#for context: i have 300 hours in the og dd

[emlos]

hey why you're into/not into dd?

THANK YOU FOR ENABLING ME

preface: those are my unordered impressions as a ~2017-2022 dd1 player

soooo my darkest dungeon TWO thoughts are:

FIRST OFF WHY NO NATIVE LINUX SUPPORT??? i personally know unity can compile for linux, though im not sure how its quality is for more elaborate games, i WISH theyd upload a native linux build like dd1. im complaining cause the game does not SKIP frames but slows down to 10 fps for me, which makes it super slow and basically unplayable, unless i close everything else and frankly lobotomize most of my laptop functions. this compared to dd1 (which I KNOW was a different engine and 2d, but still) is a massive performance downgrade

secondly the gameplay loop is just... unenjoyable to me? gone is the safety of retreat to my home base (hamlet) and the choice of whether press on or return. the paths have too little variety to me, with exactly one possible event between them. tacking onto that, i feel the one combat item per character is just too restrictive, especially considering how much debuffs get applied to my heroes during even the first act

hero death: means basically nothing? like skills stay unlocked due to the backstories (which i ADORE BTW! thats a really fun thing to add!!!) so when you get lucky the first act your second act is a breeze. ad to that the fact that you have to unlock EVERYTHING, making the first runs awfully frustrating and the latter frustratingly easy, it feels unrewarding all in all

and its the little things too, like every enemy applying block and me just spamming aoes without a thought to whittle it down, less useful healing skills, the relationship system that actually made me excited for the game having either no influence on my gameplay or screwing me through rng...

oh yeah, the fucking tooltips on skills being just symbols though there's space to write the word out, now that i think about it the ui is just cumbersome, holding alt or ctrl for every little thing isnt very accessible :(

i know red hook wanted to make this experience distinct from dd1 while retaining the same feel an universe, but i genuinely prefer dd1 to it, because of the little quality of life things I GUESS the animations are SO BANGER tho i LOVE how they translated the 2d into the 3d!