Having both a professional and unprofessional interest in , I can acknowledge the many claims that Darksiders mimes The Legend of Zelda’s gameplay (with focus on and ’ style).
These statements are absolutely true. From bomb-plants and boomerangs to hook-shots and horses, a plethora of game elements will seem immediately familiar.
Nothing overly complicated masks the “different” scenarios between Link () traipsing through a dungeon to obtain a new tool and then defeating its boss and War, the horseman of the apocalypse that the gamer inhabits in .
Now, the situation is not necessarily negative. One could easily draw the same formulaic similarities to a third person Metroid game. Competition breeds similarity. The only points I would like to state, before moving off this topic and back to how much I enjoyed , is that I think it was taken a bit too far in one particular case.
The matter is that the development team at Vigil Games decided to replicate an accomplice for War á la Navi, Link’s guide throughout .
Fortunately, The Watcher, War’s guide, has more than enough to placate the psychological damage I suffer in the presence of such a nagging subordinate. Amazingly, he is voiced by Mark Hamill and does not continually nag through out the game, which at least dulls the annoyance to a minimum.
“Over here” can get just as old as “Hey, listen,” but hearing it in the voice of The Joker from (or if the show is unfamiliar) is a welcome perk.
The combat in is rather reminiscent to that of the God of War series, with slight variations.
Players can chain attacks with the attack button to generate combos, e.g. pressing jump beforehand to begin an aerial attack, then quickly followed by a press of the action button to perform a gory instant kill.
However, there is no variety in the ways that the enemies are killed by this method. Each enemy is basically assigned a specific fashion to be mutilated to death based on design.
With the puzzle-solving style that defines the Zelda series, the combat is basically only a slight obstacle and therefore repeals the disappointment.
The only truly tedious moments of the game are when paths are closed off until the waves of spawned enemies are defeated. Until that point, combat feels like a chore and the sameness of each opponent in the long strings of battalions almost seems like Vigil Games decided to work off as well.
The only bright side is in the specific situations where War is given one of the two very large guns or when a surplus of interactive background pieces is available. Under these situations, then becomes a great game of blasting everything that moves.
I will now move on to the good bits, which revolve around the setting of this exploration platform game. In case I did not paint a descriptive enough mental picture above, one of the highlights of the game is actually being able to play as one of the Four Horsemen. It entails a front row seat to the Apocalypse and the fallow wasteland of demons. Every environment has a certain selling point.
Sure, a stark desert is neither stimulating to the eye nor the most malignant location, but if it happens to be made of human ash, the desolation becomes more palpable.
The scenery takes a new depth in its stunning visuals as do most creatures War encounters. Those visuals add variety when doing quests or exploring. I’ve always enjoyed the satisfaction of exploring every corner of the map.
The platform designs in gives me more than enough leeway to do so with grace.