Dark Quest 2 – “Come on dice, roll me a 4 or higher… Damnit a 1!” Does this sentence ring any bells? You’ll probably have played any sort of dice game. You might even have played D&D. Now, does this sound familiar? “Oh sweet, a 99% chance to hit, there is no w… WHAT?? A MISS?!?!” Then you probably have experienced X-Com… Well, it is 2019 and Brain Seal brings us their next Turn Based RPG (Yes, a turn-based RPG!) to console. Does it survive the perception check? Will we find out what is behind the door, or will we luck out and have it blow up in our face, closing off the section and sealing away that level 8 great staff with frost damage? Well then, grab your lucky blanket and put on your favorite pants, because where we’re going? We don’t need no dice, just some luck, and a whole lot of health potions… Let us discover, Dark Quest 2!
What is good?
- RNGesus: Pray to the gods because RNGesus is in the house! If you thought the X-Com battles were rough from time to time? With your team whiffing near perfect shots and all that shizzle? Then you haven’t experienced some of these battles! I’ve actually had level runs where I had a fully healed team, but when i finally got to the eventual end, most of them were mortally wounded or even dead. Reason for this is the brutal RNG that it employs. This fact is hammered in even harder by the possibility that you can see your hit %’s. Making it feel even more harsh knowing the fact that you’ve got a 60% chance to hit, and yet still miss 3 times in a row.
- Art-Style: The town, the levels, the models. All of it! Just has this unique and fresh feeling, and I loved every second of it. The town itself and it’s occupants just look beautiful! The colours pop but it doesn’t overwhelm you. The champions and enemies look unique as well. Although every enemy type, like for instance the crasher? Have the same model and animation. Although this might result into you seeing the same enemy 4 times in the same room. The champions have their own look, giving them character and presence. The same goes for the boss models. But for the regular fodder? Ah well, just think that they were part of an experimental cloning procedure.
- Turn-Based…: Brain Seal surely likes to gamble, because a turn based rpg is a quite unique genre aiming towards a very specific group of gamers. Screw it up? And you’re pretty much done for. But no fear, they did a quite good job into delivering us that sweet sweet turn based goodness. Though the controls were quite weird to start off with, it basically explains itself and pretty much sorts itself out. Just give it a bit, and you’ll be exploring those dungeons quite quickly.
Mixed Feelings.
- …RPG?: For an RPG, I didn’t find much RPG elements in it. When I think RPG, I think conversations. I think plot twists. I think a lot more than what I’ve encountered in here, that’s for sure. The only parts that link to RPG? Are the fact that you can level your champions up, gaining them skills on a very limited skill tree, and that you can buy items in the town. It feels like they could have done more with the RPG part. Because at the moment it feels more like a turn-based dungeon crawler, and less like a roleplaying game.
- Camera Please…: You’ll know when you experience it. This game runs with a static camera position. Which is absolutely fine for the genre. If only it didn’t get blocked by the environmental objects. There are actually parts of the map that you’ll have to fiddle around to find the entrance towards the next part of the map. Or you might just stumble into them because you couldn’t see that there was a marker there leading into the next room. A rotational camera wouldn’t
of been a luxury here,thats for sure.
What is bad?
- Grindfest: Oh god, how much grinding can one man survive before having a breakdown? Well… A certain amount, but to much is to much. Straight out of the bat this becomes obvious. After you’ve cleared your 2nd level you will notice some changes to the game’s formula. Not only does the difficulty scale up significantly, but your party requierements go up as well. Okay, no problem! You just get a new helping hand from the town and continue, right? Yeah… If only it was that easy… It’ll kind of soft lock you for a while, making you backtrack and run through the previous levels. No problem right? You know what you’ll encounter and how difficult it was. But sadly that’s not the case. Each time you replay a level, it’s difficulty scales up as well. Making the enemies hit harder and have more lifepoints. Meanwhile you are struggling to get enough vials to purchase some more skills. This was surely done to prolong you from getting to the end to quickly, but they could’ve done this through other means… Like making the levels larger. This just made the experience more infuriating instead of enjoyable.
Dark Quest 2 – 62/100
Although not perfect, this game still holds up well and will feel like a fun challenge for people who want to sink a lot of hours into it. Especially the ones that enjoyed games like X-Com. And yes, just like X-Com, this game sports an Iron Man mode as well! It really is a cute game that takes a few risks, which can only be applauded for. I just hope that Brain Seal listens to
