Darkest Dungeon II (Zero Punctuation)

[@theescapist]

This week on Zero Punctuation, Yahtzee reviewed The Lord of the Rings: Gollum. www.escapistmagazine.com/the-lord-of-the-rings-gollum-zero-punctuation/ Watch it early on KZbin via Patreon or KZbin Memberships and support the channel directly for $2/month!

[@mattwoodard2535]

Ah, this is a review of Darkest Dungeon 2 that was posted awhile ago. sm

[@duyvuongquang5264]

Captions are broken again

[@kailomonkey]

Are you seriously going to do Deathtrap Dungeon? Cos little-gamebook-fan me loved it.

[@oncinaust5178]

You have my permission to skip Zelda. In fact I would prefer it if you didn’t. I hate Zelda games and I would rather you not be demonetized by Nintendo.

[@justinpedersen9174]

How many copies sold before you'll hire someone to pimp the pig?

[@LordOfNothingreally]

You might think that Yahtzee's comment about kitting your coach out with a pancake maker was some silly, off-the-cuff gag item but, no, that's actually an item in the game

[@TheHalogen131]

And it's a really good one! Very useful.

[@Potatezone]

Everyone loves flapjacks.

[@MaxAngor]

@@Potatezone You beat me to it.

[@Ragetiger1]

@@Potatezone Except these characters wanted WAFFLES.

[@jonathanbaird]

@@DMBlade4 I agree, pancakes are very spooky.

[@mythicchimera]

dude I find it hilarious that outfitting your carriage with a pancake dispenser is something you can actually do

[@matthewkelly1263]

“Everybody likes flapjacks”- descriptive text of the pancake dispenser

[@craniifer]

Though the real gains tend to be felt in the whisky still.

[@bobhill9845]

EERM EPIC REDDIT MOMENT MY GUY

[@Yanley]

Best part: them pancakes are great to buff your characters!

[@Fidion]

sounds autistic

[@prointernetuser]

that feeling of not wanting to play because you're paralyzed by fear that you are not do something right is so relateable it hurts. Got 40 hrs in the og and it's still one of my favorite games ever, but I still refused to go into the hardest difficulty cuz i was afraid I wasn't playing optimally and ill get some of my best characters killed. In other games, Id save scum but theres none here and I hate recovering from failure.

[@Konfide4043]

Every run is a chance to learn and that's what I personally enjoy about games like this

[@cibo889]

I have the same feeling playing fear and hunger. That game is even more cruel than DD, I constantly feel like I am making the wrong decision and often have to pause the game for 5 minutes to consider my options or second guess what I've already done.

[@2782Jack]

I never managed to get a team good enough to beat the final dungeon even after maxing them out. I can't help but feel the game intends for you to min-max the best possible team combination to win and I was enjoying the role play side of things more than the number crunching side of things.

[@wisesquirrel4986]

​@@Konfide4043 I have not played the game, so forgive my audacity. Now judging from the original comment, it sounds like this particular game could benefit from tightening its iteration loops (BS term, my vocabulary is embarrassing). It's easier to make mistakes when you can recover from them sooner and have less decision-less repetition.

[@verdiss7487]

FWIW, you can absolutely 100% savescum DD1. The save files are on your computer, just back them up before every dungeon and restore them when something inevitably goes horribly wrong.

[@adp3376]

"Yeah, I'm doing Zelda next week." - Yahtzee a week after doing Zelda

[@matthewmuir8884]

I almost had to double-check to make sure that the Zelda review was indeed already done last week.

[@lightlati7496]

​@Matthew Muir i did in fact double check cuz I was concerned I Mandela effected watching it 😂

[@AdamCooperman]

Yeah what's up with that? I feel like yahtzee has a lot of creative control given that he's like 90% of the draw at least of escapist...

[@oliverdavis4642]

@@AdamCooperman guess they got a time limited offer for that gacha game ad they ran before the zelda video

[@gustavosilveira691]

I had to go back and check i didn’t just hallucinate an entire episode of Zero Punctuation last week

[@hanniballahr94]

I can't imagine playing Arkham Horror with someone who doesn't read out the flavor text. That's the whole point of it.

[@Sh4ggyd00]

Yeah I think that calls for them being sacrificed to the specific elder one.

[@ChristophBrinkmann]

The cards get really samey real quick

[@sevanpasch8392]

@@ChristophBrinkmann Depends on the edition I think. Second edition, yes, but the Third takes inspiration from the AH card game so each scenario has a lot of specific events to it and you only get repeats if you play the same scenario twice.

[@dmitriyrasskazov8858]

Thats the nature of playing in boring ameritrash with theme you like. You never know how many decades pass before you manage to find another human being to play with, so anybody will do.

[@NoConsequenc3]

@@ChristophBrinkmann improvise then. If you're bored, you're boring.

[@spontanioussponge]

Every time Yahtzee brings up the Arkham Horror story it feels like I live in the bizarro world because that's every experience I've had with the game

[@vonriel1822]

The biggest problem I have with the game is that it still feels like there's no good reason to keep pushing on in the face of partial failure, something I noticed and commented on early on in the beta. If you lose a hero, you've lost an integral part of the comp you've built, and there's probably no replacing them. Better to just nuke the run and start over than try for a whole 4 extra candles, especially if you lose before the final cultist fight of a map, because you're probably not limping your way to the next inn with only 3 characters when those cultists mean so much business. And even if you do, the fourth you might pick up probably doesn't even fit the roster you have, so the majority of the time it's still going to be a loss for little-to-no gain. Meanwhile, in the first game, pushing on meant the promise of real measurable rewards - maybe I can get enough money to finally cure that one Bounty Hunter who saved my ass a dozen times of his crippling kleptomania, or maybe I can finally put that new wing in the sanitarium and buy some fresh new manacles for the operating room. And in most other roguelikes, if they have partial fail states then they'll have something similar. But in this, the cost/benefit ratio is too skewed, the encounters too brutal, to the point that the right call 90% of the time is to just give up once someone dies and start over, with the last 10% being to give up once you get to the inn because the person who died happened at one of those damnable cultist fights at the end of a route. There's just no light at the end of the tunnel once a run starts going sideways, because the cockup cascade potential of DD2 makes Hitman look full of hens.

[@xyrak2719]

When I first saw the game, I thought this very strongly as well. But after playing, I've been able to push through to the next inn and replacement character surprisingly often. I find it fun to try and fit a new random character into the party, but I can see how to some that would be frustrating.

[@Mjester12]

I had the impression that the enemy amount scaled back and the composition got easier if you lost a character? I recall encountering a lot of trios when I lost a character. And hey, a couple of minutes just before posting this I've beaten a mountain boss after losing half of my original composition. I was taking on the Seething Sigh, I was planning to go against it with Occultist, Jester, Leper and Hellion, Halfway through the run my Occultist died, instead of giving me a healer the game gave me a Highwayman, I thought: YOLO, we'll see. Didn't really work out without a dedicated healer so the Highwayman and the Hellion both died and as a replacement I got a Vestal and a Flagellant. And, yes, they did it, they did it better than when my planned composition reached the afromentioned boss, also because this time I double-checked if I had the right, trinkets, items and abilities to take on the boss. :/

[@andrewboteler7522]

This is why i gave up after buying day 1. The journey is gone....and youre left doing a series of runs. I couldnt ever get that feeling towards my favorite characters amidst an army of expendables....and you got to actually build units and keep them. Its gorgeous, but the metagame is laaaaaame/nonexistent. I loved being able to revisit my favorites, and begrudgingly bring new untested recruits along. Dd2 is all new recruits every time.

[@PedricCuf]

I just finished a run where I had unlocked the trinket which adds +100% HP and DMG for each missing hero. I thought it would be useless, but I held onto it. Then the freaking Dagon boss killed 3 of my party out of nowhere, leaving Dismas all by himself. I pressed on, soloed the Ingress with him, and recruited an entirely new team! Then they all died and I started over.

[@henryjones3232]

In the 1.0 release, they changed it so that limping to the next inn when you lose a character gives more candles as a sort of consolation prize for dealing with the rest of the region (in addition to the fact that ending runs at inns gives more candles in general). Also, I hate to say it, but early cultist bosses are absolutely achievable while down a character, and it may well be a skill issue on your end.

[@stevenneiman1554]

One thing I kind of liked about Cultist Simulator is that while it does do the confusing menus thing, it commits to the bit. For the most part the jank fits with the lore, to the point that knowing the lore makes it feel slightly approachable. Which is important, because the writing is the game's strongest element and that gives you more reason to care.

[@RumpusImperator]

Yup. It's in the documentation that tinkering around to figure out how stuff works is part of the INTENDED experience for CS.

[@tanker00v25]

Finally someone says it

[@stevenneiman1554]

@@tanker00v25 I wasn't aware that any part of my post was anything but generally agreed upon by those familiar

[@crysanthiumvega]

i know, i just wish the game was fun and not 80% fucking timewasting

[@NobodyEvenReadsNames]

On the other hand, I never felt that the DD2 menus were confusing. I wonder if Yahtz missed the memo that you can view a legend of what each symbol means at any time.

[@ng_canadian]

That opening sentence is going to be really odd to the general viewers when this video goes public

[@Jayyemi]

Am general viewer, can confirm it is odd

[@alldayagain]

@@Jayyemi I'm guessing that this was made last week, but with the hype of the game, they published the Zelda review early

[@pablozaid6078]

It was actually made 2 weeks ago. For some reason there's often a one week delay between when episodes appear in their awful website and when they're uploaded onto youtube. Last week the zelda review was uploaded directly though, so instead of drakest dungeon we got that

[@fugitiveunknown7806]

It's weird. I really loved DD1 to the point where I got 2 in early access, but it never quite stuck with me. I think one of the reasons was my ability to create my own party with multiples of the same class. My personal favorites were 3 houndmasters and the abomination (for the ultimate goodest boy party) and the two arbalests and two leper party (were the entire party always goes last but hits like a truck at the start of an Isekai). Incidentally: Playing Arkham horror without reading the texts *shudder*

[@Rehteal]

Black Reliquary is still in development, but is in the home stretch if you're looking for more DD1.

[@michimatsch5862]

For me it was honestly the whole dungeon diving experience. I never liked Dungeon Crawlers before I played Darkest Dungeon. But that game sold me on it. Do I really need that many torches? Maybe a few bandages for opening curios? And what about some shovels? And then once I am inside it becomes: Do I really wanna use those bandages just for some minor gains. What if I need them later. I dunno, it just really worked for me. And then DD2 removed all of the dungeon diving.

[@Bakkland]

@@michimatsch5862 press and hold right to explore dungeon.

[@matthewmuir8884]

0:24 _"Yeah, I'm reviewing Zelda next week"_ *Me: double-checks to make sure that the Zelda review already happened last week and that I'm not going crazy.*

[@Salabar_]

Stupid gacha games messing with the time-space continuum.

[@Dr.Death8520]

Mentioned elsewhere, but tl;dr scheduling issue with sponsored vid got these two swapped. Ironically the one directly referencing an order of videos

[@matthewmuir8884]

@@Dr.Death8520 Yeah, I know; I found out about that after posting the comment.

[@TheNetherlandDwarf]

3:30 this is why i really liked their little info card you could bring up with ctrl, i really wish more games would do this.

[@OBasedBeats]

Yeah, but they really had some weird little design oversights (choices?). Like not being able to see hp and info while animations play. or being able to see how much torch you have or change party order when on the event menu of the current location. There are a lot of qol improvements to make here, but yeah these are only small things.

[@codesymphony]

yeah except that card doesn't show the icons you're looking for half of the time

[@BurnTheThreshold]

@@codesymphony There is an easily accessible token glossary that displays literally every token in the game, and you can pull it up at any time.

[@bas24live]

I agree with the last bit, having the characters reset each time really takes away that sense of progression and party building, it seems to arbitrarily make the game harder too since, you can't build a team that gets better over time while also having to manage any issues they incurr from a run. The feels odly more streamlined but less polished than the first.

[@GuidingOlive]

"can't build a team that gets better over time while also having to manage any issues they incur from a run." Well. I mean. Yes you can. Sort of. Basically so long as you beat every run those characters (that lived) come back for the next chapter. So you can go on making a team that runs through all 5 chapters. There's even an achievement for going through all chapters using the exact same team. They keep their quirks (and gain a negative quirk if they lack any) and you get to swap their path if you want. But yeah, as soon as any of them go down the next run will be with a "new" jester/PD/etc. or if you swap teams between runs they disappear.

[@Canadian_Princess]

So this is objectively untrue. You lock in characters by beating the act bosses and giving them memories.

[@AstraKiseki]

Or invest in the memories thing, but even then, it's... ugh.

[@t.estable3856]

​@@Canadian_Princess Yeah, I thought it was weird that Yahtzee didn't mention that mechanic. Methinks he miiiiiight not have beaten the first boss, given that that was the only one he mentioned in passing.

[@presquelt]

@@Canadian_Princess That's really not the same thing as what OP said. At all.

[@nathanhoffmann1747]

DD1 really clicked for me when I realized it is NOT unforgiving. In fact, it is literally impossible to lose (unless you're playing on Stygian mode), so it is infinitely forgiving. Even if you get a full party wipe of your best adventurers, you can just train up new ones. I think of it like a sports management game; yeah it sucks when your star player gets a career-ending injury, but the team will live on.

[@varsoonhks3211]

It might not be possible to lose but having to grind constantly because the game thinks difficulty is having to kneecap, restrict, and force its player through the same thing over and over isn't exactly fun, either. You can't lose most games. There's no losing in Ninja Gaiden--you can just start the stage over. Dark Souls? You just got back to the last bonfire. Being unforgiving doesn't just mean having an absolute failure state.

[@leadpaintchips9461]

Realizing that the people are more disposable then the equipment you give them is what flipped the game to extremely enjoyable to me.

[@garr_inc]

@@leadpaintchips9461 And made you into something closer resembling your ancestor...

[@leadpaintchips9461]

@@garr_inc Ayup, which was the whole point of the game. The people in DD 1 _are_ expendable, much more so then Xcom or any of the other games that have that mechanic.

[@garr_inc]

@@leadpaintchips9461 That also reveals your biases in regards to the operation. You can treat your people well, and while it is less optimal money-wise, it leads to overall stronger characters down the line. But you can also treat the bottom like chumps, and this has potentially more merit. Just depends on what you are willing to do...

[@edfreak9001]

technically you can have permanent quirks that stick around, but only on characters who survive all the way through the battle with a run's final boss. You can then give them a small bonus item called a "memory" and use them again on a new run, but the moment they're dead you're back to a default randomized version.

[@4444Ferris]

The best part is, in the game there IS a pancake dispenser

[@ignorethis214]

I honestly held off on buying more stagecoach items for a while, since I liked getting the flapjack maker every run.

[@kamilslup7743]

Tbh the whiskey machine is better once you unlock apples & cheese

[@sebassdln]

I've watched you for over 10 years! First comment (: In DD2! The characters that actually beat a run will "survive" and maintain their traits for the next run, and there is an additional screen you unlock that even allows you to outfit them with "memories" that act as permanent buffs that will persist until that character dies! Love your wit!

[@pastaguy7053]

I think Fear and Hunger would be more up Yatzhee’s depressing and existential alley.

[@jordanwilliams2031]

I've been eagerly awaiting his discovery of funger

[@AfunnynameWEE]

he did not enjoy pathologic so who knows

[@petsan97]

I feel like he's either going to be down on it for being a bit too hard in on the "bash your head into a wall until progress or brain damage" aspect, or his wife is going to find him teetering on the edge of sanity a week later after his 5th death to the crowmauler and have to help him recover by reading his collection of Horacio Hornblower novels.

[@bazzfromthebackground3696]

I think it's a coin toss.

[@felixst-gelais6722]

sent by super eyepatch wolf?

[@babygorilla4233]

I think they actually addressed his 2 big issues. The death saving throws are now death armor tokens. Once you bring them to 0 hp one breaks off then if has one left you have to hit it twice once removes the last one then its killable. Not all enemies have it and its balanced well who has how much. For the agonizing process lf setting up your party exsactly right every time you can now save and load teams on the menu.

[@ultramario4309]

This best sums up a first playthrough of Darkest Dungeon 1 and 2 so perfectly it's hilarious, just how overwhelming everything is. Though the satisfaction of having a plan work makes the game so addicting and fun, despite how painful it can be.

[@ignorethis214]

I'm still relatively new to the game, but for anyone running into Yahtzee's issue with enemies/bosses not dying to death's door - their death's door resistance level goes down each time they are saved. Make sure you have at least one status effect on them (bleed/burn/blight) to get an extra knock every time they attack. Especially for the bosses that attack multiple times a turn, you'll be hitting them, say, 6 times a turn instead of 4. (Also some characters like highwayman have abilities that have a higher chance to finish off enemies on death's door.)

[@ignorethis214]

Adding to this - hit them with as many 'weaken' or 'blind' effects as possible that still deal damage - or use attacks that also give you a survival buff. Since the amount of damage doesn't matter anymore, don't just hit them with whatever, if you can knock down the Death's door resistance level AND make it easier to survive, like with Jester's 'fade to black' for blind, or his upgraded 'Razor Wit' to give yourself a dodge, you are dramatically increasing your odds. Finally, 'Riposte' also gives you more chances to keep hitting and killing them. Just keep knocking.

[@ZombieKitty321]

Why is that even a function anyways? The original deaths door mech was specifically for clutch situations where a party member could live, it has no place being on enemy's other than to make the game harder artificially.

[@bionicdragon5]

As someone who played Deathtrap Dungeon, all those references make me wish he'd do a retro review of it. Unless he already has, and I never saw it.

[@prointernetuser]

been watching him since 2011. He hasn't done it.

[@Kuplung57]

No he has not

[@RatelHBadger]

​@@prointernetuser I now feel old... Been watching since 2006 in the beginning...

[@danyawelly]

Well good news...I've discovered I have the innate ability to time travel because I've already seen "next week's" review of Tears of the Kingdom.

[@deadjuice1880]

I didn't know I was supposed to be a scholar recounting adventures. I thought in the original game, I was something between a gym coach and a cheerleader. "Okay scrubs, school funds only allocated me upgraded for... Abombiation, raise your hand next time before asking a question, but yes: the Vestial will not be here today, she is... busy. Yes, she's alive, she's just gambl-on a personal vacation... Yes Highwayman? The Leper is fine... he's fine. He's at the church. He's fine... We got a very nice new Hellion, the Hellion will do. You guys will like her. Yes Bounty Hunter? I know you miss Man At Arms, I do too. Hellon is here to help, not replace... I know, I know, we all miss Crusader too. Abomination, it's okay, we'll find another Crusader. Okay gang! Let's wrap up! We got the Plague Doctor, he'll... He CAN heal, I know why you think he can't, BUT trust me, he DOES HIS JOB."

[@NickAsNickName]

Having someone with an attack that ignores part of an enemy's death save chance tends to be helpful

[@kamilslup7743]

Bless highwayman because he got pretty much all of them. (From what i know only wicked slice and double tap bypass some deathblow resist without trinkets, both of those moves are used by the highwayman)

[@flaminggarbage8241]

​@@kamilslup7743double tap my beloved

[@kamilslup7743]

@@flaminggarbage8241 ah, i see you're a sharpshot path user, well i do both that and rogue, depends on the quirks

[@DrakeBarrow]

Adding in my two cents that I'd love to see Yahtzee review Fear & Hunger along with Termina. Even if he ends up taking a massive dump on them I'd still like to hear his thoughts.

[@hiimkyle1894]

My biggest gripes with the game were that the bosses are just too hard, runs take too long, and characters resetting after each run diminished the feeling of progress. I think it's a good game, but it could have been so so much more

[@NathanielSotero777]

Well once you beat a boss you can lock the hero using the candles plus a small bonus. Some strategies would involve going on easy to start training

[@tigercrush2253]

Yeah, as someone who loved the first game, this one really let me down. The lack of permanent progression really undid a lot of the appeal for me. I still enjoyed it right up until I got to the mountain, got wiped before I could understand the boss's gimmick and realized I'd need to spend several hours getting back to just to learn the pattern and tricks to then go back again to have a chance (which I did and then ended up dying due to a shitty dice roll, which pretty much ended my interest in the game...)

[@travislyonsgary]

​@@tigercrush2253Progression is in some ways very similar to be honest. Like your description there just reminds me of doing a super long zero torch run and getting wiped by unlucky status chances by a necromancer. I think the pivotal thing is you dont come back to the hamlet per mission anymore and its generally after a wipe.

[@fartsforeyes7651]

​@@tigercrush2253bruh having to sacrifice a whole party just to learn every bosses gimmick was one of the exact reasons why I hated the *first* game. I feel it's waaaaay *less* of a problem in 2

[@MisterAether]

@@fartsforeyes7651 On regular difficulty I never actually lost more than 1 at a time, barring the end. I wasn't really unbelievably lucky either, usually the opposite. I wouldn't say the game was easy on normal, but I would say that careful planning and preparation could offset a lot of bad luck and a well rounded party was usually able to adapt to a boss's bullshit the first time you fight them. I will say that The Hag stressed me way the fuck out though, along with damn near the entirety of the Courtyard. Fuckin' vampire bugs.

[@averyrathbun3859]

I love your oddly specific Arkham Horror rant lmao I have that same experience constantly

[@StyryderX]

FYI, as of September 2023 they changed the Death's Door mechanic for the enemies; now it's token based rather than RNG.

[@Agent_Deko_]

Can’t believe he loves the new Zelda so much that he’ll review it twice

[@Wintercat1]

Yahtzee's thoughts on DD2 pretty much mirror my own. If his jokes and end-cards are anything to go by, he also enjoyed the relationship system and the additional role-playing it sparks. I too started shipping my favorite characters and inventing stories for their dynamic relationships. It definitely exacerbated my main criticism of the game, which was how un-nuanced permanent progression is now. The hamlet and heroes of DD1 were very personalized and lent themselves to telling a developing story. In DD2, the Altar and Memories systems definitely don't achieve the same thing. The relationships seemed like a great opportunity, but they ended up being very random and frustrating for me.

[@weebcraft6829]

Honestly, i don't vibe with DD2 at all, despite being a big fan of 1. What I liked about 1 is that its barely a rougelite. If you play well, you're never pushed back or reset like other roguelites even after a death, even on harder difficulties. You retreat, lose a guy, no big deal you'll train another one. Your town is ever expanding, your roster grows stronger, and you slowly chip away at the map dungeon by dungeon. Its more a city builder/RPG dungeon crawler than an actual roguelite. In DD2, its gone full roguelite. You have to lose everyone or beat the whole game, no in betweens.

[@nicklager1666]

I will say that listening to Wayne Junes narration in the game makes me interested in picking the game up on a sale. Im a bit burnt out on rogue games.

[@geroni211]

Heard this game's ancestor has weaker lines, which really bummed me out. Say what you will about DD1, the Ancestor went hard and gave a ton of personality to the game

[@GuidingOlive]

Yeah sadly they didn't give Junes a lot to work with. Honestly I'm waiting for someone to mod in DD1 lines into DD2 to give the Ancestor more personality. His narration for the story beats are great but the in-game lines are weaker than DD1 for sure.

[@RatchetSly]

@@geroni211 The Academic (the DD2 narrator) has a different personality than the Ancestor; very "push forward, you'll successfully face your failures with enough persistence" instead of the Ancestor's gleeful sadism the moment things go even slightly poorly.

[@RatchetSly]

@Weirdy Wonka The DD2 narrator and player character are respectively the Academic and the Scholar, in the same way in DD1 those roles were the Ancestor and the Heir. Spoiler for the DD2 midgame, but the Ancestor is in the story as a very separate dude from the Academic.

[@RatchetSly]

No worries! I think the game does need to make it more explicit that the Academic and Ancestor are different characters before that midgame reveal, because the voice difference between them is entirely subtlety in Wayne June's tone.

[@yhwh88]

death's door on enemies is the worst idea ever

[@jojojojojojojojojojojojo4181]

90% of enemies with deaths door have a death door value of 0 though

[@renatoafonsomaiacarneiro950]

Good review, just one thing...you CAN still maintain your heroes quirks and all, just give them memories on the end of each successful run, it makes them maintain every skill and quirks you got and there is even some achievements about it...

[@cheezemonkeyeater]

The drive-thru all devouring maw has the best french fries.

[@xxdoge105xx3]

I will say memories make your characters much more valuable, every time you defeat a mountain boss you get a memory and keep the hero with a buff and all their quirks, losing a memorized hero resets them back to whatever random person you find at the crossroads.

[@Wolfs0n]

Yeah, seems like this time around the team was more focused on their new 3D graphics and battle animations. While the overall mechanics and story have been pushed more to the side. Some heroes like the Crusader haven't returned either, which was depressing for me. If seeing the new graphics made me excited for anything, it was seeing how my favorite heroes did battle.

[@Medytacjusz]

I sense DLC on the horizon for these

[@OBasedBeats]

I think one should not forget how much they improved the rng imo. The token system does this very well despite looking like dumbed down mechanics. No chain dodging crit chaining swine god moments anymore (until now in my playthrough at least). And there are a lot of more viable options for strategies, not just sawblade, dot, crit or white weenie. I get your point, but the mechanics have improved massively imo. Except you just want to throw some dice. By all means, get hungerchecked to death.

[@poggers4392]

The token system >>>>>>>>> dd1 combat system by a mile The designs of the enemies are way better too

[@GoodEggGuy]

"Pushed to the side" Seriously? I'm pretty sure the team at Red Hook worked bloody hard to create a game that was significantly different and mechanically more polished than DD1 rather than just DD1 with prettier visuals. Please give them credit where it's due. Streamlined mechanics are not "mechanics pushed to the side". As for the characters, with the addition of the Runaway to replace the Crusader-type, does DD2 really have less characters than DD1 did at launch?

[@maverickrx8]

@@GoodEggGuy You're definitely not familiar with the history of DD2's development process and it shows.

[@ZeroNovember]

Thank you for mentioning Deathtrap Dungeon! It's one of those games that you'd want, but couldn't get at the time. And then forget all about. This really jogged my memory

[@strategystuff5080]

I will always say Random Input Good, Random Output Bad. Aka a game having a random start, random stats, ect ect: no problem. A game where you can do the same exact thing and get a different outcome: bad.

[@geffbob8960]

When he mentioned that he liked the idea of choices inevitably leading to the final big bad, I thought "wow it almost sounds like Yhatzee has a thing for those types of games, I wonder if he may have created one in the past that does exactly that???" Anyway, play The Consuming Shadow, it's pretty good

[@garethhughes7430]

Deathtrap Dungeon was a hardcore classic. I remember there were weapons you'd get in the early levels that you had to completely save for the final boss.

[@grfrjiglstan]

Delightful, a decisive deliberation detailing Darkest Dungeon Dos.

[@cruye9633]

a lot of the bosses (lair and mountain) feel like you're meant to wipe to them once or twice to learn their gimmick before you can actually win, and that ticked me off a little, so I decided looking it up on the wiki was morally permissible. Enjoy the game a lot though, Encore-Solo-Finale Jester my beloved

[@Denizu]

Interesting thing I have noticed. If your game has fundamental problems with say character detachment, add pancake dispensers and cute pets and somehow that will make it ok. Still, while a lukewarm review is probably more appreciated by red hook, I can't help but see it as a testament to the nature of DD2. It's not a terrible game like some are too eager to describe it as, but it doesn't feel exceptional either. DD1 felt like a big deal, it made some rumbles in the indie scene, it's a game that will be culturally remembered in the future. DD2 just kinda feels like just another game, one more to that endless pile. Not sure how much of that is the game's fault versus the indie industry though.

[@ihave2cows]

that is exactly WHY people are so critical of it though. They started with an experimental masterpiece, and moved to a cookie-cutter mid-tier game. Whenever you throw an old audience under the bus, you have to be prepared for backlash. Personally, dd2 pisses me off because I feel like its expecting me to devote too much of my time to make any progress, and I don't have tons of time sitting around anymore. I get 6-8 free hours a day if that, and there's other things I want to do and other games I want to play. There's nothing that will make me put down a game quicker than having a 2 hour run ended because I didn't look at a wiki in advance to find out how a boss gimmick works and hyper-specialize a team for it before setting out.

[@stormie5887]

If your a fan of lovecraftian games then I’d recommend giving Sunless Sea and Sunless Skies a review. There both just as difficult as Darkest Dungeon but are less combat oriented and have more of a focus on story and world building. Go give them a shot, I think you’d enjoy it.

[@RatchetSly]

Why not have a nice, relaxing visit at the resort town of Worlebury-juxta-Mare? Don't pay any attention to the things in the fog.

[@artstsym]

I recommend Skies over Sea because after 10 hours, most people will rightly ask "what am I doing here?" for the latter, whereas the former has a somewhat clear progression, even if it's a cruel one.

[@NeoCreo1]

@@artstsym Eh, I wouldn’t necessarily say that Skies invalidates Sea. It has a different enough vibe and gameplay loop that that it has its own niche

[@artstsym]

@@NeoCreo1 Sure, as narrative experiences go, neither is going to replace the other, but you really need to be dedicated to the setting to put up with Sea's preposterous levels of bullshit.

[@smergthedargon8974]

You can also bang a squidman, which is very important.

[@JohnSmith-bn5mi]

I will always remember the one and only time I played Arkham Horror. Because all year in college, I was told it was this intense hardcore board game where most people die. And then when we go to play it, one of my friends got the Nun. Proceeded to get a shotgun and a motorcycle and a dog. And he/she proceeded to just MOW through all the demons and portals. Just the concept of a motorcycle riding, shotgun wielding, chihuahua purse nun killing demons sounds fun to me. The game also took about 7 hours and despite having fun, no one has time for that except after finals in college.

[@stateberg7208]

2:19 but it makes sense on a table top i’ve seen battle reports where one person is dominating and then once they roll, and then that same person is the one that loses

[@su_shadow9326]

He did not hate it, thats "must buy" in Yahtzee speak.

[@hidood5th]

I actually found myself getting more attached to the characters this time around, mainly because they're actual distinct characters with backstories rather than one of the endless bodies to throw into the meat grinder in DD1. I also think the area and enemy design is much more inspired than before, feels like Darkest Dungeon has more of it's own identity rather than being a random mishmash of dark fantasy and lovecraft.

[@Prodigial]

All the characters already had small comics explaining their backstory. The Hero Shrines are literally a retelling of content that already existed.

[@murphystegall5145]

@@Prodigial Well technically it isn't a retelling as they've retconned a decent amount of stuff but yeah the characters already had personalities and backstories.

[@travislyonsgary]

Quirks do stay if you win and get memories but yeah they made relationships more ephemeral after everyone hated relationships being changed in fights

[@BleachFan2588]

There are mechanics for some of the mentioned issues (press ctrl to see most token meanings, keep memories if you win), a lot of it is indeed quite convoluted. It feels less like a reward when you keep your skills selected, and more like the game will punish you if you ever get unlucky or experiment. The UI is often a bit of a mess too - readability if you're not used to stuff is terrible, and still lacking once you've got 100 hours in it.

[@PedricCuf]

I hate how things sometimes happen and I have no idea why. Like, the fog in the Shroud. It took me a while to figure out that's just something that happens there. But sometimes someone will randomly lose a sanity from a non-crit attack that never caused sanity damage before, and I have no idea way. The game really obfuscates a lot, like what happens at each difficulty level increase. Exemplars were no problem before, but now suddenly on the fourth confession they've wiped me out twice, and I'm not certain what changed to make them so much harder.

[@aquamarinerose5405]

Also will say one major positive point about Darkest Dungeon 2. It feels like the right choice for making a Darkest Dungeon Sequel. Yes, they could've taken the original and added EVEN MORE to it like more quirks, areas, items, enemies, classes, etc. but then there's a point of whether we'd NEED that, or if we could just play the original again. DD2 serving as a more traditional roguelike, streamlining the core concept into shorter individual runs gives it a unique identity and a reason to play it over the original.

[@BeefyGreek]

Genuinely didn’t expect this after so long but I’m so glad he’s covered it!

[@Furahri]

2:25 Second wind, lmao

[@lazydroidproductions1087]

Huh, I wonder how you’d feel about Fear and Hunger, where instead of asking “are you sure you want to do that” at every action, the game instead tells you “you really don’t want to do that” at every option

[@DrakeBarrow]

And then you find out exactly WHY you don't want to do that, at every option.

[@screamingcactus1753]

Better memorize every enemy's attack patterns if you don't want to deal with coin flip instakills every other encounter

[@OddlySpecificGaming]

I mean a herb is “any plant with leaves, seeds, or flowers used for flavouring, food, medicine, or perfume” so as long as you’re eating it it’s a herb

[@Krazymarmo]

Hoky shit i remember watching this dude YEARS ago... cant believe hes still going strong. Awesome find!!!

[@MoshHewson]

I had the exact same experience with DD1, and you saying that felt validating

[@thepeoplesXD]

I will say, that the party members DO keep their traits earned in a run if you get through it alive, thus carrying over to your next one. If they die, then they get reset.

[@Darasilverdragon]

actually you CAN get 'permanent' upgrades for characters that make you want to keep them- they're called 'memories', and you get one for each character that you get to survive a boss fight - meaning that if you beat the game with one, they can get five these are lost on death though, and that character is replaced with a new one of their class that has no memories and has to start from scratch on buffs

[@drakematsen4978]

As I suspected, the curse of only having a week to play; particularly only mentioning the Act I boss and not making a more general allusion to "a bike lock brain, some ovaries, giant eyeball and a guy in his chair" or whatever indicates that you may not have even beaten Act I. Your heroes do actually become more personalized starting when you win a run with them, lasting until they die. Also, not much to say about big boss man refusing to die for 2 turns while you were presumably wailing on it other than "thems the rng breaks, mate." and that that particular happening is rather rare.

[@ashisunblade]

Don't enemies get reduced deathblow resistance each time they get hit too? So while you can get unlucky, it'll only buy them so much time in the end.

[@drakematsen4978]

@@ashisunblade They do. So do heroes if memory serves; -5 dbr per hit. Exemplar, last I fought him has 75 dbr. That's a maximum of 15 deathblow checks before guarentee.

[@ashisunblade]

@@drakematsen4978 You can also use certain abilities like Wicked Slice to bypass a lot of DBR iirc. Often a good idea to bring at least one such ability!

[@drakematsen4978]

@@ashisunblade there are 4, split across 3 heroes. Dismas does have Wicked Slice, but Double Tap is the far better button of his with that stat. Audrey also has Glint in the Dark, and there's a fourth, Bounty Hunter's Finish Him.

[@Klick404]

2:25 Foreshadowing!

[@forethoughtx2846]

This is one of the best reviews. How the character relationships don’t carry over to the next run was a horrible design choice. Also, Lose a hero ? Well .. Fuck off with what’s his name let’s just hire a clone at the next inn and run this loop again.

[@IAmTheBugInsideYou]

DD1 was a very good game to get on sale, because honestly a very low percentage of plsyers that bought or have the game ever end up beating it. I think I checked some numbers for a platform or two & it was a less than 10% final horror clear ratio. Couple that with the unforgiving difficulty, but still able progression, some of it might suck but you can still make it through. I don't see that in DD2, the introspection for each character's stories & background is good, but the death's door being accessible to enemies & resets of progression in each run, coupled with that same level of difficulty just makes it sound worse than before. The animation changes & combat look very nice & i love that, but i dont see myself ever buying this game the way i did the first just because of how frustrating it inherently is losing because a boss won the RNG lottery and didn't want to eat a deathblow.

[@FatWalterWhite69]

Bosses have like pretty negligible death blow resist, it’s non existent in acts 1,3,5, and 4, and it’s low in 2. The lair bosses have like 25-50 and it depletes 10 a hit so it’s dead in no time. Only exception is death mini boss which has 75 and depleted slower, but it has lower hp so it’s balanced

[@ts25679]

But when is the next DEDA audio book out?

[@MrGoblin1000]

An other thing I preferred in DD1 is that the death of a team wasn't that big of a deal. Once you really got going you could have three of every hero, so even if you lost a whole team you could just send out another, and another, and another, which just added to the bleakness to the setting. None of these characters matter, they are just interchangeable cogs in the machine. It was like being a ruthless ceo who saw their employees as nothing but tools.

[@AfunnynameWEE]

Isn't this reinforced in the sequel? I mean, sending another team and then another and then another only for most of them to die is now the central mechanic. (For better or for worse)

[@theresnothinghere1745]

@@AfunnynameWEE I think his point is that its a bigger deal to the player because that's a run reset. While a death in DD1 could occur but you still continue your progress because it wasn't that big a deal. I knew of people that used that to the extreme in DD1 were you could sent a newly recruite team with minimal gear into a dungeon to get money with a very high death rate. The game incentivized it in a way and really highited how little a life was worth because the player sending out groups with the intention of them mostly dying was a good approach where their wellbeing was of little corncern as you'd probably just dismiss any survivors of the suicide run. While in DD2 you instead play hoping for the survival and sucess of the team.

[@AfunnynameWEE]

@@theresnothinghere1745 That makes sense. I just remembered party wipes being absolute run killers in stygian difficulties in dd1. And i also have intentionally sacrificed a bunch of runs in dd2 for the sake of getting achievements. But i guess those are extreme cases and IN GENERAL losing a single mission in dd1 WAS just losing 15 minutes and not three hours, yeah.

[@Alloveck]

4:03 Yeah, this is pretty much the core of why I can never fully love any roguelike for very long: The inevitable repetition that starting a game over each run requires. Doing the same upfront setup, getting the same skills etc again, and equipping them again, and so on, over and over, doesn't take too long to start grating at me. Combine the repetitive aspects being a little more grating each time, AND there being less and less new discoveries with each run to look forward to, and it's only a matter of time before the repetition irritation exceeds the new content interest and the fun is over. I think that to fully appreciate the genre long term, it'd need to come with an advanced learning AI that notes those rote intro choices and chores and auto-applies them for me once a solid database has been built up, which hopefully would be adequately established by the time I'm officially tired of doing that stuff. Then simulated me could take care of the boring repetitive early game stuff, allowing real me to jump straight into actually playing the game.

[@PrecludeLP]

Pressing Ctrl brings up a legend for the combat icons.

[@gregorys9629]

Ooh nice to see the final boss from Splatterhouse used in this vid.

[@GKSchattenjaeger]

I loved the AH reference since I am a big fan of the board game.

[@Dunny261]

I appreciate the Ivy scattergories reference from Slightly Something Else

[@hannahdawg6829]

The death defiance in the first game was already perfect, mostly because a lot of the enemies hit harder than you and every bit of damage your party took was one step closer to disaster. Death's Door allowed you to try to scrape yourself out of a colossal mess and get out alive. Now with the enemies who hit even harder than the first game also having Death's Door just makes it so there's only really two ways to play: either cheese the heck out of an exploitable system or brute force your way through the combat, which doesn't feel like DD anymore, as the point of the first game was your party working together to help each other out in their own unique way.

[@broomhatter3877]

Darkest Dungeon 2 took one step forwards and two steps back with its game design.

[@LunetoHa]

Lets be honest: He really pulled his punches with this video! Glad he enjoyed the game (in his own way)

[@thegamesninja3119]

HP in Lovecraft's name stands for Hit Points

[@Friday_WasTaken]

the creator of DD did a Q and A at my school the other day and i just fond it amusing that they said the goal and arc of DD1 is that as you dive deeper into the dungeon it becomes clear that nothing you do matters and doom is inevitable :D and for the second one they wanted it to feel more lie there is an end goal that is hard to reach but you can do it, like being 100s of meters underwater and swimming up and feeling like you should have made the surface by now but haven't yet. just thought that was a fun way to approach the design :)

[@karotts]

I'm still going to buy it eventually, but I am definitely lowering my expectations thanks to this review. Thank you. I was about to be disillusioned.

[@nathand265]

I love the dig at Jesse when he didn't think Ivy was an herb (which it is).

[@matthewwhiteside4619]

"an"

[@nathand265]

@@matthewwhiteside4619 sorry, I'm an American. H's are vowels sometimes 🤷.

[@steampaul3442]

sorry, the intro kinda confused me. didn't yahtzee review Zelda TOTK last week?

[@matthewmuir8884]

I'm guessing the reviews were released out-of-order, as there are a few comments from two weeks ago.

[@steampaul3442]

@@matthewmuir8884 ooooooooooooooh. that makes sense then

[@cyruslupercal9493]

2:13 Nah, that is a valid criticism. Makes me not want to play the game just because of that.

[@P2-D2]

I was genuinely belly laughing, Yahtzee!! Loved this one!

[@alexp6712]

I got really into DD for a while, then rage quit for a while, and was never able to get into it again. I think it’s the combination of really unforgiving gameplay with the high number of random events. Whereas in Dark Souls, I can go in again trying harder to look out for a certain attack, here I go in hoping the boss doesn’t get too many lucky rolls in a row.

[@Andaril2]

There are skills that give % to skip death door or you can tripple dot them for almost auto death next turn.

[@boomknight1015]

I love one, Dislike 2. 2 is a well made game but it doesn't feel like my choices mattered at mush because risking putting an under leveled party together for a run, hell even risking a good char I cared about with a party of noobs that I care more about losing the items they have then losing them. You get attached as he said and makes the choices have impact even though most of it is sweeping the floor level of interaction often times.

[@QuintBlitz]

0:37 "And there's nothing I like more than getting my head between a great pair of some DDs" He's just like me He's just like me fr!

[@williamclapham9647]

Shout out deathtrap dungeon! That’s a blast from the past. Don’t think I got much further than the carnival area when I was a young boy, that was ball bustingly hard!

[@85jacob85]

You ever heard of Vintage story? Looks a lot like Minecraft, but very stylish and beautiful. There are clear and great objectives and exploration is really cool with nice things to discover.

[@freelandguy121]

I remember Yahtzee mentioning that bit about Arkham Horror in LDO, now I'm sad again.

[@serenity8839]

How is it darker then the last dungeon? Is there darker ones out there for a third darkest dungeon?

[@fluorideinthechat7606]

SPOILERS The Darkest Dungeon was within you all along, dear viewer!

[@serenity8839]

@@fluorideinthechat7606 Ow fuck knew i needed to do some emotional deep cleaning. Ill get on that.

[@yaroslavyevsieiev5890]

I got enough attachment to the characters. If they live throw everything u can put a memory about it in their head and save almost everything about them. If they die, thet die

[@lipeckih]

On top of the death saving throw for every single enemy you encounter, they also dialed down the effectiveness of dots and just damange output in general. Where used to be a series of snappy encounters, where you won or lost decisively, there are now overtuned slogfests around every corner, making every fight a boss fight. The second game feels like several steps backwards across the board when compared to its predecessor. Would not recommend.

[@sameilers2394]

Just want to say Existentially Challenged and Differently Morpheus are great books - thanks Yahtz!

[@st.haborym]

Now I want a Yahtzee DD1 video

[@maxwellware6855]

Existentially Challenged is fantastic; go read it and the first book too

[@mafiacat88]

The one thing I'm wondering; does it still punish you with grinding when you fail? I loved the original, but the one thing I *hated* was when one of my high-level characters died because I fucked up in some way, and then I'd have to do a bunch of lame easy runs to get the new guy up to par.

[@AfunnynameWEE]

Yes and no. In this one you can beat the final boss with freshmen without much of a problem, there isn't a lot of difference between "high level" heroes and "low level" ones, so you don't NEED to grind. BUT if you DO lose a maxed out character and you want to replace them, that IS gonna be a few hours and five entire runs.

[@PanmasterAtArms]

You can't really "grind" in DD2, because every run is fresh, the only grind you have is your usual venture towards the Mountain(Other than grinding Memories, which are the mechanic for keeping characters traits inbetween runs), and the Candle upgrades that are permanent. However, having a hero die in DD2 sucks, because you don't get to choose the new hero you get at the next inn. I lost my Man at Arms and he was replaced with a Highwayman, for example.

[@Subject_Keter]

I thought DD2 was going to be a 5 act journey and breaking past the Mountain Deathtrap would be the "Start" to your quest.

[@TheDevilsPrank]

I was really disappointed with this game. I actually play a lot of rogue lites (slay the spire, the last spell, monster train e.t.c), but the rogue lite elements in this game are mediocre at best. It's not very replayable. I'm glad yahtzee mentioned the bit about not having any attachment to the characters because of the reset (even though it's just one character per class!). I was attached to Dismas from DD1 a lot more then the ONLY highwayman in DD2, even though I used that class quite a bit with multiple highwaymen in the hamlet at any time. Also, the narrator's lines are weaker than the original. He still says cool things every now and then, but it's the difference between good and exceptional. It's also a simpler and easier game with less to do ( no hamlet, no roster management, no planning because events are randomized). It's just a lesser game.

[@Dpika1849]

Good or bad, I would like to see his thoughts on Fear and Hunger.