Darksiders III Deluxe Edition

Love this series, but this game isn't without its flaws... - Mouse sensitivity. Does UE4 only expose a 1-10 option? C'mon, developers - I'm sick of games not allowing for enough mouse sensitivity. A 10 takes me 2 swipes to do a 180 - that's just friggin unacceptable. And my Windows mouse sensitivity is already high. Developer hint: Go nuts - give us a 1-100 option. Make 100 circle the Earth 7 1/2 times a second fast. - Creature sounds when there are no creatures around...especially annoying with the mouse sensitivity mentioned above. - The camera is too tight without an option to affect it at all (except for the UE4 setting that takes the camera too far out, with a fisheye lens). - No map. I know this was a conscious design choice to remove the map, and it was the wrong one. Along with the new combat (which you can revert), the developers removed the map - they are trying to be Dark Souls here. Some gamers might want to explore every nook and cranny, but if you don't give me a map where I can see where I have slash have not been, I'm not doing that. Look at the Ori games - you get an option to see everything on the map, and that enticed me 100% both games! And a map where I can flag, say, here's a purple spot - come back later. I rarely spend more than 2 weeks with a game before moving on to the next - no map means I spend less time in your game. I thought Darksiders 1 (Warmastered Edition) was the game I wanted Dark Souls 1 (remastered) to be. I wanted to give this game a 5, as I really enjoy this series, but, because of the above, I can only go 4. I did really enjoy it - and if the mouse sensitivity weren't broken, I would have given it a 5, as it is another excellent DS game.

I got this game pretty long after release, specifically when the last DLC was released. So I didn't experience the early bugs (heard there was a lot of them). But in its current state, there were very little issues. The BAD: 1) Occasional crash here and there. I got 4 in my 30+ hours of playtime (usually at loading screens). Annoying, especially if you lose progress because of it but I don't think I've played a game that hasn't crashed on me at least once. So nothing major. 2) Frame rate issues. The cutscenes are locked to 30 FPS while the rest of the game can have unlocked FPS. This causes an ugly transition from very smooth to jarringly choppy whenever a cutscene starts. If another game is made (and I hope it is), then not locking them to 30 FPS would be great. During the game, there are some locations, which will tank the FPS even on the beefiest systems. A better optimization would help. The GOOD: 1) Satisfying combat. Played with the original setting and it was great. It is difficult but not unfair as a lot of people claim. As you play more and get better at the game, learn enemy attacks and sequences, get better at timing dodges, weaving combos and finding the optimal strategies for each enemy, you will be able to defeat almost anyone, getting hit only rarely. My first playthrough was on Apocalyptic difficulty and it felt great. Currently running New Game+ on Reckoning (even higher difficulty added in a later patch) and I find it easier than my first playthrough thanks to what I learned. And getting those perfect dodges feels awesome. 2) The characters and story. Fury and the Sins (bosses) look great. Voice acting was surprisingly good too (especially Fury and Lord of the Hollows). Story was intriguing and seeing Fury evolve as a character was great. Definitely worth a playthrough even just for the story. I enjoyed this game more than DS2 (disliked the loot focus of it) and about the same as DS1. Let's hope it was successful enough for DS4 to happen.

The combat was excellent in this game. Playing on Classic mode this game felt more like Soulsvania mixed with Bayonetta than Dark Souls to me, because most combat is centered on the dodging mechanic which, instead of slowing down time for a while like in Bayonetta, will allow you to do a counterattack which does arcane damage. This requires you to learn the movesets of every enemy, including the trash mobs, which on harder difficulties can make short work of your health bar, so you can time your dodges right. The level design is very much Metroidvania, you get upgrades called the Hollows which unlock new paths you can take so there'll be the usual backtracking once you get all the Hollows if you want to find all the secrets. I played on Reckoning and had a lot fun! Nevertheless there were some issues with the camera and movement - like if you fight multiple enemies and some of them are off screen, your only indicator is a dinky little arrow which doesn't tell you much when you have to time the dodges with split-second timing. Especially because Fury can't cover too much ground while many of the enemies' attacks can close the gap faster than you can say "F*ck!". This was frustrating on Reckoning and made me sometimes cheese the game by pulling enemies one by one. There were also some performance issues. I have a GTX 3060 and I was met with frequent fps drops to the mid-40s, three crashes and I also encountered this odd bug that locked my fps to 30 until I restarted the game. Nevertheless I recommend this game if you like difficult, skill-based games. It's not a button masher like the previous two though, so don't expect that going in. Personally, I appreciate each entry in the Darksiders series switching things up and trying different gameplay styles. Here's hoping there'll be a Darksiders IV!

Well, I'll be damned, I wrote my review for this on the "standard" game page so I'll just post a rundown an expand on some things I couldn't say because of characters limit: Overall the game is good, it has an untasty flavor of "souls" that makes the first half of the game very difficult and frustrating, but the more you play the better you get at it and the last boss is a joke compared to a cluster of ramdom mobs in the crucible I only got 1 crash during my playthrough and an annoying bug where my axe was automatically changed to the mallet for some reason, other that it was a smooth sail The story is another "back story" and doesn't expand much on the story of the first game and only adds more factions to keep track of, and Fury as a character is very dilikeable during most of the game, I mean, if anyone has the right to be an entitled piece of shit is Death since he represents the end of all things (We really need to expand on the character limit and an "edit review" button around here)

First off the comparisons to Dark Souls aren't really accurate. The only mechanic brought over from the Souls series is the exp loss upon death which requires you to run back and collect your souls again. Other then that the game is just a Zelda-like with some lite DMC styled combat. One improvement over the Souls series is the dodge itself. In Souls you can just roll spam every boss to avoid getting hit whereas in Darksiders 3 you have a relatively small i-frame window when dodging which makes the act more enjoyable when you pull it off. Level design is nice with shortcuts to be unlocked as you progress and secret areas to be found when going off the beaten path. Fury herself is a surprisingly enjoyable character which is amazing given she was initially portrayed as yet another stronk wahmen trying to be masculine. A trope we’ve seen hundreds of times at this point thanks to rampant feminism in the industry. Her character becomes tolerable and later entertaining when she starts to show a softer side, developing human emotion, and later acting like an actual female. Aside from one particular boss fight with basically an instant kill attack I think all the bosses were well designed and memorable. The devs dropped the ball on the RPG elements they tried to incorporate though. There’s only three stats which amount to weapon damage, counter attack damage, and health. This means that there really isn’t any builds in the game and that you will most likely just level each one equally until the diminished return makes it not worth doing anymore. Lastly in regards to the DLC I enjoyed The Void which was several interconnected dungeons with some nice puzzles sprinkled in. The crucible was pretty bland though and is nothing but an arena where you fight your way through 100 waves for prizes. Overall though this was a very good game free of many flaws that modern games have such as micro-transactions and absurd amounts of left-wing propaganda. I’d recommend it.