bit clearer, but there are still huge issues with confusing game mechanics that the game fails to explain to the player, and that forces them to go out of their way to figure out. The game is filled with a plethora of positive and negative status effects, and while there is a (hidden) shortcut screen that explains what some of these do, this screen isn’t accessible at all times, and it doesn’t display all of the status effects. Often, the question “what does this thing do?” is something best answered by looking it up on a wiki.

This often leads to situations where you’ll have something happen in battle and have no conception of exactly how that’s affecting things, or things will behave in a way that’s inconsistent for no apparent reason, or something will happen that seems to come completely out of nowhere. I had no clue what characters’ affinity for each other even did until one of my characters actually attacked another character in-battle, and I had my characters repeatedly go to zero health in battle only for me to revive them… until the game decided one such death was permanent.

The menus are once again confusing, though they seemed a tad more approachable this time. The game does also offer optional touchscreen controls in handheld mode, though you still need to use these in conjunction with traditional gamepad controls.

While I have some strong complaints about this game’s failure to be clear and accessible to players, I should say that despite these issues, the game is still playable, and even enjoyable to some extent – I was able to clear a run in Confessions mode despite all of my confusion, for example. However, even if you can dismiss the inexplicable elements, this is still a pretty slow-paced game, with battles that can take a long time to get through, and a “run” can take multiple hours to see to conclusion (one way or another).

One area that has gotten a significant upgrade here is the presentation, with cel-shaded 3D visuals that imitate the stylized 2D artwork of the first game, dripping with moody style and personality. This is joined by a similarly dramatic instrumental soundtrack and joined by a voiced narrator adding a dramatic flourish to everything. Overall, I think this game’s presentation is great, and it helps to keep players interested even while the gameplay is less than clear.

In the end, I like Darkest Dungeon II quite a bit better than the first game, and think the improvements to the presentation as well as some added clarity definitely help… but it’s not enough. I still find this to be a confusing and awkward-to-control mess of a game. Its dark tone will likely appeal to some players, and fans of the original game are sure to love it, but I think most players will be frustrated by the confusing menus and gameplay here.

tl;dr – Darkest Dungeon II is a Turn-Based RPG with Roguelike elements that has players directing a heroic party on a carriage through dark and dangerous territory. I think this is an improvement over the first game, with a better presentation and clearer gameplay, but it’s still a confusing, awkward-to-play mess that you’ll likely need to play with a guide open to tell you everything this game doesn’t explain. Fans of the first game should love this, but I think most players are better off skipping this.

Grade: C+

^{You can support eShopperReviews on Patreon! Please click HERE to become a Sponsor!}

^{This month’s sponsors are Jamie and His Cats, Ben, Ilya Zverev, Andy Miller, Johannes, Jaka, Jared Wark, Gabriel Coronad-Medina, Francis Obst, Kristoffer Wulff, Seth Christenfeld, and Vince Verrinoldi. Thank you for helping to keep the reviews coming!}