Darkest Dungeon: The Color of Madness
By Neilie Johnson,
Common Sense Media Reviewer
Common Sense Media Reviewers
Mature alien tale has gory visuals in alternate dimension.
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Darkest Dungeon: The Color of Madness
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What’s It About?
DARKEST DUNGEON: THE COLOR OF MADNESS is an alien-themed add-on pack to Darkest Dungeon that revolves around driving an alien entity from a mill on the outskirts of the player's ancestral village. Players take on a new faction and three new bosses, fighting wave after wave of enemies and earning Comet Shards. This new form of currency can be used to buy powerful new battle trinkets and new blueprints to expand their village's districts. New musical themes set the mood at a new location known as The Farmstead, while useful new curios help players wage war against comet-spawned monsters across time and space.
Is It Any Good?
The talented team at Red Hook Studios does it again by having a Lovecraftian entity invade its first-rate dungeon-crawler. Building upon stellar role-playing game mechanics, Darkest Dungeon: The Color of Madness challenges you to fight in another dimension, beyond the dusky forests and shadowy crypts. Removing the exploration aspect of the original, The Color of Madness focuses exclusively on combat. The action's nonstop as you fight through multiple waves of eerie enemies, earning brief rest breaks only by filling kill meters. Three gauntlet levels (novice, veteran, and endless) provide plenty of opportunity for earning Comet Shards which can be traded for a wide range of cool battle trinkets. Gather enough Shards, and you can also buy blueprints to build four new structures that offer your heroes various health benefits.
Alien combat has other advantages as well: for instance, surviving a fight with The Thing From the Stars grants heroes useful power-ups (called "Quirks) they can't get any other way. New lighting effects and music are a welcome departure from the look and sound of the original game, and having access to new high-level heroes almost right off the bat is a definite thrill. While its bloody imagery and themes of madness and moral dissolution are definitely not for younger kids, it's well worth the five dollar asking price for older gamers.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about violence in video games. Is the impact of the violence in Darkest Dungeon: The Color of Madness reduced because you're fighting against alien creatures and monsters? Does the impact seem more intense because of the focus on combat?
How does Darkest Dungeon represents mental health, stress, and mental illness? Is it accurate?
Game Details
- Platforms: Mac , Windows
- Pricing structure: Paid
- Available online?: Available online
- Publisher: Red Hook Studios
- Release date: June 19, 2018
- Genre: Role-Playing
- Topics: Adventures , Monsters, Ghosts, and Vampires
- ESRB rating: T for Violence, Blood and Gore, Suggestive Themes, Partial Nudity, Alcohol Reference, Mild Language
- Last updated: July 24, 2018
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