By now I am sure you are familiar with the constant Zelda references whenever you hear about Darksiders. That is rightfully earned. However, this does not pay homage to Zelda in the vein of 3D Dot Game Heroes. Rather it barrows concepts from Zelda. In fact, I would say the similarities fail in comparison to the ways they differ. Darksiders is sort of like if Zelda and Kratos had a baby. The combat system is very similar to God of War and there is a fair amount of platforming like you might expect as well. Then there is the Zelda inspired dungeons with maps, treasure chests, keys, and boss rooms. Throw in a boomerang, hookshot, and a little sound when you solve a room, and you can see why Darksiders gets its reputation from. But you can’t fault them from barrowing ideas from other great games and arguably the single most important thing about this game still remains its own, it is story about one of the four horsemen.
The game sets up the story of War, one of the four horsemen, who comes to earth seemingly uncalled and brings the end of humanity with him. These events set up the real setting of the game, Heaven and Hell have an all-out war and the devil wins. War is sent back to find out why he was inadvertently summoned and make amends for destroying the balance by defeating the leader of the underworld. So as you can see, the setting and story concept is pretty great. These graphics are not all together amazing, one might even go as far as to call them a generation old, but they still serve their function of immersing you in this apocalyptic environment. There are some lovely pre-rendered cinematic sequences, and even with the less than stellar visuals, the combat manages to still look pretty awesome.
So as you might expect, War is packing a pretty sweet arsenal to aid him on his quest. His sword does most of the dirty work. As you spill gallons upon gallons of baddie blood your sword will level up, increasing its damage. You also collect souls, which are the currency for the game. These can be traded in to unlock new moves and increase their potency. The actual button pushing is a simple manner of pressing square. There is a fair amount of depth involved which gets more interesting the further along you get. Now there are also alternate weapons that you earn throughout your playthrough. These include a gun, crossblade, gauntlet, and scythe. Each has its own experience and moveset that can be upgraded much like your main weapon. Originally the battling mechanics seem very shallow and leaves a bad first impression, but given a bit of time you will soon see that there is much more to it than first believed.
The music and overall sound of the game is great. The voice actors give a good performance and the score itself is lovely though it seems a bit thin in most places. I suppose when you have a setting such as this, you go for minimal sound to represent the emptiness of it all, but what little music there is, I find quite nice indeed. That is not the only point that is lacking in this experience. This is true to its nature a good first start in an even greater franchise. There are many sequences that become tedious and the linear path seems a bit counter intuitive to what they are going for. At one point you get your horse but there really isn’t a great many places where he is useful. And though I like the premise of the story, playing as a diminished War, who is working to regain all of his lost power, is kind of like playing as a Jedi before you get all of their awesome powers. Like I said, I understand it, I just wish you could be a badass from the start.
There is plenty of good points to counteract the bad here though. This game is well worth your time and money. There is what seems to be a deep passion for story telling here and from what I think I heard was a comic book writer, so that right there should tell you there is something to this. If you liked God of War, Dante’s Inferno, or even, yes, the better Zelda games, you will find things here that you will like, but if you are anything like me, you will like all of the above and end up really digging this game. I would go on about how great the next one (or potentially three?) will be when they make it but at this point it is already done and I look forward to playing that one as well.