I think I have put myself into an increasingly difficult position with Red Hook Studio's indie turn based Lovecraftian game, Darkest Dungeon Ancestral Edition on the Nintendo Switch. This difficult position has lead me to the conclusion that I may have to scrap the 55 hours I put into the game because I accidentally made the game a lot more difficult than it had been.
When I started Darkest Dungeon, I decided to play on the easiest difficulty setting, Radiant, partly because the game suggested this setting for people unfamiliar with the game and all of its madness inducing mechanics, and because I did not feel like punishing myself with a game that I had spent some money on and felt that I would actually like without beating myself over the head with tentacled madness. I did install the Musketeer and Shieldbreaker DLC, which only adds additional classes to use, but left The Color of Madness and The Crimson Court expansions uninstalled as I wanted to at least start and enjoy what the base game had to offer. Yes, I realize that the two DLC character packs means that I did not start with the base game as just described by me, but that was the way I wanted to play. So there.
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| This encounter happened right before reaching the final room, which would allow me to complete this particular quest. |
Jump to 55 hours in, I had maxed out each of the locations to 7 (for whatever that means), although I had yet to actually attempt the mansion because I felt/wanted to kill off all of the bosses before heading in. At this point in the game, I still had three bosses left, the Siren, the Witch, and the Prophet, and constantly attempting random dungeons in the hopes of picking up more money and gear before mansion delving started to get a little stale. When I read the descriptions of each of the remaining DLC, I had hopes that ended up being significantly different than what they turned out to be. For The Color of Madness, it ". . .opens the Farmstead region which has become the site of a fallen comet," and The Crimson Court has ". . .the addition of a new storyline and dungeon, new hero class, new monsters, new bosses. . ."
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| These little mosquitoes are quick and like to attack from the back, making them harder to reach. |
What I thought I was getting myself into was new areas to send the various mercenaries I had grown attached to (even those who had died in the service of the Descendent), and for the most part, The Color of Madness was what I was hoping for but ended up being more of a enemy rush mode that had you beat as many enemies as you could. The Crimson Court was the estranged expansion. Here, the dungeon was only accessible at certain times, but the enemies from that area would occasionally crop up in other dungeons.
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| Curses!! |
The problem with this, is that The Crimson Court also introduces a new mechanic, "The Crimson Curse" that affects characters until they are cured as well as the potential for spreading the curse to other characters. And these enemies that help spread the curse are, or at least seem more powerful than the standard enemies that one who has played the game for 55 hours has grown to love and hate. Oh, and there are some miniboss-type creatures from The Color of Madness DLC that also begin to populate the standard dungeons, and like the name of the DLC implies, they do a lot of stress based attacks.
So now that I am 60 hours and 105 in-game weeks in, feeling like I had given both DLCs a fair shake (and have only been able to access The Crimson Court area twice), I feel like my game is now tainted in a way that I was not expecting or wanting. Had I finished the main campaign, I would definitely be more interested in attempting The Crimson Court, but when I am making a run to kill one of the three remaining bosses, and I am assailed by monsters that curse my party and/or draw them further into madness, it makes dungeon delving expensive on the gold carrying pouches as well as the sanity of the characters; and me too.
I would be surprised if I never revisited Darkest Dungeon as I love Wayne June, the actor who voices your ancestor and frequent commentator during the game, I love the story, I love the various mechanics involving health and sanity. But I definitely feel that I have bitten off more than I could chew with adding two DLCs before I was ready. I will return to the Darkest Dungeon, but I might need a few months respite at the tavern, refusing to leave for yet another week. And I am definitely note deleting my current save file.
I will return to my ancestral home, opulent and imperial. Even if it is a festering abomination.
~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
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