Darkest Dungeon: The Crimson Court Review (LordMidas)
Pros
-lots of new content
-interesting game mechanic
-difficulty for people who want more of a challenge
-new level design that lets you leave and come back to the same level while still posing a challenge
-New character is a fitting and awesome addition
-Great addition to the lore and atmosphere of darkest dungeon
Cons
-intrusive design
-impossible wandering boss that doesn't drop worthwhile loot
-extremely grindy late game buildings
-game relies much more on random chance
-highly punishing to new players
Overall the crimson court is a really cool concept. The thematic part of it was really well done and it adds a great deal to the lore with things like vampires and gluttony which fit the game. The flagellant is a great character that really has no equivalent in terms of play style or personality. But they didn't have to make the mechanics of the crimson court so damn annoying. My biggest gripe with the crimson court is not the difficulty but how the game implements the difficulty. This DLC was made for the most hardcore of players that want to play the game for hundreds of hours on end and for those people this is a perfect DLC. It adds a lot of ways for characters to randomly die and will set you back. For those people who have the game completely mapped out it is great. For the casual player it is a nightmare. The wandering boss that it adds is nothing short of the hardest normal boss you can fight, which wouldn't be a problem if it also dropped good items which it does not. It also does not help that it is an unoriginal fight as well. The fight boils down to a much harder hag in almost every way. Turn one grab, turn 2 de-buff, turn 3 hit. rinse and repeat with some variation. It also pokes at the flaw in game design that is speed, with three turns it is almost impossible to use characters that need setup consistently as you will have almost no indication of when the boss is taking its turns. The crimson curse mechanic is also very random. Random chance to get it, random chance to spawn the boss, random chance to die from the curse while wasting, random chance to get bloodsucker enemies in any area of the map. If you have this DLC with the farmsted, the nuances of each zone are now overshadowed by the chance of 3 different random spawns that are completely out of your control bar what you do in the mission select screen. This was the collecter and shamblers job to begin with, but instead of a small chance that they spawn it is almost guaranteed that the crimson curse will make its way into your levels every mission (also don't forget you still have to deal with the two wandering bosses that are already in the game). With this DLC it is not important but crucial that you make multiple teams that will do well in the crimson court at the start of the game or you will feel the consequences of not giving the DLC your full attention. This DLC DEMANDS attention and will completely change how you should go about completing the game. This is why I feel it is terrible to anyone but the most seasoned players of the game. Even on the lower difficulties it punishes players for not acting in certain ways due to a lack of knowledge
In the end, was it fun to say all my characters I liked had aids, yes. Did I like having yet another map with leper supremacy, yes. Do I recommend this DLC to anyone but those who solely play on torchless hardest difficulty, no. If you are anything like me, difficulty alone is not enough for me to like something. I already had issues with things like multiple turns ignoring speed, how the first ~6 of my characters died on the first hit of deaths door and how random chance artificially inflates difficulty. I completely stopped playing torchless after a giant crit 1 shot Reynauld for 83 on full health and lost me the achievement making me restart my 50+ hours of game play. That is how most enemies in this DLC feel, and how most of the mechanics of this DLC work. If you like to gamble, this DLC will give you more dopamine than anything else in the game could, but IMO I don't have the time or care to constantly be punished for things that are out of my control. That happens in real life enough, I don't need it in my games as well.