Week 1 of Darkest Dungeon II: Burn Bright

     Welcome to Dungeon Diving! Our ongoing blog about our Darkest Dungeon II. Similar to the style I employed for my Learning Anime Fighters, this will be a chronological 'diary' of my thoughts whilst playing the game. I will have a much longer and detailed impressions videos later this week but right now we will be talking about mostly my gut reactions whilst playing the game. This blog is designed to be ongoing and I will update it every Wednesday.

Wednesday

- I finally got Runaway's first memory unlocked. I have been playing this game for at least 3-4 days now and every time I tried to unlock her memory to get more of her skills and I kept failing. I even had to look up a video online to get an idea on how to beat it, it was that annoying.

- Fortunately Runaway's default skill set is actually pretty good and I got pretty far with just using that. As the brand new character to the Darkest Dungeon franchise I like what she brings to the table.

- I was playing this game originally with a controller which is possible but I have defaulted back to Mouse and Keyboard (M&K). There is just so many menus to navigate and constant need to figure our what moves do what and how this token affects me that doing it with a controller just wasn't doing it for me. I exclusively playing the original DD with M&K as well so that makes sense.

- Damn. I thought had a good team and everyone had good relationships and then I got destroyed by the Denial boss. I really thought I was onto something too.

Thursday

- Okay, I've found a better team lol.

- Got to the second boss, Resentment. I was focusing on it's core but it turns out its 'lungs' should be the focus. Good to know.

- Realizing I do not need to fix my wagon for the final run up to the mountain is saving me time and currency. I can focus on getting a final item instead.

- All the lair bosses aka the big bads of the region have some nasty tricks to ruin your run. I thought the easiest one was the one in the Foetor and even that thing has teeth.

Friday

- I wish there was a way to sell unwanted items, so many times I'll be a couple currency short at the Hoarder/ Hospital but I have tons of items I would love to get rid of. Just throwing stuff away is so wasteful. Sure this is a hold-over from DD but man I wished they consider changing it.

- I have beaten the first boss Denial so many times now, the second boss, Resentment however? Not so much. It feels doable tho.

Saturday

- I think I've found my go to team. It is Occultist/ Highway Man (HWM)/ Grave Robber/ Man of Arms (MoA). I have taken to calling them 'Target Locked'

Sunday

- Looking at my Darkest Dungeon wallpaper for the original game and I realize I do miss some of the original classes. Surprisingly the character I miss the most is the Arbalest/ Musketeer. DD 2 has so many annoying backline enemies which are hard to reach with most of the cast.

- Thank goodness Occultist has his 'Daemon Pull' skill which brings them close to the front ranks. When I have teams with out him I actually miss that ability so much.

- I finally beat Resentment with team 'Target Locked' I was right, focus on the lungs, interchanging with attacks on its core. Did not even lose a squad member.

- Having the same team get wiped out on the first boss in a Obsession run is very humbling tho lol.

Monday

- Tried to take down the Shambler mini-boss with Target Locked and lost the whole team except Man of Arms. Tried to complete the objectives to at least get some extra candles and the next area is another alter to Shambler and this time I can't reject fighting it. WTF man.

- This game is so addictive. I constantly tell myself I am going to play something else but I keep coming back.

- Yoooo you can get rid of positive traits at the hospital too? LOL I forgot that was a thing.

Tuesday

- Getting jumped by the Collector mini-boss after a long lair boss fight is dirty pool Red Hook. I need you guys to know that.

- Okay, did I accidentally turn on hard mode? New run, first boss is the Warlord mini-boss and my time is not strong enough for that. This is some b-s.

- Occultist 'Anamnesis' skill might not be worth it. You need two 'Unchecked Power' tokens and be in position 1 or 2. This might work for front row Occultist but who runs that combo?

- 'Obsession' is tough as well and it has 2 stages. I was having a great run and even took down Fanatics' pretty easily. Also it appears on later runs you have to fight more back to back battles to get to the boss.

WHAT'S NEXT

    So on that note, we are done with our first Darkest Dungeon II ongoing blog. I think we will be here for awhile because right now we are loving DD II. I have other team combos to try, other characters to learn and at least 3 more major bosses to conquer.

    Also we still have the upcoming Kingdom update still coming soon as well. Check back in next Wednesday for another installment of 'Dungeon Diving'.

    AV

PIT STOP: The Triple I Initiative

  

    On April 10th; a lot of indie developers with big dreams decided to band together and do what I like to call the 'Anti Game Awards'. Thankfully gone are the celebrities who know next to nothing about the games they are presenting, no commercials not pertaining to the games and no down time between presentations. All killer, no fluff.  It was refreshing and it truly showed companies who wanted to buck the existing system. We wanted games, they gave us games.

    Over the course of the last couple years and unironically coinciding with me getting my Steam Deck I have found myself more and more getting into the indie scene. Now I've always enjoyed indie games especially during my Xbox360 era when I had access to their indie store. However the PC indie scene has grown to the point where its no longer even feels like a indie game we are playing. The budget might be smaller but the game still has a 'Triple A' feeling hence I feel why they calling it 'Triple I' I believe.

    Off the top of my head, some of my favorite games of the last couple years are not in the 'Triple A' space. I skipped titles like the 'Final Fantasy' games, 'Starfield', 'God of War Ragnarok' and other games that got a lot of media coverage, good or bad. Sure 'Elden Ring' might have been my favorite game of 2022 and Fromsoft is definitely in the 'Triple A' space but for every ER, I am also loving 'Darkest Dungeon', 'Risk of Rain',  'Inscryption' and 'Dredge' Most of the RAVES on this very blog are indie games and that I think is not by coincidence. These are the games I enjoy playing the most. Heck, something playing a 'Triple A' gets so daunting for me with all I need to do that even if I enjoy playing it, 'Marvel's Avengers' for example, I stop because I find something else more smaller and more enjoyable to me. It is just how I am wired these days.

    So when the guys who makes big indie games like Risk of Rain, Darkest Dungeon, Dead Cells, Slay the Spire and many others decided to band together and do their own presentation I got interested and now I've seen what is coming I am even more interested. Lets chat about some games we will definitely be playing soon. This list is not in order btw.

    Darkest Dungeon 2: The Kingdoms update- Right off the bat, lets talk about one of the big names who was a part of putting this all together. Red Hook studios, the sickos behind 'Darkest Dungeon' has being promoting 'Darkest Dungeon 2' for awhile now. First as a Epic Store Exclusive but it had recently came to Steam and with it, it has steadily added new content like new characters (or returning characters like The Crusader class) and patch updates. Their next big update appears to the The Kingdoms, which is a free new mode that changes the game slightly. This might be a good idea because a lot of feedback for Darkest Dungeon 2 was how they changed it a lot from how the original Darkest Dungeon played. This new mode seems more like a return to their roots which might be what the game needs to turn some of the naysayers. Also as a new mode, it does not erase the original concept with the heroes riding the stagecoach but it does give people the option to play DD 2 a different way.

    Personally, I've been on the fence with getting DD 2. A bit of trepidation was from the negative word of mouth and reviews and how much it changed the core of the game but some of it is because I am so busy playing other games and 'Learning Anime Fighter' (shameless plug I know). However it has always been on my wishlist and I really wanted to try it out for myself. Right now it is actually on sale and I can pick up the game and its DLC for less than $30 so I think the price combined with the new update coming has convinced its time to dive back into the darkness. I will probably do an impression of Darkest Dungeon 2 after I pick it up and put in some hours.

    A sequel I have no qualms picking up tho is 'Slay the Spire 2'. After revolutionizing the deck builder roguelike genre in a way that every other game similar to it since then are called Slay the Spire-likes. The team at Mega Crit have taken their time but I feel it'll be worth the wait. Speaking of waiting, we are going to have to wait till 2025 for this one but the fact that they are making a sequel is reason to celebrate. 'Slay the Spire' was one of the first games that really got me into not only the roguelike genre but the deck-building sub-genre (which happens to be my favorite sub-genre). No gameplay but it is early days but we can already see some familiar faces and some new ones (the sassy skeleton) as well. It will not be here for awhile but I am definitely putting it on my radar and I think I might bite the bullet and just buy the original again but this time for my Steam Deck. I've been seriously thinking of doing it every time its on sale and now it just feels right especially since I barely get on my PS4 (which has my original copy) anymore.

    Speaking of Dead Cells, of course you know I am super pumped for the 'Risk of Rain 2' expansion 'Seekers of the Storm'. However to give us a peek into what they have cooking, they are dropping a free update called the 'Devotion update'. This update comes with a Prisoner/ Dead Cells skin for Mercenary (yay), a brand new stage (yay!) and more artifacts (depending on what they do... yay?) and to top it off its coming for all platforms not just PC first which I know the console army is happy about. On one hand this is great news because more Risk of Rain 2 content is always good but this will be the first time RoR2 updates will be completely handled by Gearbox's team and not Hopoo whom has passed the reigns onto them. Sure the Gearbox team helped out a lot with the 'Survivors of the Void' expansion but this is the first time they are doing it all on their own so it'll be interesting if we keep the RoR flavor or if it'll feel different. I optimistically hope for the former. There is no date for this one but I have a feeling it'll be soon so I think its time to jump back into RoR 2 when it drops.

    So those are the big ones, however some other games did catch my eye like Kill Knight, Dino Lords and Hyper Light Breaker. All in all, the Initiative really did what it was supposed to do, let us know some big indies were coming and got us all hyped. Stay turned to this space because I know a lot of these games will get the focus once they drop.

* This blog previous mentioned The Rogue Prince of Persia but due to Ubisoft anti-consumer practices, I will no longer talk about nor purchase it. I have not played any Prince of Persia games before and it looks like I never will especially if they stay under Ubisoft.

AV