Barrow Roll
Member
Every time I entered a Zelda thread in the past year on GAF there was always one game that inevitably came up: Darksiders.
No matter where I went, I couldn't escape it. "Best recent Zelda game" and things to that I effect I have read. I've had this game sitting int he backlog for a few months now and I felt compelled to finally give it a go.
I just recently finished it on the PS3 playing through Apocalyptic and did the whole Platinum trophy shebang.
I don't think it trumps Twilight Princess but Darksiders is a damn fine game, a great first game from Vigil Studios and definitely worthy of the average 8/10 it's been scoring (which I consider a really good score).
What can I say that hasn't already been said? It doesn't really bring any new ideas to the table and borrows heavily from other titles but it does so in a way that doesn't feel contrived or as if we've already tread this ground.
Here's what I loved:
-The length of the game. Good lord, a nearly 20 hour adventure in this day and age?! Fantastic!
-The dungeons and puzzles. As a 3D Zelda veteran, it felt right at home. Fairly decent brainteasers and few stumped me for a bit. I especially loved the Black Throne.
A shame there were only 4.
The good:
-The combat. I've never played God of War so comparisons were lost on me. That said, it was pretty good all in all. I got by using 2 main moves (Whirlwind combo and Harpoon Tackle) but despite that, the fluidity of it kept me engaged. Seamlessly transitioning from combos to finishers and dashing between groups of demons was a lot of fun. Not being locked into combos and being able to dash out at almost any time is great. And the Wrath abilities were pretty wicked too. Affliction is pretty amazing and War looks crazy cool with a maxed out Stoneskin. My only real beef is that blocking feels really unresponsive so you're better offing dashing to avoid attacks.
-The art style. I know War gets a bit of flak around here, but fuck it, he looks cool. And so does the rest of the cast. I especially liked Samael's inverted wings. The character designs pull off the "comic book come to life" look very well and the cartoony hyper violence works with it all.
-The voice-acting. Everyone kinda has the gruff and gravely sort of voice but it was still pretty decently acted. And Mark Hammil is pretty great as The Watcher.
The bad:
-Pacing in the opening act. It takes far too long to get to the first dungeon.
-The entire upgrade and currency system. You simply do not obtain enough souls to upgrade everything you'd want throughout the course of the game. You pretty much have to choose 1 or 2 Wrath powers and stick with it if you plan on upgrading them all the way and by the time you do, you can't really even use them.
-The final boss. He stinks. Nuff said. If there was at least 1 more awesome dungeon before the face-off then I could live with it.
There's probably a lot more I could mention in all 3 categories but I don't want this OP to be too bloated. Needless to say, I had a lot of fun with this game and Darksiders 2 is definitely on my radar now.
No matter where I went, I couldn't escape it. "Best recent Zelda game" and things to that I effect I have read. I've had this game sitting int he backlog for a few months now and I felt compelled to finally give it a go.
I just recently finished it on the PS3 playing through Apocalyptic and did the whole Platinum trophy shebang.
I don't think it trumps Twilight Princess but Darksiders is a damn fine game, a great first game from Vigil Studios and definitely worthy of the average 8/10 it's been scoring (which I consider a really good score).
What can I say that hasn't already been said? It doesn't really bring any new ideas to the table and borrows heavily from other titles but it does so in a way that doesn't feel contrived or as if we've already tread this ground.
Here's what I loved:
-The length of the game. Good lord, a nearly 20 hour adventure in this day and age?! Fantastic!
-The dungeons and puzzles. As a 3D Zelda veteran, it felt right at home. Fairly decent brainteasers and few stumped me for a bit. I especially loved the Black Throne.
Portal mixed with Zelda? Could have been a disaster but they pulled it off!
The good:
-The combat. I've never played God of War so comparisons were lost on me. That said, it was pretty good all in all. I got by using 2 main moves (Whirlwind combo and Harpoon Tackle) but despite that, the fluidity of it kept me engaged. Seamlessly transitioning from combos to finishers and dashing between groups of demons was a lot of fun. Not being locked into combos and being able to dash out at almost any time is great. And the Wrath abilities were pretty wicked too. Affliction is pretty amazing and War looks crazy cool with a maxed out Stoneskin. My only real beef is that blocking feels really unresponsive so you're better offing dashing to avoid attacks.
-The art style. I know War gets a bit of flak around here, but fuck it, he looks cool. And so does the rest of the cast. I especially liked Samael's inverted wings. The character designs pull off the "comic book come to life" look very well and the cartoony hyper violence works with it all.
-The voice-acting. Everyone kinda has the gruff and gravely sort of voice but it was still pretty decently acted. And Mark Hammil is pretty great as The Watcher.
The bad:
-Pacing in the opening act. It takes far too long to get to the first dungeon.
-The entire upgrade and currency system. You simply do not obtain enough souls to upgrade everything you'd want throughout the course of the game. You pretty much have to choose 1 or 2 Wrath powers and stick with it if you plan on upgrading them all the way and by the time you do, you can't really even use them.
-The final boss. He stinks. Nuff said. If there was at least 1 more awesome dungeon before the face-off then I could live with it.
There's probably a lot more I could mention in all 3 categories but I don't want this OP to be too bloated. Needless to say, I had a lot of fun with this game and Darksiders 2 is definitely on my radar now.