How's it going guys, my name's Graeme and welcome
to 2 Left Thumbs. This is the 'Ultimate Buyer's Guide for Darkest Dungeon'. I know getting into
this game can feel a little bit inaccessible. I was scared to try it for years and now it's
one of my all-time favorites. So hopefully this video can tell you everything you've wanted to
know before spending your hard-earned dough. First of all, for people looking
to get into the game, really, what is it? Is it going to be something you're
going to enjoy? If you are going to buy it, should you buy only the base game,
maybe the legendary edition or specific DLCs? Or the Ancestral Edition
that comes with everything bundled together? What difficulty setting is appropriate for a
first time player? What should or shouldn't you spend your money on and if you've already
gone that far, how to get yourself started. So we can quickly start with - what is
Darkest Dungeon? Darkest Dungeon is a rogue-like turn-based RPG. You assemble
a team of four heroes and delve down into a dungeon. You explore along a
branching path making choices along the way and fighting for survival
anytime you encounter any enemies. There are many other considerations to
be made throughout each given dungeon. You have to keep your team well fed,
keep their sanity up and avoid disease. The battles themselves are deeply
strategic, as are the dungeons. Your in-the-moment decision making is going
to count for a lot, but a significant portion of this game happens outside of the dungeons -
managing your team and resources accordingly. This game is hard, it's stressful, there's
a lot of different ways you can permanently lose your favorite character or a powerful
item. The game is incredibly well made, the art and sound design are top tier. But
this game is not for the casual player. It will frustrate you, you probably
are going to wig out at some point. And if you're not looking for a challenge, then
you really aren't looking for Darkest Dungeon. The game has insane replayability, loads of
achievements and a very active modding community. So, if any of what I’ve outlined
sounds remotely interesting - yeah, give it a try. It's one of
my all-time favorite games. For any interested new players or anyone concerned
about the game being too hard or too reliant on RNG, please pay special attention to
the opening disclaimer from the game. Darkest Dungeon is about making
the most of a bad situation. Quests will fail or must be abandoned.
Heroes will die. And when they die, they stay dead. Progress autosaves
constantly, so actions are permanent. The game expects a lot out of you. How far
will you push your adventurers? How much are you willing to risk in your quest
to restore the Hamlet? What will you sacrifice to save the life of your favorite hero?
Thankfully, there are always fresh souls arriving on the stage coach, seeking both adventure
and fame in the shadow of the Darkest Dungeon. It may initially appear to simply be
warning you that the game is hard. As gamers, we are often bombarded with claims of
“the next Dark Souls” and “The hardest game you’ve ever played”, there is a desensitization
there. If everything is “the hardest”, then there are no relative measures anymore.
Try to set that line of thinking aside, and take the core message here to heart. You
should have a plan A, B and C for any dungeon. Sometimes, all the planning in the world still
won’t save you. Yes, luck is a factor. You’re going to have your party wiped, just as often as
you pull off a win with all 4 heroes at death’s door. The key to Darkest Dungeon is to capitalize
on those successes, take a step back when needed, and try not to put a fist through your screen
after an immense failure. This game is strategic, but don’t make the mistake of viewing it strictly
as a strategy game. That implies that you can craft a no-lose scenario. Instead, don’t take
decisions lightly, do what you can to mitigate losses, learn from mistakes and accept the fact
that things are probably still going to go poorly. So you're on board, you're up for a challenge...
Do you buy the Vanilla based game or the DLC? There should be some monetary considerations, like
discounts that come with buying the full packaged game including the DLC. And if the discount is
substantial enough, take advantage of that. What amazing thing this game offers is the ability
to quickly and easily toggle DLC on and off. So, if the price is right, buy the whole
thing. Still review this section of the video and judge for yourself which of the DLC
you actually want to turn on and play with. If you're coming into all of this blind and are
looking to test the waters, definitely start with just the base game. The DLCs add new mechanics and
challenges that will severely test your patience. It can be a blast for experienced players but may
feel unfair when you're still learning the game. It pretty much just becomes too much too quickly. And while this game is already punishing
you heavily, you don't need to make that any harder on yourself. Let's run
through each DLC in a bit more detail. The Shieldbreaker DLC is a safe bet. It
is simply a new hero with some new content connected directly to them. There's honestly no
real reason to not include this one right away. It's just whether or not you feel like
paying for it. If you bought the full edition of the game or a full bundle of the
DLC, then yeah, activate the Shieldbreaker. The Crimson Court has been a generally
controversial DLC. It adds a new class, who is mostly worthwhile. The Courtyard is a new region
and the districts are a helpful new mechanic - plus a bunch of new monsters, bosses and items -
that's all good. No one would be upset about that. But it has often been viewed as too hard because
of the new need to farm Blood as a resource. It takes a game with a steep
yet enjoyable learning curve and makes it much more inaccessible for a first
try. Your characters can become cursed, spreading that curse throughout your entire roster. It
is annoying to manage and difficult to remove. Definitely not recommended for first-time players. You should really be familiar with the game's
other management considerations first or else it's just overwhelming. The Courtyard is
specifically where the Crimson curse comes from, so you can still activate the flagellant
and district buildings safely. If you start out with the curse and the need to
farm Blood, it can overwhelm your party very early on and you'll be unable to
progress and probably quit in frustration. If you activate it, once you're something like 8
to 12 hours in, you probably have enough safety nets in place that even if the curse ravages your
team, your file isn't going to be completely lost. Really be careful about activating this one. IF
you were planning to play with the Crimson Court DLC right from the offset, put off heading
into the first Courtyard mission until once you've got a team of at least level 2 heroes with
upgraded skills and gear and some decent trinkets. You should be able to get through fine with
that. However, you could keep postponing it until you build the Sanguine Vintners district as
that makes dealing with the curse so much easier. The Color of Madness is the most recent paid DLC,
and is notably cheaper than Crimson court. As with the others, it can be installed independently.
While the Crimson court expanded the story and lore of the world in a meaningful way, this DLC is
more about giving players a new way to pick up and play. It adds new regions that plays differently
than the rest of the game - more like an alternate mode, facing wave after wave of enemies. It has
been criticized as being somewhat repetitive and not encouraging party variety the way the
base game does. There are many new trinkets, as well as a few new districts. A cool feature
here is that once you clear the “storyline” (as loose as that is), you can return for Endless
runs, without worrying about losing your heroes. They will be out of commission for a
brief time, but will not be lost forever! So, you've bought the game,
you've loaded up the DLC, you know exactly how you want to play and your
final consideration is which difficulty level. Ranging from easiest to hardest, there is
Radiant, Darkest and Stygian difficulties. If you have the Crimson Court DLC installed,
Stygian is instead called Bloodmoon. Generally, I’m going to recommend the default
darkest mode - that's the medium. Do NOT pick Stygian if you are
new to the game. Many enemies, especially the bosses can and will wipe
your party. Besting them in Stygian is a matter of embarking with a party perfectly
built to counter and survive its attacks. You simply cannot do this without knowing
what you're getting into. And as a new player, you will not. The game will feel unfair. You will
lose and you will quit. It's specifically made for experienced players only. Not simply an added
challenge. You can attempt on a second playthrough but don't think you're a pro
gamer who prefers a challenge. The default difficulty is a challenge.
Stygian is punishing and requires very intimate knowledge of the game. Radiant can
be a good starting point and is built to take less time than the other difficulties.
Campaigns in this game take a long time. I’m talking 30 to 50 plus hours. This is the only
difficulty that really feels like a different pace of advancement. So, it does very
little to prepare you for Stygian. If you really want to invest
your time and get the full brutal experience, throw yourself
straight into the darkest difficulty. Radiant should really be reserved for someone who
doesn't have the time for that full investment and can't imagine themselves tackling numerous
playthroughs. But even if you're only planning one playthrough and want a little bit of a
challenge, Darkest is still the way to go. A quick distinguishing factor of the difficulties.
If you decide to play on Darkest difficulty, then higher level heroes refuse to go
to lower level quests. So a level 3 hero refuses level 1 quests and a level
5 hero refuses level 3. On Radiant, that restriction is removed, so only
level 5 heroes refuse level 1 quests. It lets you bail yourself out when you're
in a tough spot, but in Darkest difficulty, it really forces you to mix up your party and fun
and interesting new combinations - especially if you're playing the Crimson Court on Radiant
difficulty, you could try and take some level 3 and 4 heroes to the Courtyard quest and have a
much easier time. But as a general recommendation, I would suggest not relying on over leveling
heroes regardless of difficulty. It's going to make the late game difficulty jump significantly
more jarring when you can't keep relying on it. A general note regardless of what difficulty you
play on, this game was originally an early access title and a few things had major overhauls during
development. Some of those changes never sat well with the early adopters and in an amazingly
flexible olive-branch from the devs, they made several of these features toggleable. So, you
can play either iteration to your own preference. The main one of these is whether or
not you like the idea of enemy corpses staying on the ground or retreat
failure. If corpses stay on the ground, then enemies stay in their specific position. If
they go away, then they take over each other's positions as they're defeated. Keep in mind,
disabling them does affect the ability to earn at least one achievement for anyone who's
eager to try and be a completionist. Okay, that's wild - there's so much
there to talk about. But now that you know which DLCs to buy and install and
what difficulty you want to start with, great! Now we can have a very detailed breakdown
of tips and tricks to vastly improve your Darkest Dungeon dungeoneering skills. This
is actually a companion video. It is being uploaded alongside an ultimate tips and
tricks guide for beginners and veterans alike. I'll say "beginners" not total newbies.
If you've never opened this game before, that video is not going to do you any good.
So, if you fully committed to buying it and testing it out for yourself at this stage,
please at least go play the tutorial, spend an hour or two learning the basics of the
game. I could also recommend a specific video that I think covers the basic mechanics very
well - Ube's [sp] new player guide to learn the different core mechanics. And once you feel
comfortable at least navigating the Overworld and moving your party through a dungeon and
the basic strategies of encounters, then you'll be ready to take on that video and it will
dramatically increase your overall success rate. I can pretty well guarantee it'll
help players of any skill level. So, don't forget to check that out after you've
picked up the game. I just wanted to try something a little different with this video
- I love this series but felt I maybe couldn't do it justice with a full-on review and what
better thing could I do for the game than to maybe encourage new players bring down
any barriers of entry that might exist. Thank you to patrons of the channel. It's due to
their support that I’m able to kind of experiment with things on the channel like this, just
hoping I help someone. I should say there also has been a sequel announced. It's supposed to
be coming to Epic Games later on this year - we don't know precisely when. Presumably, all these
lores about difficulty and what types of games you like will also apply to the sequel,
but we can reevaluate once it's released. Thank you all so much for
watching, I'll see you again soon.
