Is Darkest Dungeon a Roguelike?
Darkest Dungeon is a well-known video game, played by thousands of gamers around the world. Darkestt Dungeon is known for and easily recognized due to its challenging and unforgiving difficulty, as well as horror elements, such as monsters and environments, inspired by the works of the author H. P. Lovecraft. Due to the uniqueness of this video game, Darkest Dungeon has become a fan-favorite of many different players, who praise the unique experience that this game provides. While Darkest Dungeon is a favorite of many players and fans and a game that draws interest, there is often debate about to what genre Darkest Dungeon belongs. Indeed, this video game blends many elements of different video game genres, and at the same time is also a unique experience. For these reasons, the exact genre of the video game Darkest Dungeon is sometimes a cause of debate, and in some instances, there are players who seek to know its genre description in order to be able to find games that may have similarities to Darkest Dungeon. Players wonder what is the genre of Darkest Dungeon, and whether it is a roguelike.
Darkest Dungeon is a roguelike video game, as it features many high-value factors of the Berlin interpretation, as well as some low-value factors, reaching an overall high score in this interpretation as a roguelike video game. Some of the factors this video game presents are procedurally-generated levels, turn-based gameplay, permadeath, among others
The definition of a roguelike video game has often been subject to debate, and throughout decades, many players were not able to draw a conclusion regarding its exact description. Due to this reason, to this day, there are many players who will present different definitions for what it means for a game to be considered a roguelike video game. Moreover, there are many different descriptions, such as roguelike, roguelite, roguelike-like, roguelite-like, among others.
Despite the long debate regarding the definition of roguelike in the video games community, at some point a consensus was obtained in the community regarding this genre, which is referred to as the Berlin interpretation. This interpretation drew some factors that would define whether a video game can be considered a roguelike or not, according to this interpretation. This Berlin interpretation considered the characteristics of traditional and classic roguelike video games, such as the classics ADOM (Ancient Domains of Mystery), NetHack, Rogue, among others. With a deeper look into the common characteristics of these video games, the Berlin interpretation presented some factors that must be present in a video game for it to be considered a roguelike, according to the definition of roguelike of this interpretation. Some of these factors are: random dungeon generation (also called procedural generation or procedurally-generated environments), permadeath, turn-based gameplay, complex gameplay due to game systems (also referred to as emergent gameplay), resource management, among others.
According to the Berlin interpretation, which requires a video game to feature procedural generation, permadeath, turn-based gameplay, complex gameplay due to game systems, resource management, among other factors, in order to be considered a roguelike, Darkest Dungeon is a roguelike video game for sure. The video game Darkest Dungeon presents almost all of the high-value factors of the Berlin interpretation, as well as some of the low-value factors of this interpretation. Due to the presence of these many factors, while Darkest Dungeon may also feature elements of other genres, this video game can certainly be considered a roguelike game, according to the Berlin interpretation of roguelikes.
Is Darkest Dungeon a Roguelite?
According to the Berlin interpretation, in order to be considered a roguelike, a video game must reach a high score in the interpretation. Video games which do not reach high scores in this interpretation are often called roguelites, due to their vague similarity to a traditional roguelike, but not enough similarity in order to be considered a roguelike.
Darkest Dungeon is not a roguelite video game, because it features many high-value factors as well as some low-value factors of the Berlin interpretation, which is used to measure how roguelike a video game is.
Some of the factors that Darkest Dungeon presents which increase its score in the Berlin interpretation are: procedurally-generated levels, turn-based gameplay, permanent death of game characters (referred to permadeath), among others. In order for Darkest Dungeon to be considered a roguelike video game, and not a roguelike video game, it would need to have less elements that resemble the gameplay of the original and classic roguelike video games that were considered for the Berlin interpretation.
Roguelite video games are the games that feature some factors of the Berlin interpretation, causing these games to present some resemblance to the original and classic roguelike video games. In general, these roguelite video games may feature some high-value factors of the Berlin interpretation, but they will usually not feature many of these high-value factors, otherwise they would score higher in this interpretation and thus would be considered roguelike video games, not roguelite video games.
Darkest Dungeon features many of the high-value factors of the Berlin interpretation, while also featuring some low-value factors of this interpretations, thus reaching a high score in the interpretation. For these reasons, according to the Berlin interpretation, Darkest Dungeon can be reasonably described as a roguelike video game. Describing it as a roguelite video game would be to not consider how many of the factors of the Berlin interpretation Darkest Dungeon presents, and how much it resembles the original and classic roguelike video games. Indeed, in order to be considered a roguelite, Darkest Dungeon would have to not present as many factors of the interpretation as it does. Darkest Dungeon features many of the high-value factors of the Berlin interpretation, featuring, in fact, almost all of these high-value factors, while also featuring some low-value factors of the interpretation. For this reason, Darkest Dungeon can be considered a roguelike video game, according to the Berlin interpretation.
In general, roguelike video games are games that feature many of the factors included in the Berlin interpretation, especially high-value factors, whereas games that only feature some of the factors of the Berlin interpreation are most often called roguelites, due to their lesser resemblance to the original classic roguelike video games. In other words, roguelite video games may feature some of the characteristics of the original roguelikes, but in general will not feature as many of these factors as a traditional roguelike video game.
Is Darkest Dungeon a Roguelike or Roguelite?
Darkest Dungeon is a roguelike, and not a roguelite, according to the Berlin interpretation, because Darkest Dungeon features many, and almost all, of the high-value factors of the Berlin interpretation, as well as some low-value factors of the interpretation. For these reasons, Darkest Dungeon would reach a score too high in the Berlin interpretation in order for it to be considered a roguelite, and thus would more accurately be described as a roguelike video game. The Berlin interpretation measures how roguelike a video game is based on how many of the high-value and low-value factors of the interpretation this video game presents. Darkest Dungeon presents many of the high-value factors and some of the low-value factors, reaching a high score in the Berlin interpretation, and for this reasons, presents a stronger resemblance to the original and classic roguelike video games that were considered for this interpretation.
A roguelite video game is a video game that presents a lesser resemblance to the original and classic roguelike video games that inspired the Berlin interpretation, while a roguelike video game is a video game that presents a stronger resemblance to those classic roguelike games. Some of the factors that the Berlin interpretation considers are procedural generation, permadeath, turn-based gameplay, non-modal gameplay, complexity due to the game systems, among other factors.
Is Darkest Dungeon an RPG?
Darkest Dungeon is an RPG, according to the general definition of RPGs, which is: controlling (or role-playing) one or more game characters in a lore-built video game world in which it is possible to develop the game character or game characters. The video game Darkest Dungeon also features elements of other video game genres, such as roguelike games, strategy games, and also some elements of horror games. For these reasons, it is reasonable to describe Darkest Dungeon as a roguelike RPG, as an RPG with strategy elements, or even as an RPG with horror elements. Regarding the definition of RPG, Darkest Dungeon features all of the traditional characteristics of a role-playing video game, such as: role-playing, a game world that is built through lore, and game character development.
Regarding the role-playing aspect, in Darkest Dungeon, the player assumes the role of the owner, or more precisely, heir of the fallen estate that is threatened by the titular Darkest Dungeon. In the game, the estate heir, which is role-played by the video game player, arrives at the estate (referred to as "Hamlet" in Darkest Dungeon) and employs the help of fellow heroes in order to battle the perils of Darkest Dungeon. This is clearly a role-playing element present in the game. At the same time, the player is able to give orders to the game heroes, which often make comments and remarks that reflect their own personality, either in the estate, at camp, or during expeditions in the dungeon. These are also role-playing elements present in the game. Moreover, Darkest Dungeon features a narrator, which is one of its unique and famous characteristics, and this narrator often directly addresses the player in its speech lines, which is another role-playing element present in Darkest Dungeon.
Regarding the game world of Darkest Dungeon, it is a well-defined game world, built by lore, pieces of information, narrative lines, cutscenes, as well as dialogues of game characters and other pieces of information. The players is presented to the game world of Darkest Dungeon from the very beginning, and this game world is further presented throughout the gameplay through a variety of game systems, including journal pages, additional cutscenes, dialogues of heroes, as well as the game narrator himself which tells of his own adventures and memories in the game world. For these reasons, the game world of Darkest Dungeon is a very well-presented game world, which is an element of role-playing video games.
Besides role-playing and world-building, Darkest Dungeon also features another classic RPG feature: the development of video game characters in numerically relevant ways. In Darkest Dungeon, after completing expeditions and also through training, game characters develop and become stronger, having greater values of health points (HP), greater attack values and defense values, and also become able to further increase the level of their skills, including healing and attacking skills, among others, while also become able to further upgrade their weapons and armor. Game characters are also able to equip certain items, which in Darkest Dungeon are called trinkets, which increase the statistics and numerical values of these characters, making them even stronger in order to fight the threats of Darkest Dungeon. This character development, seen in numerical ways, through completing expeditions, upgrading equipment and equipping better items, is a classic RPG element found in Darkest Dungeon.
Darkest Dungeon is a video game that features elements of various genres, such as RPG video games, roguelike games and strategy games, and also features some horror elements. In this section, we are analysing the RPG aspect of Darkets Dungeon. Due to the presence of many of the traditional elements of role-playing video games, Darkest Dungeon can be reasonably described as an RPG video game. To be more precise, Darkest Dungeon could also be described as a turn-based RPG video game, or as a roguelike RPG video game, as these would also be accurate and reasonable descriptions of this video game. While it is possible to attribute various descriptions to Darkest Dungeon, such as roguelike RPG, and as RPG with strategy elements, among others, it is certainly reasonable to describe Darkest Dungeon as an RPG, and this is surely an accurate and reasonable description. Darkest Dungeon is definitely an RPG video game.
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