Dark Quest 4 has just been released on PlayStation, and Brain Seal was nice enough to send me a copy to check out. I always appreciate this, and after spending some time with this one, I have some pretty mixed feelings about it.
Let’s get started with what the game is. It is a turn-based strategy game based on the Hero Quest board game. The game does a fantastic job of showing this from the very start. The story is told in such a way that you feel like a dungeon master is walking you through the entire thing. You build your party from pre-set adventurers, and can even have a friend join you in couch co-op.
Each party member feels differently; they all have their own ideals and reasons for fighting. The camp itself is even set up in such a way that it truly feels like one would expect a forward camp to feel as you make your way through Gulak’s evil horde.
As you make your way through a dungeon, your characters are moved as if on a board; if you ever played a game of Dungeons and Dragons, you know what I mean. Some characters are better at avoiding traps, for example, and the more speedy characters can quickly outpace slower ones. Slow-moving characters are usually able to tank more hits; however, your wizards can deal more damage but are quite easy to kill. All of this sounds fantastic, and it is really well put together.
The story playing out in a sort of storybook manner is also a great addition to the game. I loved listening to it play out as it was being written on the pages. I truly wish more games would take this approach. The game, however, has some areas where it just quickly became less fun to play.
For example, I found myself dreading exploration. My characters are taking turns while no enemies are around is fine on smaller maps, but on larger maps, this is time-consuming. To make matters worse, when every enemy is dead, I now have to slowly move every character to the stairs to move to the next level.
Having to re-equip potions after each time I delve into the dungeons also serves no real purpose. It adds nothing to the gameplay and doesn’t respect my time or effort.
The game is an ok 6/10, I didn’t hate my time with it, and it does a lot of things right. But I can think of better games to spend $20 on. Fans of the series won’t be disappointed, but I don’t see this one making new fans either. I won’t steer people away from buying it; it has very positive reviews on Steam and is sitting at just over 4 stars on PS5. Fans will be happy, as I said, but people getting into it will want to wait for a sale. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
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