Through The Darkest Of Times is a historical turn-based strategy about a ragtag group of revolutionary/resistance group during the 30s(as the title). It gives the player an account of Hitler’s rise to power and all the misery it followed after it. I have to be frank with all of the readers about this game that it has a pretty strong political and social description of its time which are still very much relevant today. What makes the game even more important in current time is the overall tone it sets considering all the protests and demonstration taking place today in our country, hey all I am saying is if you are planning to start a political movement this title definitely gives you an insight on how such movements are funded, spread and succeed.
The game is developed by the German Studio Paint Bucket which for obvious reasons show the real and ugly face of the Nazi party not as a enemy NPC in a COD or Medal of Honor who can be stopped by bullet poisoning but rather as a ever-increasing and foreboding evil whose tentacles have infiltrated your neighbors and even many times your own team’s family members. I played the campaign or story mode of the game and boy I have to say the whole thing put the on the edge the whole time. The game requires us to plan and execute a given number of missions within a turn and that depends upon the number of party members you have like if you have four members you can go for a maximum of 4 missions at a time. This feels a bit restrictive and hampers an overall speed of your play but hey it seems logical considering those Nazi bastards are on your tail all the time. It has its own heat mechanism where a certain amount of notorious activities can send that party member to a Concentration camp.
The game is overall in monochromatic tint except for the difficulty indicators and the background score is also kind of gloomy resembling the mood of the era. The game it feels lacks a bit of element considering all you have to do is plan and click like if I have to bomb the Olympics(yes you can) you have to complete a lot of premeditated missions like collecting explosives or paint making it a bit of an ordeal. As the whole game ambience is kind of set against you one can always use items and contacts for making things easier and they make a difference such as players can use bicycle and local priest which would not have been helpful in real-world at all imagine using a bicycle and a priest against a bloody panzer driving propaganda spreading Gobbels.
The game gets deeper as you progress through the levels as your past decisions come back to haunt you in many different ways like if you let your snitch go without any repercussions their son may save you at one point of time. Yet the game feels like watching a movie whose end you already know (Hitler brings revolution in oven industry) still it is worth a playthrough if you identify yourself as an SJW or think your regime is one fascist and if you are one, then kudos because for some weird reason the game has a lot Hitler’s birthdays. All in all the game lives up to its title showing close the world was towards a dystopian world order and it captures an era showing how masses putting a lot of trust in its political leaders end up hurting themselves. I will give it a rating of 6/10 making it an overall average experience.