You’ll see it in the Podcast but I’m going to say it here anyway… I started playing Darkest Dungeon II with a very high level of expectation and… I was completely disappointed.
It’s not that the game is bad, it’s clear that it lacks polishing some impurities, but I think it’s not my type directly. I gave it many opportunities beyond the 4 hours of gameplay, and there was no case.
Among its main flaws, I found the main game mechanics to be extremely random. So I felt more like a spectator than a player per se. Little of what I did actually had an impact on the outcome of each fight. Add to that an overwhelming imbalance between the damage caused by my characters and the damage caused by the monsters.
I think it fails to satisfy either dungeon-crawler lovers or roguelike lovers. To get to dungeon crawler properly, lacks a system of relevant progress (emphasis on relevance) of the characters and the player himself. To become a proper roguelike, it lacks an emphasis on the player’s skill and not on the randomness of the game.
I leave you with the analysis with a bit of a bitter taste in my mouth….