Posted May 16, 2021
Just beat Darksiders Genesis on PS4. I actually bought this one in order to play it with my wife in coop, alas, the local multiplayer is in split screen only (unlike, say, Diablo III) and you can't see shit and things get so chaotic then, that even I had trouble making sense and navigation was quite awkward. So after the first level I continued solo.
It's all in all an okay game. It's basically a Diablo style ARPG spin-off. It's light on the RPG mechanics but in return we get more advanced combat mechanics, platforming and puzzles much like in the main series. Sadly many of those things didn't transition well into an isometric perspective. IMO the melee combat requires too much precision for an isometric game where you get swarmed by dozens of small enemies at a time whereas ranged combat, which plays just like a twin-stick shooter, is too darn easy. And the perspective really also isn't suitable for platforming at all.
That said, the game feels nice. Combat has for the most part as much oomph as in the main series, there's a ton of particles and flashes everywhere and the game delivers some really beautiful sights. And the soundtrack is one of the best I've heard in years. And even though this one's story is a bit bland, dialogue between characters like War, Samael and Vulgrim is just a joy to listen to.
However, the game lacks a ton of polish. There are many minor fuckups in the animations and controls and your character will get stuck in a pose and just not cast an ability or attack. Character movement is glitchy, which can become really frustrating during platforming. And the design of some of the puzzles is utter garbage. I actually looked up YouTube videos for some of those and funnily many players never solved them correctly, they just used glitches and other exploits to reach the reward without actually solving the terrible puzzle.
Finally there's the matter of the story and writing. This is a prequel and I generally don't like those. But this is pretty much the worst kind of prequel: the kind that only answers questions that nobody who played the earlier games even asked and which doesn't really contribute to the main series' story. Also, Genesis introduced the last of the four horsemen, Strife, and I loathe that character. Super laid-back, always wisecracking, not giving a damn about his duty and so on. And visually he's a poor man's Masterchief. And what kind of horseman is "strife" anyway? If they make up new horsemen of the apocalpyse do they really have to use synonyms for ones they already have?
Anyway, all in all I still really enjoyed the game and poured many more hours into it than I had to. I just wish it were more polished and they had made a few different decisions with the writing.
It's all in all an okay game. It's basically a Diablo style ARPG spin-off. It's light on the RPG mechanics but in return we get more advanced combat mechanics, platforming and puzzles much like in the main series. Sadly many of those things didn't transition well into an isometric perspective. IMO the melee combat requires too much precision for an isometric game where you get swarmed by dozens of small enemies at a time whereas ranged combat, which plays just like a twin-stick shooter, is too darn easy. And the perspective really also isn't suitable for platforming at all.
That said, the game feels nice. Combat has for the most part as much oomph as in the main series, there's a ton of particles and flashes everywhere and the game delivers some really beautiful sights. And the soundtrack is one of the best I've heard in years. And even though this one's story is a bit bland, dialogue between characters like War, Samael and Vulgrim is just a joy to listen to.
However, the game lacks a ton of polish. There are many minor fuckups in the animations and controls and your character will get stuck in a pose and just not cast an ability or attack. Character movement is glitchy, which can become really frustrating during platforming. And the design of some of the puzzles is utter garbage. I actually looked up YouTube videos for some of those and funnily many players never solved them correctly, they just used glitches and other exploits to reach the reward without actually solving the terrible puzzle.
Finally there's the matter of the story and writing. This is a prequel and I generally don't like those. But this is pretty much the worst kind of prequel: the kind that only answers questions that nobody who played the earlier games even asked and which doesn't really contribute to the main series' story. Also, Genesis introduced the last of the four horsemen, Strife, and I loathe that character. Super laid-back, always wisecracking, not giving a damn about his duty and so on. And visually he's a poor man's Masterchief. And what kind of horseman is "strife" anyway? If they make up new horsemen of the apocalpyse do they really have to use synonyms for ones they already have?
Anyway, all in all I still really enjoyed the game and poured many more hours into it than I had to. I just wish it were more polished and they had made a few different decisions with the writing.
Post edited May 16, 2021 by F4LL0UT