Return to The Darkest Dungeon

2020 is proving to be a bit of a slow start for video games.  I've been dabbling with World of Horror and a bit more of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order but, until the Resident Evil 3 remake comes out at the beginning of April, there isn't a whole lot grabbing my interest as of late.  Because of that, I've gone back to a game I have not played in several years - Darkest Dungeon.

The last time I played this game was before either the Crimson Court or Color of Madness DLC had come out.  As I recall, I was discouraged by the difficult of the final (or "darkest," as it is confusingly named) dungeon.  Of course, now, there is a "radiant mode" which reduces how hard the game is overall.  I also went in and tweaked a bunch of the gameplay options to remove (or add) mechanics that I prefer to the default experience.  In addition to all that, I also installed a couple of dozen mods through the Steam workshop.  Many of them are cosmetic, but some revise the character classes or even introduce new ones.  As far as new classes go, I really like the Conquistador, Falconer, Lamia and Dragonslayer...but my favorite unofficial class has to be the Cataphract.  This new class is especially cool in that all but one of his abilities either moves him forward or back a number of spaces in the formation.  Some might argue this is a problem, but I really like the sense of mobility I get with him.  Even in the case of purely cosmetic mods though, I'm finding that they enhance the game quite a bit (...and no...I'm not talking about those mods that make all the characters look like they're from a Japanese anime...).

One of the things I never really liked about Darkest Dungeon was how each class felt more like an single individual character rather than...well...a collection of characters with similar skill sets.  Mechanics-wise, yes, it's possible to have two Crusaders who play very different to each other based on abilities and quirks, but visually they look pretty much the same (aside from the option to change their name and color pallet a little bit).  Thanks to all these re-skinning mods though, I can have four Crusaders who all look noticeably different (one that is the default, one that appears distinctly female, one with an especially grim suit of armor, and one with a Knights Hospitaller look).  Similarly, I now have male and female variants of the Arbalester as well as young and old version of the Occultist and Houndmaster.  I even have two versions of the Abomination - the default version, plus the "raven fiend" type.  In this way, it's easy for me to make characters who are distinctly different in appearance and abilities yet still fulfill a similar role.  From a roleplaying standpoint it has made the game a lot more interesting.

Aside from those mods, I also installed a few quality-of-life things which help reduce aspects of the game that tended to annoy me.  Increased (but not unlimited) stacking limits for every item is one such example.  Another is the ability to recruit much higher level characters from the stagecoach (thus reducing the mid-game grind).  Lastly, I have a mod that removes all the negative effects from trinkets.  Some might think gives an unfair advantage, but to me the game is plenty hard even with all the mods.  Oh...and the Shrieker is still around...don't even get me started on that damn bird...