Given the fact that the eShop feels like it’s practically swimming in roguelike deckbuilders anymore, there’s no question that figuring out how to distinguish yourself from the competition is a key concern in the space. The challenge is that aside from there being quite a lot of them, many of them are actually quite engaging and well-made. The opportunity is that while that may be true, the bulk of them have quite a lot in common, whether in terms of their interfaces, or their general flow of play, so breaking from that mold could give you a leg up on success. Unfortunately, for Dark Quest 4, the bulk of what didn’t completely work for it in Dark Quest 3 has been retained, and what changes have been made do little to improve its lot in this competitive space.

On the positive side, if you’ve been yearning for a more tabletop, pen-and-paper sort of experience, this does deliver that at least. With the grid each area breaks down to, the hero and enemy “pieces”, and the fact that elements like traps are present, you can sort of feel the classic format in things. That the game will then consider the attributes of the character tripping the given trap, and then essentially perform a roll to determine whether they’re safe or not, completes that sort of experience. That you’ll get to choose from a pretty decent variety of classes to form your party, mixing melee fighters, ranged, magic users, and more also adds to that sort of feel.

The issue is more in the mix of how the action tends to play out and some of the unusual choices made with the user interface once you’ve engaged in a combat situation. Given the number of tactical strategy RPGs that I’ve played in the last generation, I’ve seen a variety of ways combat can play out. To the game’s credit its methods feel pretty distinct but I can’t say they’re an improvement. Once you’re locked in, and the order of things has been set, you don’t end up having very many options at your disposal. Granted, with time you can unlock new skills independently for each class member you have, but since that’s a slow process in the beginning you can really only try to position the best you can in advance and then attack, hoping for the best. Intricately positioning your characters and setting them up for success while in combat tends to be costly, so for the most part it feels like you’re left to perform the equivalent of spraying and praying, and that’s not satisfying. 

Worse, I dislike your cards being partially shown at the bottom of the screen and needing to toggle them in and out of view since it just slows down making use of them in general. A lack of indicators for attack ranges and things like that can also be frustrating, especially when dealing with eagle-eyed ranged enemies. All in all the elements of a decent game are here, it’s just hard to feel a sense of satisfaction in the playing, and very quickly my mind jumped to some other titles in the space I’d simply much rather spend my play time on than this.