I wanted to play the original game at first, as I have it from library's, but once the cutscenes are over the game crashes and I couldn't find anything that wasn't actually moding the entire game to make it work. Now for the Warmastered Edition (from the Apocalypse horseman you're playing this game, "War"; nice wordplay Vigil Games) this game can be interesting and challenging, by having a lot of puzzles and some powerful enemies, but it also can annoy the shit out of you with some systems that I'm glad I didn't see in other games.
The Story
The Darksiders series is based on the comic book, so to properly explain the plot of the game I have to go in some details about the universe. If you don't want to read the entire thing, watching this trailer will be enough.
From the beginning of time, heaven and hell were at war, fighting to obtain the control over the worlds. A peace treaty was issues by the council, an ancient entity bound to preserve the order in the universe. The peace was ensured by The Four Horseman of the Apocalypse: War, Death, Fury and Strife; A brotherhood bound to preserve the order and ensure the will of the council.
In this first game, you play as War, which is a little confused at the beginning, heaven and hell breaking the peace and waging war to each other on Earth, while he was the only one of the horsemen that was summoned to restore the balance and put an end to it. After the tutorial phase, you're stripped by most of your powers, being accused of defying the council as the seals weren't broken (the horsemen shouldn't be awakened) and being tasked to restore again the order of the universe without the help of the other horsemen in a journey for redemption.
Gameplay
The overall fighting in the game is pretty fun, considerable the system that keeps the game interesting. The combo movements of each weapon must be unlocked and upgraded in the shop, and are pretty consistent with the enemies during the playthrough.
But the game isn't just about fighting, in fact, there are considerable more game design introduced in puzzles than the fighting. You have to solve them in order to progress through the levels, obtain certain collectibles, and reach some rather inaccessible zones.
Abilities and equipment
I don't have much to say about this system except for the fact that, it could have been better designed, as in you have 6 pieces of equipment in total, but only 3 slots to equip them, so you have to go back in the menu every time you need a certain thing. So you have to plan what equipment you will need for a puzzle before starting it. It isn't necessarily a bad thing, but a wheel of items would've been much better.
Targeting system
For me, this was the worst feature in the game, because the damn thing is not locked to the center of the screen, and its hardware accelerated, meaning the longer you go in a direction, the faster it goes. What I'm trying to say is this is a bad system, one that I'm glad I didn't see in other games. Here's a video of it:
Shop
The shop is pretty basic, based on souls of the dead as currency, every demon possessing the number of souls that they killed during their life. The irony is the fact that you will collect the souls from demons, only to exchange them with another demon. The only thing I can say about this shop is: Don't waste currency on consumables, you really don't lose any progress if you die.
The map
The game doesn't have a linear placement of the levels, which can be interesting making you to explore more of the game, but can also be annoying through the fact that you have to return to most of the levels more than once. Fast travel is unlocked after defeating the first boos, but there is only one point in each level, and there are some items hidden between levels, so you don't avoid the slow walk.
Collectibles
These have an important role in the game, as you can sell them to Vulgrim in exchange for souls, this doesn't seem like a big deal, but in fact it is, the amount of souls given in return for each artifact is considerable, and it's a big help in upgrading the combo's for the weapons.
The soldiers are placed through the levels and in between them, meanwhile the champions are a little more hidden, and the centerpiece, the overlord has an entire puzzle in the Ashland level. Collecting all of them will also give you a shard of wrath.
The abyssal armor
Getting this armor is really a quest of exploring as much as you can from every level, but it's not for nothing. Except for "War" looking better than he already was, the damage reduction is considerable, even on the last difficulty.
The best way to collect items
Even through the game is not that big, you can miss some locations, but the game is giving you the legendary enhancements, one for each of the brothers: Death's Blessing, Fury's Embrace, Strife's Offering, War's Glory.
If you want to collect everything Fury's Embrace is the one you want to equip, revealing all the items in all levels. But don't go back to collect yet. If you unlocked "Mask of Shadows", some collectibles depending on the usage of abilities.
The achievements
I don't know about you, but I'm one of those persons that goes for the biggest difficulty he can handle in a game, while also pursuing the 100% target. But in this game, it is difficult to make your steam profile shiny, not because the game would be hard, finishing the story Apocalyptic difficulty is manageable, but the game isn't too big, meaning you have to go thorough the levels multiple times to collect enough souls for all the upgrades.
Respawnable Enemies
This wouldn't be that hard, but the weapons are upgraded by hitting a certain number of enemies with them, which result in some hours of wandering through the levels killing mobs. But there's a way of avoiding the loading screens, not that pleasant through, as its required to go back and forward through the level Iron Canopy.
Dark Rider
Another I would say a little boring achievement is "Dark Rider", riding 100 miles with the horse is not really something easy or interesting to do since there are a few zones in the game where you can actually ride a horse. The easy way to earn it is a little unconventional, using a controller, start running in a circle and open the steam overlay, or just lock the controller and leave it be for around 1-2 hours, depending on your current progress.
Aerial Predator
This one can be done in a single playthrough without requiring any grinding. The reason I'm putting it in this list is the fact that is really not possible on any difficulty except for Easy. Killing 150 enemies in a single flight where you have a limited amount of opponents that can run away before the final blow is making this not really worth the time on a higher difficulty.
Final impression
The Darksiders series it's an interesting one, and even if there are some badly designed systems, that in my case don't really make sense, the game is fun to play most of the time, cause there are some parts where all it's doing is dragging you through the areas you just completed, and it's a lot of grinding in the case of some achievements, but that's a downside only if you want to perfect the game.
Info
The images were captured during my gameplay.
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