When I sat down to review Darkest Dungeon II on the Nintendo Switch, I couldn’t help but be reminded of a familiar adage. I’ve heard it said that madness is doing the same thing over and over, expecting things to change, which felt somewhat apropos of my second venture into the Darkest Dungeon in roughly a year.
I kid, of course, since, as I’ve said multiple times in the past, I’m always excited to see very good games make their way to the Nintendo Switch—a fact that may be the reason it’s survived longer than any other Nintendo console in the company’s history. While the format may have changed, Darkest Dungeon II remains as solid as ever, perhaps even more so now.
I won’t go into laborious detail since my previous review of Darkest Dungeon II is still available to read and quite good, if I say so myself. However, if you can’t be bothered to go all the way there—or are more interested in the Switch version specifically—I’ll summarize it for you very quickly. The player exists as an unnamed, unseen protagonist who, at the behest of “The Academic,” must venture across the land to carry the last light of hope into the Darkest Dungeon.
“Darkest Dungeon II remains as solid as ever, perhaps even more so now.”
It’s an intriguing and mysterious plot that rivals its predecessor. While still leaving much of the story somewhat of a mystery, it hooks the player through the concept of hope and a sense of optimism that order can be restored—a stark contrast to its predecessor, where the madness and despair of the Darkest Dungeon had already hooked its tendrils deep into the land. While the journey is still brutal and mentally taxing, the light of hope pushes players forward and makes the story more of a reward to experience.
Like I said in my PC review, Darkest Dungeon II takes a much more streamlined version of the rouge-legacy format than its predecessor. Rather than taking a select group of adventures through smaller dungeons until they’re prepared to face the Darkest Dungeon—needing to be left behind if they have mental breakdowns or face the Darkest Dungeon even once—players create a party and embark on a literal road trip through hell as the face all manner of evil to reach the Darkest Dungeon.
More akin to a tabletop game, it involves encounters that require you to offer supplies, risk a dice roll for some loot, or face the horrors of the land in brutal combat. Its much more immediate form of gameplay and accelerated combat make it incredibly well-suited to the Switch. The way you might be nervous about how far you can get on a bus feels thematically similar to worrying about what you might encounter before making it to the next inn.
Something I didn’t really mention in my prior review was just how brutal it can be despite being designed to be much faster than its predecessor. Unlike Darkest Dungeon, where preparation was necessary not just for exploring each dungeon but also for surviving each encounter, Darkest Dungeon II is a far greater test of players’ wits and ability since characters can only carry one battle item into each fight and certain healing and stress relief can only be done at Inns.
Much like traversing each realm, there’s a unique tension to Darkest Dungeon II that exceeds the original, where much of the tension came from how quickly things could unravel once they started to. It cuts out the majority of the waiting—needing to leave party members behind to cure mental breakdowns—and makes every attempt to reach the Darkest Dungeon a gut-wrenching experience that keeps you in the moment.
Much like its predecessor—by which I mean Darkest Dungeon—Darkest Dungeon II’s combat functions have been well adapted from PC to console. However, there are still a few ways that it can be a bit cumbersome. While the bulk of selecting actions and navigating menus has been simplified to single button presses and fairly easy icon navigation, it can take a bit of getting used to—it’s easy to confuse the way ZL/ZR cycle through characters while L/R cycle menus, except at Inns where it functions differently.
“Darkest Dungeon II is a far greater test of players’ wits and ability since characters can only carry one battle item into each fight.”
However, thanks to the Switch’s touch screen, it’s easy to circumvent most of the menu cycling when playing handheld. While certain buttons are still required to bring up different menus, like the status effect glossary or inventory screens, players can easily tap on an icon for a more detailed understanding of it.
But much like its predecessor, Darkest Dungeon II looks great on Switch, thanks to an incredible aesthetic, simple animations and a dark sense of style that brings the whole thing to life. The game looks great on handheld, with the bold colours contrasting with the stark black objects, making every moment pop and looking particularly good on the Nintendo Switch OLED. Of course, if you want to put it on the big screen, it’ll look even better in crisp 1080p.
I really don’t know what else to say about Darkest Dungeon II, except if you haven’t played it yet, then you definitely should, and if you have a Switch, then you should absolutely play it on there. Red Hook elevated the style and gameplay of the original Darkest Dungeon by a tremendous margin and, to quote my last review, “takes everything that was great about it and forges something that both elevates and differentiates.”
