Quick Look: Darkest Dungeon

Can't wait for this to come to PS4.

The intro for this game caught my attention. Though, I fear it's one of those intros that has themes which peek interest, but the game never explores further.

This has to be about the fifth QL this year already with the word "Eldritch" in it. Is there some sort of bet going on?

You can totally make due with a good core team of veteran badasses. Your guys are not expendable cannon fodder. You still need to cultivate a deep stable of guys and you need to not invest too heavily in guys with bad quirks but building up a core group of elite killers with good synergy, good locked attributes, good trinkets and no debilitating quirks is a good way to go.

Pretty much this. No matter what, you are going to have to invest in your crew, and if they start with some really good quirks, you should do your best to keep them around.

This looks really neat, though I know very little about this type of game. Anyone have a noob-friendly DD guide they could pass along? Thanks in advance!

I think the games narrator is Wayne June. My favourite work of his is The Dark Worlds of H.P Lovecraft.

I love this game. I just bought it yesterday so I was happy to see some of the higher level play in the video. Also, "inchoate" is pronounced "in-KO-ate", in "in-choad" haha.

Thank you for this great content. The Beast is right up my street and makes me wishlist everything fun on Steam.

I grew up on PC until i was about 17, notwithstanding a short dalliance on Master System or playing nintendo in kmart, and a good chunk of new releases are very well made modern updates or new takes on that time :)

Isn't 'inchoate' pronounced 'in-ko-ate', not 'in-cho-ate'? As in similar to incoherent.

Also, Austin is probably being too modest to mention it in the video, but he wrote a really good piece about the way the game handles the quirks and mental health on Paste: http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2015/02/a-burnt-torch-darkest-dungeon-mental-health-and-lo.html

I'm so glad I resisted the urge to play the game beyond my initial 10 hour slog when it was in Early Access. Missed all the community angst about the mechanical changes and found an even better game waiting for me on release day.

@weaponboy said:

He both mentioned it in the video and linked it in the comments! What I'm trying to say is that @austin_walker has no shame.

Decided to wait for the full release after I first saw it, so I picked this up at launch. I haven't had nearly as much time to play this as I would have liked, but from the little I have squeezed in I'm super excited to see how deep into it I'll end up getting. It's incredibly compelling and there's clearly a ton to wrap my head around.

Whoa, is the Giant Bomb player gone for good? Strictly Youtube now?

What? No it's definitely still there. Change the quality from youtube to anything else.

Not to get into spoilers for any who care, but that's probably not the case. Though without specifics about the themes you're talking about it's hard to say for sure. The intro is pretty indicative of things to come though.

Should I be disappointed that @austin_walker let a perfectly good chance to bring up the Eye of Vecna go and instead went for an Odin reference?

Seeing the finished product, this game does look awesome. I look forward to playing it someday.

Even the GAME didn't think it was a good idea for Alex to tackle that place.

@ricobanderas: We can only hope that dreaded barely adequate beast is consigned to the cbs sewers.

I think this game is a shoe-in for GOTY 2016 most style, or best aesthetics. At the very least it should get a best quotable lines, and if Wayne June isn't best (new!) voice actor, you done fucked up Giant Bomb!!! :) This game is really rad. I've been in it since it was at the beginning of early access and loved what it is/has become. It was great to hear the interview with the makers on the "Axe of the Blood God" podcast, and neat to see all the comments in the release trailer on YT were people just dropping in quotes. I still think my favorite is "Executed with impunity!". I wish I had the narrator to narrate everything in my everyday life. How great would it be to do something like make a nice new dinner and have the Wayne June voice drop an "Executed with Impunity"!?

Alex & Vinny comedy duo.

The UI, or more specifically the usability, is one of my main beefs with the game. You keep having to look at screens, remember the info, back out, open up other screens, make adjustments, back out, doublecheck... It's missing some vital stuff which makes it easy to lose track of things. For example, I would kill for an 'unequip all trinkets' button to name one thing. And another: it kinda sucks that you can't upgrade your heroes' skills and equipment and assign treatments on the character screen. I appreciate that you have to upgrade the guild and blacksmith before upgrades become available, but having to open the guild, drag the hero in there, upgrade the skills, close the guild, open the blacksmith, drag hero in there, upgrade equipment, close blacksmith, open the sanitarium, drag hero in there, select treatments, confirm, close sanitarium.... and repeat for a couple more heroes after any mission. All that stuff could be one screen.

I have a couple of other issues with the game as well, like right now I need 84 deeds (heirloom type) to be able to upgrade my heroes' equipment to match their level. I don't think I've ever gotten more than 10 in one run, and that is if there's even a quest available that rewards those. It's way grindier than it needs to be, my higher level heroes tend to just sit in town for ages waiting for the lower levels to grind enough stuff to unlock their level appropriate upgrades.

All that said, I really like the game. And you can definitely get better at it, it's not all RNG. Most of my deaths have been completely my fault in hindsight. You might get screwed over by a bad roll, but to what extend that messes up your game is entirely on you. It's all about risk management. You can't just blame RNG when it's yourself who put you in a position where you're dependant on it.

Herzog narrating this game would legitimately make it my favorite game. Klaus Kinski's always in your party, and the rest of your party hates him, and you have to manage their relationship the entire time or he kills everyone.

Edit: Kingdom of Heaven Director's Cut is pretty good. For some reason, I love the scene where Legolas builds irrigation for the village.

Edit2: this quick look is so good. These folks are so funny and smart and quick.

The Darkest Of Dungeons is the one we make for ourselves, Alex, when we mispronounce words. It's "in-ko-ate".

Great, interesting, quirky game design that scratches a lot of itches. Forgive the ribbing, Alex, the chance was just hanging there on the bottom branch of the sarcasm tree.

"Who's that big man?"

Dammit, Austin. Almost swallowed my tongue laughing, there.

@clush: There actually is an "Unequip all Trinkets" button at the top of the Trinkets menu.

Other than that, I totally agree. There is a lot of clicking back and forth all over the place one you're back in town.

@clush: There is an unequip all trinkets button. it's been in for a good while. On the trinkets menu it's beside the sort options I think. The buttons are small so it's pretty easy to miss.

@clush: Thanks for the information, doest seem a little confusing to upgrade and to do anything really. I might have to wait a bit on this game after i work through the rest of my back log!

I've come to realize that this game has very little actual animation, but goddamn did they perfect their zooms, blooms and screen shakes. It's just a static render of a knight holding a scroll, but you feel the impact in your bones.

First I see a new QL...

then i see its Darkest Dungeon...

then I see "posted by Vinny"...

...and it's 1 hour 22 minutes.

How come the GBeast quick looks are almost always longer (often double) in length than the GBWest quick looks? I've never seen an answer for this anywhere and am a bit curious. I appreciate how these guys put in the extra effort to show us a bit more. Thanks!

Now that it's out of early access I guess there's no reason for me not to buy it any more. GBeast is bad for my wallet.

When is this coming out to PS4?

@raidendelta: It's not really confusing, just tedious since the ways it could be handled better are so obvious.

@esoterik: @arabes: Ok, that one's totally on me then. Still, just one example of many :)

Great QL. Really informative,and watching Alex attempt the Darkest Dungeon was surprisingly tense!

@ogto said:

I can confirm that Alex bought an insane amount of provisions for the medium-length mission he went on. He might've just been super cautious to make sure he didn't have a bunch of people die during the Quick Look. The amount of provisions he bought was better suited to the longest-possible missions.

The shovels and keys he bought I have no real problem with (I might only bring like 2 shovels 2 key on a medium mission, but what Alex did is fine too) but he bought kind of a crazy amount of food and torches. Though to be fair, Alex is so late game that he can just drop all heirlooms and only have to make inventory space for gold and gems, whereas when I'm making runs, I'm still trying to get as much gold and as many heirlooms as possible, so I kinda want all of my provisions to run low pretty quickly.

I think the best lesson for this game is don't get freaked out by torches because for a lot of normal missions fighting in the Dim and Dark states is actually totally rad.

Yeah, if every player character and enemy character had like, Street Fighter 3 levels of animation, this game would've needed SOOOO many more animators on staff. This game might be the best "doing a lot with very little" kind of things I've ever seen, because yeah, those zooms and the sound effects and maybe some extra little lighting effect on the holy moves goes a long way to make everything seem like it's in motion then pauses on a freeze frame, when really there is almost no motion and everything is mostly static images. It's really well done.

Nah, it's either a Gargoyles or mythology reference. And both work about as well as a Vecna one for the subject material (especially maiming oneself for forbidden knowledge like with Odin).

mortality clarified in a single strike

Yup, life is good.

Great quicklook. Their enthusiasm for the game shines with all the humor and banter between the three of them. So many times I was laughing and also just thinking of what the community does with some of quips has me really excited.

Someone needs to animate Austin's story about how his character lost his eye (the second time).

I was perfectly satisfied with what they've made, but then you go and mention SFIII and ruin it for me. Man, imagine the Jester's idle animation.

I bought this game because of this Quicklook, and I'm having a great time.

I do have one criticism of this QL though. Alex was driving this QL, and Austin and Vinny were doing great passenger commentary through most of it. But sometimes Austin seemed to take over the driver's seat though, and it was jarring.

Alex will cover the mechanics in his own time, and his own tone, and it's a timing and tone that's my favorite on GB.

Austin: I love your writing, your features, and your energy; but sometimes you gotta let other people run the conversation.

You know, I wasn't totally sold on Alex and his passive aggressive commentary, but between his enthusiasm for this game and amazing recurring impression of Samuel, I'm in.

I adore the art in this game but I will never play this, seems way to stressful.

Man alex's run into the darkest dungeon went better than most of my runs have gone and I'm only at week 5

@solidocelot said:

It's not actually that stressful. You'll enjoy failing. Just add people to the grinder and escape when you need to. You don't need to know every single detail. You'll have fun just experimenting.