Another action game was released to coincide with the release of Bayonetta. This one feels like part Devil May Cry, part God of War (but done properly) and part Zelda

Does the mix work well? Is it a fun game in the end?

Read on and see!

Developer: Vigil Games
Publisher: THQ
Date of Release: January 5th 2010

Platforms: Playstation 3, Xbox 360

Genre: Action-Adventure
Players: 1
Rated M for Mature

Looks and sounds
The graphic style is quite interesting, After the first (awesome-looking) cinematic, the game takes on a slight cartoonish semi-realistic supernatural look. And I really like it. There’s a large variety of areas, such as deserts, medieval castles, demon-ish realms, ice covered cathedrals, areas with tons of spider webs… There’s a nice variety of areas. The character designs are not too bad. Angels look like badass winged warriors, demons look great, enemy design ranges from meh to pretty cool. War’s design is a bit more on the meh side. He looks kinda cool, but I’m not a big fan of big floppy arms. Otherwise though I have no big problem with his overall look.

Sound-wise… Well, the music isn’t memorable, but it’s not too bad. The sounds are fine, nothing surprising and nothing out of place. The voice acting is good. Really nothing more to say about the game’s sound. It’s adequate, but nothing more.

Story
You play as War, one of the four horseman of the apocalypse. You arrive on Earth (seemingly New York) as demon’s and angels are raining down, causing destruction on the planet. You’re the only horseman there too, without a horse.  In the end of that segment, you fight a powerful demon and you lose. You then appear at some kind of tribunal. Instead of being sentenced to death, War says he’d go back to Earth and kill the Destroyer, or die trying. He gets back to Earth, but around 100 years later when all of humanity is dead. He is accompanied by the Watcher, who is there to make sure War does what he’s supposed to. He makes a deal with a demon, Samael, and goes to find the heart of Chosen demons to give to him, to eventually gain access to the tower where the Destroyer lives, where you’ll fight the Destroyer.

There’s a bit more to it, and some interesting ideas are used here, but that’s the gist of it. The characters aren’t very interesting, War sorta lacks personality, but the story, overall, isn’t too bad. Or at least good enough for you to want to get to the end.

Gameplay
The gameplay, as I said before, takes elements from Devil May Cry and Zelda mainly, but a few things from God of War(but handling them a lot better than God of War), and a little bit of Gears of War. I’ll just say this: It’s not a bad thing for a game to take multiple gameplay elements from multiple good games.

What it takes from Zelda
The basic gameplay progression is basically Zelda. You find an item/ability, you get to a dungeon, find another item/ability there, kill the boss, use your new item/ability to get to the next dungeon, rinse and repeat. The dungeons work basically like Zelda dungeons as well. You go in different rooms, each room either gives you a fight or a puzzle, or a bit of both. Or you have to find keys to open doors, or use certain items and set them at certain places to open doors, things like that. The puzzles are always very simple. The 2 places in the game that gave me trouble had very simple solutions, I just didn’t see certain details in the rooms that would have made it really easy. The boss battles also have that Zelda feel to them. Most require to use bombs or other items you picked through the dungeon to get to the boss’ weak point.

It does have quite a bit of that Zelda feel to it. It doesn’t feel as good as Zelda, but it does get it pretty well nonetheless.

What it takes from Devil May Cry/God of War
The combat as a whole feels a lot like Devil May Cry, with a bit of God of War mixed in. You have a bunch of moves with your basic weapon, and you have sub-weapons you can use and switch between for more moves. Most moves can be used one after another for a lot of different combos. You have basic combos, but you have a bunch of special moves requiring holding a button or pressing in various directions. From what I’ve seen, you have no single move that can pretty much prevent you from ever getting hit like in God of War, and there’s good move variety, as well as a use for every move. The fighting is relatively satisfying. Also, like in Devil May Cry, you get a special more powerful form if you fill up a certain meter. Here it’s the Chaos form, which is a big fiery demon. Kinda like Devil Trigger, except for him he’s just bigger and stronger, but not faster.

One thing the game takes from God of War is those stupid instant-kill moves. Every enemy that isn’t a boss has this. When their health gets low enough, you can get close to the and press Circle (or B), and you’ll instantly kill the enemy. One thing that’s good here is that once you press Circle (or B), you see the cool death animation and that’s it. Unlike God of War where you have to do a stupid QTE, here you just look at the animation. Big improvement, but I still think the mechanic is stupid. But it’s encouraged to use because enemies release different kinds of souls depending on if you kill them with the instant-kill or just by killing them normally. Normal kills pretty much always just gives normal souls, while instant-kills will also give Wrath and Health souls. Oh, and some enemies don’t require lowering their health for instant-kill, some can be instant-kill right away.

Overall the combat isn’t nearly as satisfying as Devil May Cry, but it’s a lot better done than in God of War. And it is satisfying in its own right. A bit on the easy side compared to DMC/Bayonetta, but it does present some challenges.

Killing enemies gives souls. Souls are used in Vulgrim’s store to buy stuff. Healing items, Chaos-refilling items, wrath-regenerating items, new moves for your sword and subweapons, leveling up moves for them, magic spells (which can also be upgraded), stuff like that. Vulgrim’s store can also be used to teleport from area to area, which is especially useful when you need to backtrack(and you need to backtrack after every dungeon to bring back the heart you just got to Samael). My only problem with this is that, when you chose your destination, you have to walk through weird areas with floating stairs and such, get to a portal, and then you reach your location… Why? Why not just teleport me straight to the area I chose?

Other things
In battle, you also get access to a variety of Chaos abilities (magic spells). The most useful one to me is Blade Geyser, which basically kills or heavily damages everything around you in a short radius. You use that by pressing L1 and then pressing the corresponding button for the spell you want to use. You can also set items there instead of spells.

Certain enemies drop guns you can use (and thrust me, when they drop a gun, take it, you’ll need it). When you pick it up, the game basically controls like Gears of War, but the controls aren’t as smooth.

I also have a problem with the dodging. For some reason it doesn’t feel very smooth. And sometimes War will charge straight for an enemy instead of dodging to the right or left like I wanted him to. It’s not as annoying as in God of War, since the dodging is a bit more proper on the R1 button instead of the right analog stick. But it wouldn’t hurt for War to dodge in the direction you want at al times instead of occasionally charging straight in an enemy’s attack.

Also, the camera is okay on big open fields, but if you’re anywhere near walls, it’s incredibly bad. Getting stuck between a big enemy and a wall is the worst possible situation. Developers have been making 3D games on consoles for at least 14 years now, why can’t anyone program a camera properly?

Overall
I think I pretty much covered everything that needs to be covered.

Darksiders is a very fun game. It might not be as interesting as Zelda, or as satisfying as Devil May Cry, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad at all. It has a nice take of the Zelda gameplay flow, and the combat is in a nice line between DMC and God of War. A bit easier than both of those, but at least more interesting than God of War.

I think Darksiders is a game everyone should at least rent to see if it’s their cup of tea.

Pros and Cons
Pros
- Combat isn’t too bad.
- The puzzle-solving is pretty good.
- Story and setting are fairly interesting.
- The challenge is okay. Not really hard, but not too easy either.
- Lots of exploration so lots of things to find.

Cons
- Characters aren’t interesting.
- The overall gameplay is basically downplayed from other games.
- A lot of frame-rate drops in the game (I played the PS3 version). It barely ever happens in battle, but while exploring it happens frequently… a bit strange.
- The camera is terrible.

The Save Factor
With a current starting price of $60, I say it’s not worth paying more than $35-$40 for it. Not a bad game, and one I think everyone should at least check it out, but the full price is asking a bit much for me.

jobocan Console, Games, Review, ps3, xbox 360