Let me make this clear - I like rogue-likes. I do. One of my friends actually bought this game for me for Christmas two years ago, saying that it was similar to one of my favorite games - Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup. At that time I played this game and wrote a negative review for it on Steam which relied heavily on comparisons between the two games.
That was unfair, I admit. I should judge the game on its own merits, not on how well it holds up to my own favorite game. I also bought both the DLC for the game – “Realm of the Diggle Gods” and “Conquest of the Wizardlands.” So, we'll see if all of this improves my experience at all.
Gameplay
The game works. I can say that for it. It runs competently and seems to be more or less free of bugs. It did crash on me once, and actually gave me an achievement for it - “Suddenly the Dungeon Collapses.” So that was.... cute.
Sadly, that's about the only good thing I can say here. The game is just boring to me. I'm sorry to all the people who love this game, but it is. At no point while playing did I ever find myself really looking forward to what was going to come next.
I never looked forward to the next floor, because I knew it would be exactly the same as the floor I was on, but with different wall and floor graphics.
I never looked forward to seeing a new enemy. There were occasional clever designs, but they all work basically the same and are super wimpy. At no point was I ever forced to switch up my tactics at all.
I never looked forward to finding some fancy artifact weapon because they're never interesting. In most rogue-likes finding a good artifact can make or break your entire run, but here? At most it's just going to be the same as a normal weapon of its type but maybe with +1 or +2 to some stat that I never use. Yawn.
I also never looked forward to my next skill, because the game has you choose all of your skills when you make your character and you can never deviate, so there's no room for experimentation whatsoever. To be fair, I guess that puts the game on par with most other RPGs... but it's still disappointing.
Also, the levels are just... tediously long and boring. There is a “No Time To Grind” option that shrinks levels in size while giving boosted experience, but it doesn't increase loot, and so is therefore absolutely worthless.
In all: it works, but Is just so boring. 3/5.
Presentation
Well, our main character isn't an “@” symbol, so that already puts it ahead of most rogue-likes.
Okay, but seriously, I have no real complaints about graphics or sound. Because the view isn't exactly top down, enemies, items, and traps can sometimes be obscured from view by parts of the environment... however, when this happens, the game politely points them out in various ways – sparkle effect on items, a pointy arrow for enemies, and a red outline for traps. So that's nice. It doesn't point out stuff hidden behind doors or dungeon objects, though.
I would also like it if my equipped armor actually changed my character's appearance, but it's not like the game has to do that. It would just be a nice bonus if it did.
I'll give presentation a 4/5.
Writing
Finally, the last part. I usually put this as “story” but... you know, it's a rogue-like.
I'll be brutally honest. I don't like Dredmor's writing style. In my original review I described the writing as “edgy” but I don't think that's really the right word for it. The writing is just immature. I can't even call it parody. It's just random jokes that mean nothing.
This game was clearly written by the type of person who thinks “irreverent” is a compliment, and who believes knowing the word “sesquipedalian” makes you smart. And if you don't know what I meant by that last bit... then you're probably the type of person I'm talking about. I don't guess that really makes it bad, though. If you like Family Guy and Robot Chicken, you follow Cracked, and you think the Clock Crew rules the Portal... then you'll probably love this game's sense of humor.
But if you'll excuse me, I need to pop my monocle back in, and go think about how much I hate you while enjoying my Beaujolais and camembert, and partaking of more intellectual entertainments... like anime. Anime is great. 2/5.
KR Rating: 3/5 MEDIOCRE
In all, I give it basically the same score I gave it before. Owning the DLC didn't really change my impression that much. There's some fairly interesting additions in them, but nothing that makes the game any less boring to me. Even Conquest of the Wizardlands, which adds a huge number of randomly generated "wizard tower" mini-dungeons, is just... they're all the same. Yawn. At the end of the day, even with the DLC, it's still Dungeons of Dredmor.
And now that that's all said and done... yeah, I just can't end this without bringing up Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup again. It's an excellent game and a perfect example of a rogue-like done right. In that game, I actually did look forward to reaching new regions because they had unique properties and interesting enemies. I also looked forward to finding new artifact items because they actually meant something. Finding the right artifact weapon or armor could make or break your entire run, unlike this game where randarts just mean +1 to some stat I don't care about and I'll probably just sacrifice them to my Horadric Lutefisk Cube... speaking of immature writing.
I just can't recommend this game to anyone when I already know there's another game that's just like it only better in every way AND ALSO FREE already out there. I can't.
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