It seems as though "hack-and-slash" games have all but been replaced with open-world games and in some instances, i wish they wouldn't have been. I don't always want to dedicate 100 hours to a game and sometimes it is kinda "nice" to know specifically what your next objective is and have it right in front of you. This is precisely what Darksiders 3 delivers.
Like the previous entries in the series, you take the role of one of the 4-Horsemen of the Apocalypse - This time as "Fury," the sister of War and Death. Fury is charged with finding the 7 Deadly Sins, which are all personified as bosses throughout the game.
I like her choice of weapons, especially the whip that you start out with because it allows you to keep some distance from your enemies and speaking of which, battles are significantly smaller for the most part as you will rarely face a giant horde of easily killed mobs. However, the enemies you face are significantly more deadly and facing more than one at a time brings about one of the biggest flaws in this game.
If you find yourself facing 3 or 4 enemies at once, it is vital to keep all of them in front of you since the camera angle is normally very tight in an "over the shoulder" view. You can not see when the other enemies are going to strike if they are not directly in front of you and many times this results in a trash mob striking you and effing up your entire strategy. There is no blocking in this game and a lot of our ability to succeed is based on tightly timed dodge moves. This is fun when facing one enemy and it takes some practice, but trying to time the strikes of 4 enemies when you can't see 3 of them at all, seems a bit unfair.
The boss fights, especially against the 7 Deadly Sins themselves are pretty epic and even on the easier settings are very challenging. It will almost certainly take a few tries to defeat them and all of their attack patterns are very different. If you are like me, you are going to have to have a go several times before defeating them as you die time and time again. Which brings us to the 2nd aspect of this game that drives me absolutely nuts.
Excessive load times after dying
You die a lot in this game and the amount of time you spend looking at a loading screen is just insane, upwards of a minute. I don't understand how game programming works but why, if i am in the same place I was before, does this take so stinkin' long to load up? I am an impatient person just in a general sense and for me.. things like this will make me walk away from a game for good.
Also, at some bosses when you do finally respawn you are forced to go on a long walk in order to face them again... facing no enemies along the way. They are just making you walk senselessly. Why?
nice gameplay trailer from the MKIceandFire channel
One aspect of the game that I really enjoy is that if you find yourself feeling underpowered you can go back to previous sections of the game to gain XP (in the form of souls) and also access areas you previously couldn't reach in a MetroidVania type fashion. Then you gain a few levels and return to what was giving you a problem and it is significantly easier.
Keep in mind that I am referring only to the PS4 release of this game. Apparently, the PC version is so riddled with bugs (which i presume/ hope they patched) that many reviewers, even professional reviewers have rated the game as "unplayable."
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She does all the missions in 4 inch heels - impressive!
I likely would never have purchased this game but it was one of the monthly "free" games that comes with my PlaystationPlus membership. Since I paid nothing for it, i'm not gonna come down too hard on it.
Pros
- Pretty awesome graphics
- Fantastic musical score and voice acting
- Interesting story that kept me watching the not-so-excessive cutscenes
- Great variety on boss battles
- The option to level up by backtracking
Cons
- Very long load times
- Senseless "long walks" to face bosses another time
- Graphical bugs that occur for some reason (this is apparently very prevalent in the PC version)
- Camera angle results in sloppy gameplay when facing multiple enemies