As I might've mentioned before I've been playing a whole lot of the insanely cool Darkest Dungeon, which is a dungeon-crawling strategy game that takes its inspirational cues (mainly) from Lovecraft. I mean, listen to the narrator in the clip, and if you're familiar with the gentleman from Providence's work, you easily get what I'm talking about. Also, note the beautifully !singular! art style. grimdark as all hell.
The strangely familiar melodrama, the foreshadowing, the characters that inevitably succumb to insanity and death. It's absolutely lovely. It's like Pokemon, except this time, whenever Pikachu gets hit with a water gun he might just end up stressing the fuck out, and you'll find that the only way to reduce that stress is to let him drink himself into a mindless stupor, or to satisfy his needs in the nearest brothel, provided he hasn't become known around the town for his 'deviant tastes', and it's indeed very advisable to keep the furry critter's stress levels down, because if you don't he might just start hurting himself, or swear at and criticize every single one of Charmander's flamethrower attacks, which will end up stressing the fuck out of that little bugger too, which is a problem because Charmander doesn't want to drink, gamble or pray to relieve his stress, and in fact, he will only calm down with a good bout of flagellating or something. Let's just hope they'll actually make it to the end of the dungeon, and that they don't suffer heart attacks from too much stress and anxiety, like Metapod and Jigglypuff before them. Let's also hope we don't incur Rabies or the Red Plague either, because the Swinub that hide in these warrens don't have too great a hygiene at the best of days. And all the while, with every mis step, every trap triggered, every body slam from an enemy Snorlax, Ash just keeps on narrating in doom-laden tones, filled with dread and disdain, slowly sapping the will to fight from the creatures that duke it out amongst themselves, until the very end, when they inevitably all end up brutally murdered and devoured or in gibbering madness, weeping into the filthy, dark corners of whatever dungeon they've foolishly ventured into...
Ahem... I got off track a little bit there...
So. Great game, but a lot of patience is a must. Its gameplay mechanics requires a high degree of attention and forethought, frequently requiring you to make sacrifices and make the best out of absolute clusterfuck situations, where everything just keeps going wrong, again and again.
I can't tell how much fun it really is, and also how frustrating it can be.
I held off on sharing anything about it untill now because it's not something I can easily show gameplay of, as most viewers would find it boring and unrewarding and because most clips I have would only show parts of long battles, where I'm constantly just waiting, deliberating what action next to take.
It's a very big game and there's so much to do that it's quite improbable to finish up all that it offers. But having had a look through the trophy list, I ended up having a few 'definite' picks, amenable to just one hugely long play-through, wherein I just explore all that the game has to offer (and so that I don't have to worry about finishing the game on some insane difficulty level or within arbitrary time frame or something). And I at the very least wanted to beat all the bosses, the story, including the various dlc's, and obtain a few select trophies, of which one of the trophies from the Color of Madness dlc stood out to me because of the level of commitment that it would demand from the player to obtain it.
And here's the reason for this post because: today I finally did it! I got it!
Ashes to Ashes
in the
ENDLESS HARVEST!
The Endless Harvest is sort of the endgame mission for veteran players, for special rewards, pitting your characters against endless waves of monsters and bosses, with a few breathing points every so often. It's got special parameters, a changing landscape and it's quite possible for the party to meet pretty much every single monster that the game has to offer, even though most of them are actually unique to the various dungeons the game has on offer.
I've been attempting it for the last week, on and off, pretty much just running away every time before I met a boss past the Miller. Those runs were more just of a preparation for this one; me feeling out the mechanics of the thing so that I could make a decent effort at it in the future.
And then I began playing that mission again yesterday evening, and it just kept going well enough that I, in the end, just decided to keep going.
And here is the finale of that long slog.
I bailed as soon as I could, because this mission had been going on for 7 or 8 hours already at this point. I've seen videos of people going in the thousand kills on this thing, which is not something I wanted to get even close to.
I just wanted enough shards to make some buildings, buy some stuff, and to have at least 300 kills; I'm certainly not here for the glory.
It was also my first encounter with The Sleeper, who could've given me a much harder time than he did, and who I got immensely lucky against.
So yeah, I'm very satisfied to have this trophy done. At the time of playing it's got a 0,1 percent unlock rate, so I confess I'm feeling pretty good about that.
I guess up next is plowing through the Crimson Court dlc and do some odds and ends along the way.
or maybe I'll just throw caution to the wind and continue
right into the
DARKEST DUNGEON!
... where I'm sure my characters won't all go insane this time...
or end up dying to hold off the teeming hordes as the rest of their party make their escape...
Farewell sweet, innocent Bosier... you were diseased, stressed out and had a nasty tendency to miss when you couldn't afford to, but nonetheless; you are missed.
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Bonus my first fight against the Shrieker, who I also had to face in the Endless Harvest dungeon there at the end. he was much harder back then, in week 55, though he still isn't a pushover here in week 126. You don't get any special quirks for kicking his ass in Endless Harvest though, which is a real bummer; I could've done with more dodge or accuracy for some characters.
Aah, there's Bosier again. Yeah that's something I forgot to mention. It's quite common for players to actually get invested in characters that are really supposed to be expendable; they're just arrow fodder on the road to conquering the darkest dungeon. There's no downsides or anything when hiring new recruits as they're always in great supply, but you just can't help getting attached to these characters as they gain quirks and level up, or when you witness them toughing it out on Death's Door time and again. It's quite a strange experience.
Abdul is still alive though, beast of a mad Arab that he is.
I gave him his name, but his class is obviously also inspired by the writings of Lovecraft, specifically the fictional writer of the infamous Necronomicon; Abdul AlHazred. Lovely class to play with, very versatile.
Whew: posted just in time.
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