Game review: Darkest Dungeon and their characters

I've stopped playing this game due to how heart breaking it can be. Darkest Dungeon tasks the players with entering parts of an old mansion and killing off the monsters that lie within. It's a tribute to Lovecraft in every form. While the monsters aren't Cthulhu based, the story and backround are based in Eldritch lore. After a baron uncoversancient secrets buried in his family's foundations, he has tunnels opened and researches the abominations that he unearths. The result causes the local town to be destroyed. Fame and glory attracts characters who revisit the abandoned town. You take control of four of these adventurers. The game offers several types ranging from priests, to knights, to bounty hunters all seeking something in the catecombs. But there are four characters that caught my eye that I wanted to talk about. These characters are living stories, their actions and clothes tell the tale that led them to this place.

Let's start with the Abomination. One of my favorite characters, wears a ragged loin cloth while drapped in chains and locks. On his head he bears a brand in the shape of an "A." It makes the player wonder who did this to him. Did the Abomination escape or was he let free? In your head you start to put the pieces together about his backstory. The story continues with his moveset. As a human, he can whip his chain and stun enemies, vomit on them, and pray for absolution. Again, this tells more of his story. When he vomits, he briefly transforms into a monster with horns. As if he's trying to resist the transformation by coughing up bile. His absolution move restores some health. Light beams on him from above like a limelight as he asks to whatever god he believes in for relief. Then we have his transformation. His moveset changes with his transformation as he conforms into a beast with horns and teeth. All his moves are rage-based as he tears the enemies apart. Even his own comrads are disturbed by his transformation as they suffer mental damage watching him. The "A" remains embeded into his skull and again you wonder if he was set free or if he escaped from a sort of Inquisition. 

Next we have my favorite healer, the Occultist. A man who wears a turban and carries a skull and a dagger. When his mental capacity fails, he turns the skull to himself and stares into its empty sockets. I tell myself that it's almost a loving gesture. Maybe it's his wife or maybe it's his last patient that he failed. One of his moves can heal up to twenty points of health but theres a 25% chance that it will fail. The symbol for the healing is in the image of a set of stitches in skin. There's a chance that he won't sew the wound up correctly and the recieving character will have a bleed effect. He's the best and worst healer in the game. And then there's his spells. What kind of horror did he see on the other side? He can summon tentacles to reach out and grab his enemies. He's the only one who has this connection to the Eldritch which makes him unique in casting spells. 

Then we have two smaller characters who were actually DLC for the game. There's the Shield Breaker, a one-handed woman with a spear. It's obvious that she lost the hand to a snake. The stub holds a shield so she can take a few extra hits. Her face swaddled in cloth to hide her features, she uses these mysterious moves to inject venom into her enemies. Snakes make a brief appearance in Lovecraft's work but there's hardly a focus on them. To add to her mystery, she's the only one that can visit the dream realm. The party is forced to tag along and fight snakes from her nightmares. This only happens when the characters rest in the dungeon which makes sleeping a risky endevour.

Finally, there's the Flagellant. A distrubed man in a robe who whips himself with a flail. His blood rains down on his enemies causing them to bleed. Like the other characters, his body tells the tale. His back is a patchwork of long scars, most likely self-inflicted. But as he loses his mind, he becomes a berserker and becomes more powerful the more mind he loses. He gleefully embraces the darkness with a white toothy smile. His madness makes him more powerful.

That's about all I wanted to cover. There are other characters but they don't tell a tale the same way these four do.