The sound and music is also top-notch – again. I still get excited just switching between two different skills with the Hellion and watching her raise her halberd above her head versus pulling it behind her body. Instead of being barely animated paper doll-style cutouts, the characters move and sway when idle and prepare to attack when you start clicking on different combat skills. What's dramatically improved, however, are the character models and animations.

Combat is largely the same as it was in its predecessor it's a one-dimensional tactics game where face monsters on a line and use appropriate skills to bash, weaken, and zap them before they can do the same to you. It's much less intense overall, for good and for ill.ĭarkest Dungeon 2 is still a very strong moment-to-moment game, despite those systemic issues. This isn't necessarily a bad thing! If you were stressed about those difficult decisions in the original, Darkest Dungeon 2 might be much more your speed. Having a single long dungeon run means there are a bunch of smaller decisions with smaller effects overall. Darkest Dungeon 1 was filled with the compelling decision of 'should I try to guide this barely standing party to a finish line or should I bail now and keep them alive?' In Darkest Dungeon 2, you simply go as far as you can until you have to click 'Abandon Run' and then try again. Because a run is a single, multi-hour progression, there's no ability to run away and only get partial rewards for the current set of characters – in Darkest Dungeon 2 you're either going forward or you're starting over. They combine in a way that removes the signature tension that Darkest Dungeon 1 created. They're annoying, certainly, but they're not run-ending the way a breakdown in Darkest Dungeon 1 could be.Īnd this is the biggest issue with Darkest Dungeon 2's new mechanics. I found it pretty easy, at least early in a run, to simply fight my way past the debuffs. Alternately, if you don't want to worry about stress, you can get by without even bothering to take those characters or upgrades. If you want to manage your party's stress level, you pretty much have to upgrade one of a few skills like the Plague Doctor's 'Ounce of Prevention' skill at the start of a run and use it regularly. This combines with the other major issue with the relationship system in the early access version: it's just not especially well-balanced right now.

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