Dark Quest 4 Review: Strong Ideas Undermined by Broken Balance | The Gamerheads Podcast

Platform reviewed: Nintendo Switch 2

Also on: PC (Steam), Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S

Price: $19.99

When I was in second grade, my friend and I desperately wanted to play Dungeons & Dragons. However, neither of us wanted to be the Dungeon Master. So, we convinced his mom to take on that role instead. We rolled up our characters, built cool backstories, and set off on our very first adventure.

Our first encounter was… a dragon.

Needless to say, we died immediately. When my friend complained that we were only level one characters and shouldn’t be fighting a dragon that early, his mom just laughed and said, “It’s called Dungeons AND Dragons.” That was probably the moment I first truly understood how important balance is in a game. I also realized that my friend’s mom did not want to be the Dungeon Master.

The game looks great on the surface, it’s the balancing issues that quickly started to wear on me.

My love for board games and fantasy games really grew out of my time playing D&D, and I’m always on the lookout for video games that take that board game feel and translate it into a digital experience. That’s exactly what piqued my interest in Dark Quest 4, a game inspired by HeroQuest. While the game looks great on the surface, it’s the balancing issues that quickly started to wear on me. And much like my friend’s mom from that first D&D session, the game master here seems more interested in punishing the heroes than guiding them through an adventure.

Dark Quest 4 does some things really well. I love the look of the game, and the whole setup genuinely feels like a board game brought to life. Each room starts off hidden, so I need to move my characters to the doors to reveal what’s next. It’s a turn-based game, with a number associated with each character and enemy showing their order in the turn sequence.

 I don’t mind games that include randomness, but most of the time I couldn’t actually avoid the traps, which made the whole feature feel more gimmicky than strategic.

One of my favorite features in Dark Quest 4 is the use of cards. Each character begins with a starting set, but additional cards can be purchased in town. Treasure chests in the dungeon hold coins, but I only get to keep them if I successfully complete the dungeon. And instead of traditional experience points, character progression is handled entirely by collecting new cards for each hero.

There’s also an element of chance in the game, as setting off traps requires me to open the skull on the side of the board. There’s a fifty-fifty chance that I’ll take damage. I don’t mind games that include randomness, but most of the time I couldn’t actually avoid the traps, which made the whole feature feel more gimmicky than strategic.

Maybe this game master didn’t really want to play the game after all.

Overlooking the board is the game master, and it’s clear that he’s the one setting up the traps and dangers throughout the dungeon. This is also where one of my biggest contentions with the game comes in. The story revolves around an evil wizard who is turning humans into monsters, while another wizard summons the heroes to stop him.

The problem is that this “good” wizard is also the one acting as the game master, meaning he’s the one actively trying to stop me on the board. That disconnect didn’t make much sense to me, and it ended up feeling a lot like my first D&D adventure. Maybe this game master didn’t really want to play the game after all.

I don’t mind grinding in games, but feeling that kind of progression pain this early wasn’t fun, it was frustrating.

My other big issue with the game is just how punishing it is and it doesn’t feel balanced at all. After the first few levels, my heroes are suddenly taking on a horde of zombie chickens, which seem like they should be a pushover. They are not. As I mentioned earlier, progression is tied to purchasing new cards, so I found myself going back to earlier levels and grinding for gold just to stay competitive.

I don’t mind grinding in games, but feeling that kind of progression pain this early wasn’t fun, it was frustrating.

The game does offer difficulty sliders, and one of them lets me increase my heroes’ health. On paper, that sounds helpful, but in practice, the system feels completely broken. When I increased my health, the enemies also started doing significantly more damage. For example, before the health increase, a lower-level enemy only did one point of damage. After I adjusted the slider, that same enemy was suddenly doing six times that amount, completely offsetting any advantage I gained.

This feels like the kind of issue that should have been caught during testing, and it only made my experience with the game worse.

Final Grade: D+

I really wanted to like Dark Quest 4, but it felt far too punishing for me to recommend to fans of tactical games or board games like HeroQuest. The progression feels grindy, and that grind sets in far too early to get much enjoyment out of the experience. Even the difficulty sliders, which should help ease that frustration, feel broken. Any adjustment I made was immediately offset by the game increasing how much damage enemies deal. Hopefully, if there is a Dark Quest 5, it can learn from these issues and come back as the game I really wanted this one to be.

Review key provided by Press Engine