Through the Darkest of Times ends up being a a good learning tool, and in it there are a lot of issues that are discussed–many of which are hot button topics today. If you can’t stand the difficulty, or would rather play Through the Darkest of Times for its story, you can eschew the challenging normal difficulty for its story mode. Throughout the entire game you and your resistance members have the constant threat of arrest, imprisonment, etc., and the margin for error can be razor thin. Of course, you have to make sure you weren’t seen buying the paint, or you might get a visit from the Brown Shirts. If you need to paint signs, for example, you need to buy paint. You can send your team in with additional help, and items that would make the task possible. There is also a separate indicator of risk, meaning that even if you have a high chance of succeeding at your task, you still can still suffer the associated consequences of that action. The success of any given assignment you send someone on is based on a percentage, which is influenced by several factors and determined by a random number generator. Not all of the odds are stacked against you in Through the Darkest of Times. Eventually though, they’ll be tagging buildings, planting explosives and more as the story escalates and Nazism takes hold. To start with you’ll have your resistance handing out propaganda, recruiting members, and even unwinding at clubs for morale. Each of your characters, in addition to their story backgrounds, has different strengths and weaknesses that may make it easier or harder to perform any given task. The strategy aspect of Through the Darkest of Times comes in when you choose where to send a specific character. But there is also rich story background for the characters you recruit, and through gameplay you might even find out personal information about that will endear them to you-or even make you despise them. The story is surprisingly rich, and deep. Sometimes they can be helpful, but other times they can get you and your group into trouble. Each of your crew has their own personalities, and even backstories to explore and interact with. While the resistance as a whole is represented by numbers, your resistance group is the small group of people who will be doing a lot of the grunt work-including your player character. The same goes for members of your resistance. Most of the choices you make in regards to the story, as I’ve mentioned, will be through text interactions. You have the opportunity to be defiant, and even step in to help in some cases-to your potential detriment. You are helpless as you watch Germany turn into a fascist state, and anti-Semitism finds its way to the streets in bloody display. This isn’t a perspective that I’m used to, and it’s not a very comfortable one. Genre discussion aside, Through the Darkest of Times is a representation of some of the darkest times leading up to World War II, where you play as part of a political resistance trying to subvert the Nazis’ inevitable rise. While it uses its different parts well, it can feel a bit complicated and maybe even a little bloated compared to a game like Papers, Please! Dialogue is an extremely important aspect too, since what you say or what you decide to do via text prompts can have significant effects on the outcome of any given encounter. Building morale and gaining supporters as you weigh risk versus reward makes part of the game feel like a resource management sim, but a lot of the interactions with the game are through text prompts that almost border on visual novel, or adventure game. Through the Darkest of Times is a strategy game with some sprinklings of adventure and resource management genres whose mix of genres make the whole experience feel a bit eclectic. But games intimately depicted from the viewpoint of a person or group of people who are historically on the losing side of a conflict have been more common lately with the advent of games like This War of Mine, Warsaw, and Papers, Please! When history is depicted, it’s more often through grand strategy war games-and you can often change the outcome. It used to be unusual to have glimpses of important historical events depicted in video games.
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