Darksiders Genesis

If you are someone like me who was letdown by the previous Darksiders game, then this is absolutely for you. While Darksiders 3 had a relatively stagnant plot and didn’t offer much to the existing mythology – Genesis not only expands the universe and offers a closer look into the insights of War and the unknown fourth Horseman Strife, it also gives a greater context to the plot of the first game.

I had my misgivings about this game when I watched videos about it. I really like the lore and art style of all the games, it's been amazingly consistent. But I wasn't sure I was gonna like this particular perspective. I thought it would greatly change the feel of the games. I'm happy to report I was completely wrong. This feels like a Darksiders game completely through. There are level puzzles, backtracking, lots of extras to find around the world, a great battle arena that is a lot of fun and challenging as well. The voice acting is good. The story overall is on par with other Darksiders games, so if you like the others you will probably like this and if you didn't, nothing will have changed that. My one complaint is the script for Strife. He just feels so different than the other Horsemen. Even the tempo at which he talks is vastly different from the other three Horsemen. I don't doubt the voice actor did a great job on the performance, the issue is likely in how his dialog was directed. He is very flippant and joking in many ways and it just feels out of place. I almost think this was a requirement, however. If you were to have two characters that were similarly dour it would probably make for boring interactions. And in this story most of the dialog takes place between War and Strife so there is a performative need to play off each other rather than two silent protagonists just walking around killing things together. War and Stife play very differently. I almost wish I had a partner to play the game with so we could each just rely on playing our individual characters. I played mostly as Strife since he was the newest Horsemen to play as and he is very different from the others in his gameplay style. But when I played as War, it essentially played like Darksiders 1, it was really quite stunning how they were able to keep that feel even though the camera and perspective were vastly different. If you like Darksiders, this is a must buy.

After the godawful Darksiders III, which I tried to play but found rather boring and stopped playing not even reaching the second boss, I hesitated in purchasing this one. Watched reviews and still wasn't convinced if I should buy it, mostly because of the new camera and gameplay style. Eventually I bought it and boy, I'm glad I did it. Yes, the camera is different and yes, sometimes you don't see enemies behind scenery, but this can be easily fixed and I'm sure the devs will fix it. They just need our feedback on this rather than stupid complaining. Platforming isn't that hard, I have no difficulties whatsoever. You just need to time the jumps and know in which direction to jump. That's all. By the way, I'm playing it with a Xbox controller and find it very fun to play that way. The game runs solid at 60 fps on a GTX 970 and Intel Xeon E3 all on Ultra settings, no crashes or game breaking bugs. There are little clipping issues, but nothing game breaking. The map is helpful but the missing mark of your current location makes it a little bit difficult to navigate, but again, I think this will be fixed. I like the graphics style and the drawn cutscenes look cool and somehow fit into that overall picture. Already finished levels can be revisited which adds to the longevity of the game, at least for me, as I like to explore every nook and cranny of a level. IMHO, don't listen to the people who complain that DS G isn't a Diablo clone, it isn't and it never wanted to be that. It's just plain action and fun in the Darksiders universe. If unsure, wait for a sale, but give it a chance. I did it and do not regret.

If you are a Darksiders fan and/or were let down by Darksiders III, you owe yourself a go at Darksiders Genesis, despite the top down pseudo-isometric camera perspective. Don't be fooled by the naysayers and the fear-mongers out there, this game is NOT a Diablo-clone looter hack-n-slash, this is an action-adventure through and through. You traverse awesomely designed levels, you unlock abilities, you get a (shared) skill tree that you can build to your liking using dropped creature cores, you can replay early levels for completion with every new ability and power level you unlock, all packed into a neat little product that looks and sounds great -- especially considering Airship Syndicate were given an even smaller budget to work with than Gunfire Games did, when developing Darksiders III --, with artwork done, supervised and directed by the man himself, Joe "Mad" Madureira. If this is the way Darksiders is going to be, moving forward, I'm absolutely fine with it (don't worry, though, they'll probably go back to an over the shoulder freeflow camera when they go back to the main series titles). At the time of this review, the game does have some issues, none of them serious or gamebreaking, and I'm pretty sure the devs are working on fixes and patches as I type this, so, if you're on the fence or plan to buy the game down the line, I'm positive you'll be getting a version that has addressed and fixed whatever few issues it has. While it surely isn't a game for everyone (no game is), it's a good return to form in a series some of us love and kind of got lost with Darksiders III trying too hard to be a Soulslike and, ironically, kind of losing the series' soul along the way, so I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone who is a fan of the series or a fan of action-adventures who isn't put off by the top down perspective.

Darksidres Genesis is a good game, with everything that i love from previous Darksiders games. The story is simple but good. The world is fascinating and offer great exlporation, with a tons of secrets and ambiental puzzles to solve, like the previous Darksiders games. Combat is fun and switching with 2 different knights of the apocalypse, War and Strife, is good and feel like two different game in style (i hope that someday we can have a Darksiders with all the 4 knights). The progression and the RPG elements are compelling and we can create different build thanks to the creature cores system. The only big problem is the controls. In this game we have a top down view instead of a classic third person view, but if you use mouse and keyboard the experience is "ok" but not very good, expecially with jumps. There are too many controls and sometimes simple action require too many buttons to click. The game suggest you to use a gamepad, but i think that, in a game where one of the main character use pistols as a weapon, using a mouse is better that using a gamepad (i have a gamepad, but i prefer mouse and keyboard in this game despite the game advise you to use the first). If a game allows you to use mouse and keyboard, i think that we can make a criticism if that kind of controls doesn't work well. Fortunately that doesn't make the game unplayable, but is annoying. Despite this problem the game is a great game and the only technical problem that i encounter is that sometime, when i start the game with GOG Galaxy, i have a warning that tell me "the game failed to star" (yeah star not start) and the game start, but with some noteble input-lag, so i need to restart the game. Score: 8/10