Before jumping into this review, I want to give you bros a
foreword. Darksiders 2 is pretty much
the metal version of Zelda. Swish that
thought around, and let it culminate….
DEATH IS ZELDA’S NEW BADASS BOYFRIEND!!!! Death is literally
the most badass version of Link that I could’ve asked for; yes more so that
Shadow Link. No, this isn’t heresy. I’m a massive fan of the Zelda franchise
(albeit majorly disappointed with the latest outing, Skyward Sword), but I feel
like this is the Zelda game I’ve been waiting for a long time. Let’s break it down.
Story
I honestly couldn’t tell you what the first game is
about. I played the first Darksiders a
long time ago, and all I remember about that game was War (one of the Four
Horsemen of the Apocalypse) got screwed over and got his ass landed in some
eternal imprisonment. I can gather
flashbacks of angels and demons, and very boring, clunky gameplay. I liked the first game, but I had no hype for
it. I had no urge to ever pick it up
ever again. Fast forward some time
later, the trailer for DS2 was released.
There was something very different about this game, and it really piqued
my interest. There was something that
was dark, mysterious, and adventurous about it.
Darksiders 2 picks up as Death, War’s brother, searching for
a way to free War; they’re bros after all.
Death looks for this witch/weenie/crowman to magic a way to get his
brother back. Well, a heated argument ensues,
and Death ended up killing the guy –WOOPS. A magic amulet breaks, and Death is warped to
a WHOLE NEW WORLD (cue Aladdin carpet ride).
It’s the dwarf kingdom…wait these guys are huge, but look like dwarves
and they make everything….Hmm. FORGELANDS. So you do some stuff for these giant ass
dwarves, who I might add, seem completely capable of doing, and you find out a
lot more shit going on behind the scenes.
There’s something corrupting all the lands, and blocking Death’s means
of saving humanity and War – its called corruption. 10/10, great name! Corruption has something to do with Death’s
people, the Nephilim (Stupid strong, blood thirsty peeps). So after a certain point DS2 involves Death
adventuring around different worlds and freeing them of the corruption.
I should probably mention the story is definitely one of the
low points of the game (not the lowest).
Game Feel
There’s something INCREDIBLY satisfying about this
game. It’s instantly relatable if you’ve
ever played Ocarina of Time, Twilight Princess, or even Wind Waker. At its core, Darksiders 2, is an action
adventure game, and to its best merit it is exceedingly fun to explore its
unique world. Like I mentioned earlier,
Death visits several different worlds in this game, but without a doubt, the
first one (the one with the oxymoron dwarves).
There is something incredibly breathtaking when you get the chance to
roam the massive grasslands...of the Forge Lands. The scenery is totally magnificent, and they
do a great job of making each world have a different look and feel. In the Forge Lands, it makes you feel like
you’re a part of some lost side story in Lord of the Rings AND IT’S FUCKING
AWESOME. You find a lot of ancient
ruins, tombs, and dungeons that look and feel like it’s been around for
centuries. Another great world is the
World of the Dead; and its stupid creepy.
I really love it; the ground is dark and decayed with a continual rolling
fog. It feels bleak, looks like it
belongs on a cover of a 70’s metal record, AND IT’S FUCKING AWESOME. And lastly
there is Lostlight; it’s some middle ground between Heaven and Hell. And it lets you teleport to Earth, too –
PSSST. Earth’s pretty lame.
Most of the fighting in this game is kind of like Devil May
Cry or Bayonetta in the sense that it’s high adrenaline, 3rd person
hack ‘n slash. I really enjoy that style
of gameplay because it’s fast-paced, relentless, and very difficult. I guess I forgot to mention there’s no
blocking…unless you have a shield equipped! A blue hedgehog put it best; “GOTTA
BE FAST!” So in other words, it’s
rewarding when you defeat a room of skeletons or skittish giant-ass panthers. You can also become ultimate reaper when some
bar fills up, big gaming cliché – I think that’s the only aspect I don’t like
of the actual combat. Besides using a scythe, two actually, you can use a
secondary weapon. There are a couple
different types of secondary weapons including a staff, claws, AND A BIG ASS
HAMMER. Guess which one is my
favorite! There’s also magic. Magic is what I focused on in my play through;
mostly because I felt like it leveled the playing field – there’s rooms where
it’s at least 10 to 1 with one or two BIG ASS versions of the regular evil
minions. Magic’s focus was to play more
defensively; you can summon several ghouls that are quick and fierce to fight
your foes for you. The best part was
they rack up your combo meter like crazy.
You can also summon a swarm of crows to peck away at your foes – it’s
helluva lot more useful than it sounds (Think The Birds!) There’s another skill tree that’s more
focused on melee combat, but I didn’t use that one. From my understanding it’s more about using
big, sweeping attacks, and agility, teleporting moves as well. Then we have the enemies.
This game has a great variety of enemies, mini-bosses,
bosses, and secret ass bosses. I love ‘em
all. I will admit, however, towards the
end of the game the enemies are lame and pretty cheap. I’ll get to that later. I think my favorite part of this game is
there’s many dungeons that you completely can skip or accidently pass up, that
have really great bosses and dat sweet loot.
Speaking of loot, it’s an important factor in DS2. You get chunks of armor and weapons when you
kill baddies or open dem sweet azz chests.
You’ll find different pieces of armor with varying attributes or bonuses
(like frost damage). It can actually
become quite engrossing to find all the chests in a dungeon because you gotta
know what you might find.
Most of the game takes place in varying dungeons based on
which world you are on, and most of them are great. Every dungeon has an overlying theme (Kind of
how Zelda has Fire Temple, Water Temple), and has puzzles based around newly
acquired gear or gameplay mechanic. This
is great with me, because the puzzles are varied and change up the gameplay
from fighting all the time. The level design
on some levels is truly inspired; there’s a huge elevator themed level that you
try to open the different levels to get to one specific one to fight the
boss. In every venture in the dark
dungeons, Death employs a great skill of acrobatics or PoP’s (Prince of
Persia). If you hadn’t figured out yet,
Death is a very agile bro-killer. He is
adept at climbing around, jumping, and doing general PoP acrobatics like wall
running. It’s a positive change of
platforming compared to the first Darskiders, where you just walk into a room
and kill dudes – Yeah, that’s the whole game.
I want to briefly talk about Lostlight; aka the poop. This level is kinda boring because you are
tasked to go to Earth, Heaven, and Hell.
I say this is boring because it’s hackneyed, and we’ve done this too
many times in video games – Diablo says hi.
Lostlight is actually just a hub for the other three worlds. This is kinda disappointing. Earth is all
post-apocalyptic and dirty. There’s zombies
running around, and it’s awful. For
whatever dumb reason you are pretty much forced to play this area as a 3rd
person shooter, and it is not fun. You
have to find three things and shoot dudes while looking. I can’t for the life of me figure out why
they would suddenly change gameplay so drastically, and it feels really, really
rushed. I ran into three or four
glitches in this area, and one of ‘em corrupted my save file (that wasn’t too
bad because I had several saves going on).
Even more frustratingly, I couldn’t turn in my quest in one glitch. I kept going back to Earth to make sure I
didn’t miss anything, and this was making me lose my mind. Heaven and Hell aren’t
nearly as bad, but Earth definitely soured my experience.
My favorite side quest-esque thing to do in this game is
play in the Crucible. The Crucible is a endurance/fighting
arena you can participate in for really great loot. You don’t get an opportunity to save in
between waves, and when you finish five at a time you talk to the champ. He’ll let you leave with a prize or continue
the greedy fight. You get to replay a
lot of the bosses you encounter, and it’s incredibly difficult. I spent a couple hours playing just this; it’s
really addicting to try to finish the whole damn thing.
End of the line, Darksiders 2 is incredibly fun. If you’re in the mood for a more hardcore
adventure game, this is your best bet. I’m
actually happy to say I had way more fun than I ever anticipated, and EVERYONE
SHOULD BUY IT.
Rating:
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