CONQUEST DARK
- Hubert Spala
- 5 days ago
- 5 min read
When I was a lad, I stumbled upon works of Robert E. Howard, the one and only Conan the Barbarian. It was a potent seed for my enjoyment of fantasy, of sword and sorcery, and all the imagery that comes with it. It is impossible to deny the impact it had on pop culture, as the mighty barbarian hero left its imprint on too many works to count. Legendary art from Frank Frazetta, countless inspirations across the media far and wide, the image of a rugged, brutal warrior set in a savage world, stuck with me forever, burned into my brain. It is easy to say that the primordial simplicity of it, by now, is way overplayed. Completely used up. Done to death. But heck, everything has its revival and a chance to shine again. Old becomes new in an endless cycle of rebirth!
CONQUEST DARK takes me back to that world, in all its daring simplicity. Ruins of a once great civilization. Ancient Darkness is taking over. Undead rising in vast legions over a ravaged landscape. And then, there's you - Fated One. A hero who rises to stand against the tidal wave of evil with the might of sword and sorcery by your side. There is no moral ambiguity, no great dilemmas. There are zombies, skeletons, and cultists of malignant powers that need to be put down - straight into the ground. To do so, you'll need help! In the form of mighty artifacts, weapons, and factions of like-minded adventurers to aid you in your quest.
Okay, okay, enough waxing lyrical. CONQUEST DARK is a survivor-like game, like many, many others populating the market. This quickly becomes a genre in which over-saturation becomes a real threat. It feels like there's a new one popping out every other day! To stand out from the throng, you need to do something different, something new. Or, at the very least, have a tight concept working like a well-oiled machine and a unique presentation. In case of this title, the developer clearly decided to delve deeper into the ancient RPG elements and bring them back in force to form the core of the game progression.
It's nostalgic, in the best way.
A classic hack and slash set in a sword and sorcery world, where your power doesn't simply come from layering skills and passives, but from tangible growth via items and quests. It is much less abstract than in other games of the genre, much more grounded. As you explore the wasteland, you encounter rituals that you must put an end to with a generous application of fantasy violence. As you battle hordes of vile creatures, they will drop items - pieces of armour, gauntlets, boots - which grant you various stat boosts. As well as come in sets to further empower your chosen playstyle. Your avatar, the Fated One, isn't a singular being - each run you pick a new hero who starts butt-nude with their fist at the ready, and quickly scavenge the gear needed to tackle the hordes of undead.
But that's just a tiny bit of how you can grow in power. You have a vast selection of weapons, a solid few classes, and specializations to master. Toss in a plethora of spells and abilities - each and every one upgradeable in your Stygian Archives. Add many unlockable runes that you can also empower. Legendary Artifacts. New races to mix things up. And you get a very rich concoction that keeps feeding you unlock hours into the experience. It is a very fat offering when it comes to progression, one of the richest I've ever seen in the genre so far. With so many weapons, runes, and skills to level up, you can play for dozens upon dozens of hours and still have goals to achieve, things to unlock, to grind towards. Add to that factions, which offer unlocks as you play certain classes. Obelisks that offer additional challenge and difficulty level to ramp up your gains in spendable resources. Arena to check out your crazy builds. And a unique level - Pale Desolation - where you can wander the place more freely, fighting more and more challenging bosses and waves indefinitely to work for rarer resources. Phew... As I said. Fat. Rich. Robust.
The greatest feat of CONQUEST DARK, however, lies in its confidence to grant player control. Normally, in games like this, the cold touch of RNG would be well felt, trying its best to ruin your fun, putting obstacles in your path to glory. None of that here! The game is rather generous with rerolls, especially at stage start, giving you ample choices of your class, specialization, and starting weapon. This is a superb way to grant players agency in what kind of build they wish to try out each run as well as makes the rewards instantly tangible. For example... You just spent hundreds of soul coins to upgrade a particular weapon to the max and want to take it for a spin? Worry not, RNG is not going to muck about, and it is more than likely that you'll be able to get your hands on said weapon in your fresh run to try it out.
This translates to the entire journey. You never feel the sting of randomness, and always feel in control. It might be because of the extremely tight design on display - no option feels weak, no tool lacklustre. Abilities are fun and impactful. Runes are powerful and, when used well, can make some proper cracked builds. Items always have at least one stat bonus you covet on your build. And as the game progresses, you unlock new rarities to said items, and capabilities to equip even more runes on your stuff, greatly expanding build variety once again. And so the game blossoms, even hours in, growing ever bigger. Offering an expanding set of toys for you to tinker with.
Considering this is all the work of a single dedicated developer is nothing short of astonishing. The sheer amount of content would ensure a hearty round of applause, but being able to also balance it well, so everything feels good and fun to play with... That's nigh miraculous. Great style and theme, tight gameplay, solid tunes to match the presentation, all that is a fine garnish to this generous meal. If you're a fan of the Survivor genre, this is a top-of-the-line example of it. And if you're not... You really can't go wrong starting with CONQUEST DARK to see how good games of that kind can be.
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