Darksiders III

As other people have said it borrow heavily from dark souls but if you are fan of that it (imo) has nailed a good combination of souls-like in a darksiders setting. Of course if you are not into that there is the "classic" mode they added. But yeah nothing really bad to say about it. I enjoyed the story and the whole game.

As a fan of the series, this entry has left me sorely disappointed. Let's break it down: Visually the game sticks to the established style, meaning that it looks good, but not great. Some lousy visual effects (like the use of screendoor transparency) and familiar Unreal Engine problems like texture pop-ins and occasionally shoddy performance are a huge letdown. Environments lack variety and creativity. Exploration is gone, what we get instead are linear dungeons which loop back after completion and are filled with enemy encounters and the occassional token puzzle. In terms of core gameplay we get a stripped-down version of earlier games. Souls not only act as currency, but also serve to level up your character. Weapon enhancements can be upgraded in different ways, encouraging different playstyles. Platforming has been removed almost entirely, but very late into the game there are hints of potential where the player has to combine the acquired abilities. Combat plays the main role now and feels good at first. Fury's whip and side weapons feel crunchy and there is an emphasize in dodging and countering. In fact it works very well in 1on1 encounters, but fights with more than 2 enemies or ranged enemies become a mess. The ridiculously high damage output of the enemies gives little room for mistakes, making enemy crowds particularly dangerous. Oftentimes you get hit off-screen due to the dodgy camera, leading to your untimely demise. Invincibility frames are nearly non-existant resulting in unfair hits during dodge or counter attack animations. Small tweaks to the combat system would a have gone a long way here. Don't play this game for the story. Not only is the narrative paper-thin and predictable, the writers take the Darksiders mythos into an infuriantingly boring direction. Verdict: Deeply flawed, frustrating and at times lazily slapped together. It's obvious that Darksiders 3 was developed on a shoestring budget. Rare pockets of fun keep this from being a 1/5.

I've played all Darksiders games and this one is up to the task. None matches the first one, I've missed a bit of the brutality of the first one, the deadly finishes, but it's a good game. The game it's more difficult than the previous ones, at least at the beggining, you have to farm to get souls and level up, I have to say I cheated to avoid this. One think I dislike it's the lack of map, though I have to say they did a nice job marking where you have to go, I rather also have a map.

Figured I'd throw in my review because it's one of the games I enjoyed the most this year. As many positive reviews has pointed out, there are way too many inaccurate negative reviews that pull down the average rating. To avoid spoilers, and to keep things simple, here's a breakdown of how I (and I feel like, most) people experienced the game: Graphics: 10/10. It has the same type of artstyle and it looks great! At best you might have some floating box somewhere, nothing that gets in the way or ruins the game experience. Gameplay: 10/10. Some people call it a "cheap/failed Dark Souls", I think it nailed the concept. Why? Because Dark Souls has too many layers of complexity added for many players, variations that ultimately aren't needed. This game avoids that and keeps things focused on gameplay rather than the risk of levelling up in a way that destroys your experience later on by making bosses impossible. No need for guidance to actually do well! Also, both first and second installments had different approaches overall. So does this one. This one, due to its approach in gameplay, made me feel more like a Horseman as you felt more powerful killing the difficult enemies in the game, versus just crushing everything too easily sometimes in the other games. Difficulty adds sense of power! Difficulty: 8/10. I love a challenge, so difficulty was a great plus to me. I'm giving it 8 though as even on normal difficulty, it took time to get used to the dodging and how enemies acted. For someone less apt at games of this style, it can be too much even at easier difficulties. Difficulties were great, just needs a better "casual" mode. Story: 10/10. Character development was great, Fury was just as badass as Death and War, story held same type of feeling as the previous games and was told really well. If you liked the previous two games, you'll like this one too! All in all, 5/5 and with likely upcoming patches like the first one already out, will polish it up. Great buy!

Much like the other Darksiders games this game mimics the gameplay of other popular 3D titles of its day. Although I've never played any of the Souls games it seems reminiscent in its mechanics of respawning at checkpoints and having to fight your way back to your currency that you dropped upon death. Personally I think this added to the frustration of the game, but some people may like it due to the added difficulty. I found the character design stellar and very well thought out. I constantly found my expectations being defied to delightful surprise. The story is great as well. They very much compliment each other as they ought to. Characters grow, learn, and change. Gameplay is good, the controls are tight and dodging feels good. The game is incredibly difficult when you start it, even on a relatively easy difficulty but it gets better once you start to get better at the game. Puzzles are fun and not impossible to solve, although two puzzles late in the game were a bit aggravating. My only criticism is that the swinging mechanic was a bit unintuitive even though in game text described how to do it, it took me several tries to figure out what I had to do. Additionally there's a run button (left-stick click on an XBox 360 controller) that is required for a few puzzles that was never referred to in game that I could recall. Perhaps very early on. 1.0 was very buggy, and caused multiple crashes. Updating my drivers helped, but really 1.1 made the game much more stable. Still it crashed after a difficult boss fight and forced me to do the thing all over again. All in all I think the game is worth it, especially when all the bugs are ironed out. Good work THQ Nordic for reviving the series and giving us fans the hope that we'll see all 4 horsemen.