2013.7: Darksiders

Completed on APOCALYPSE (Hard) in 14hrs:18mins

A pretty cool adventure game with nice puzzles that are not super complicated or have crazy logic but the fighting really lets it down here. It's just not satisfying and quite two dimensional and what's worse the game locks you in an area and throws mobs at you now and then. And after a while that gets really boring and tedious with the fighting system in the game. Especially near the end it does this with the hardest enemy combinations and I am not being mad, I only died once there but it was just so boring and really the design felt really lazy.

The equipments also have a flaw in that after you acquire it, they are needed but then just take a back seat. This means very rarely, if ever, do you have to think about your tools to solve a problem as they are bench warmers a few minutes after acquiring them. For example you get a chain hook and yes it is used in navigation throughout but spiders you pull the backs off with the chain hook just don't appear any more and they have a very set use. For example there comes an enemy with a shield so I thought "great I'll use my chain hook to rip the shield away" but I got a big fat 'nope' for my troubles. This makes acquiring items less exciting and their purpose being too focused takes away from the fun of owning them.

Similar lack of excitement happens with weapons. As you upgrade them by using them, you are kind of 'set to' using one and they power up so slow, like my main sword which I used pretty much exclusively and with the faster level up add-on, I still couldn't get to max level by the end of the game. This, plus the two dimensional combat makes these weapons feel pointless as there is no point to using anything but your sword. Not only that but I was OK to use two moves with my sword and get through the game with no trouble (and on of the two moves was the basic Square combo). Again, badly balanced move set. If I knew I wouldn't have wasted my points on getting move upgrades.

So yeah, the combat side of the game clearly lacking and to top it off, the upgrades, items and those kind of mechanics feel badly balanced or badly implemented.


I know I knocked it a lot here but that side of the game was my only complaint. The puzzling and adventuring side was pretty good, which is luckily the majority of the game. Solving puzzles felt fun and the game logic is straight enough that simple camera hints can lead you on your way without the game holding your hand.

The boss battles also improve the fighting system, in that there is usually something you have to figure out before you can damage the boss. This was a cool touch and very welcome to add much needed spice to the fighting.


The story wasn't that great but had a solid presentation. I really liked War's voice, it had a pretty cool feel to it.


So, a pretty well presented story and an action adventure game that gets the action part mostly wrong but gets the adventure part pretty well. I would like to give it more but the action/items/weapons part is just badly implemented and is too hindering to the overall experience for me so it gets a good;

6/10.

I am looking forward to getting on Darksiders II in the near future to see what they did with that.