Darksiders

Darksiders plays much as one might expect it to. Players take on the role of War, one of the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse normally charged with maintaining balance between Heaven and Hell, in a quest for revenge against a figure known as the Destroyer for bringing about the Apocalypse early and causing humanity to be completely wiped out. War is able to slaughter a path through thousands of demons along the way, performing combos with various weapons, spending Souls to learn new abilities and upgrade old ones at a demonic merchant, fighting monstrous bosses, destroying breakable walls with respawning bombs, hitting switches with a boomerang-like weapon to be rewarded with the opening of a door and the playing of a short tune…wait, what?

Yes, believe it or not, Darksiders plays more like a Zelda game than anything else. Aside from the above-mentioned similarities, players are able to do anything from summoning ‘the Watcher’ for advice, climbing on web-like ‘demonic growth’, and collecting four ‘lifeforce shards’ for additional health right down to moving a tombstone in the graveyard to reveal a hidden passage, finding a Map and a Hoardseeker (compass) item in each dungeon, and spending most of the game going to dungeons to collect four magical MacGuffins, in this case four Hearts of the Chosen for the demon Samael.   However, what makes the game truly feel similar to a typical entry in The Legend of Zelda series is the level design. While the world map has all sorts of treasures scattered throughout it, dungeons are truly massive and are filled with various clever puzzles that require players to use new and old Gear in various ways in order to progress. While each dungeon tends to incorporate whatever Gear is found within it into most of its puzzles, there is never a sense of only using a single item as the solution to everything because most puzzles are complex enough that they require using older Gear in addition to newer ones in order to solve them. It’s strange to say it, but Darksiders manages to do traditional Zelda-style puzzles better than some Zelda games.

While the overall gameplay may bring back fond memories of Zelda, the combat mostly resembles a hybrid of Devil May Cry and God of War. Fights move at a fast pace and usually involve taking on groups consisting of several weaker enemies and one noticeably stronger enemy. War is always equipped with his sword, Chaoseater, in addition to secondary weapons, a scythe and gauntlets, and Gear. Despite the fact that all sword attacks are mapped to the Square button and all attacks for the scythe and gauntlets to the Triangle button, each weapon has a surprisingly large number of attacks. In addition, many pieces of gear have combat capabilities, so it is easy to perform various combos such as using the Abyssal Chain to pull an enemy to War, launch it into the air with the gauntlets, and then follow up with an aerial sword combo; switching between tools and secondary weapons is easy with the D-Pad and allows combat to feel very fast and fluid. Aside from the main combat, Darksiders also takes other elements from Devil May Cry and God of War, such as the ability to briefly enter a demonic form, a Wrath bar that allows War to use a few strong spells, instant-kill attacks that can be performed when an enemy is low on health and which grant more Souls than usual for healing and spending as currency, and some GoW-type chests near some of the harder fights for a quick Health or Wrath boost.

While Darksiders takes elements from many existing games, it seems unfair and inaccurate to label it a ‘clone’ or a ‘ripoff’. Although it may heavily borrow from existing franchises, it combines these elements in order to create an entirely new experience. The best example of how all the different mechanics blend together is probably the boss fights. For most bosses, the newest Gear is usually used to aid in defeating them in typical Zelda fashion, but since War is a far more acrobatic character than Link there is often a need for twitch-based offense and defense and occasionally quick time events.  The unique setting for the game is also complimented greatly by the art style, with colorful characters, crystals, and giant plants covering the grey and desolate city remains, and by the somewhat atmospheric music that seems to perfectly compliment each region. Darksiders is, in essence, the perfect example of how a new series can take existing mechanics and blend them to make an entirely unique experience instead of rehashing the same exact game under a new name like so many true clones seem wont to do.

Unfortunately, for all that it does right, Darksiders does have a fair amount of flaws. The worst offender by far is the camera; while the camera is usually tolerable, it does tend to go off at odd angles while climbing or when near walls and is responsible for more than one leap into a bottomless pit. The lack of any real sidequests outside of finding pieces of armor and relics to turn in for Souls and a very small central hub also cause the game to at times feel far too linear. Other annoyances tend to feel more like tradeoffs. The cast of characters and the setting are interesting and the voice acting is surprisingly good, but the plot is painfully predictable. The game disguises load times well and existing load times are brief, but in some of the bigger and flashier fights later on there is noticeable slowdown. The world gradually becomes populated with stronger enemies as the game proceeds, but nothing respawns in dungeons so they feel painfully empty when backtracking. Finally, a fair amount of one-shot segments are scattered throughout the game, such as a Panzer Dragoon-style railshooter section, to add more variety, but these are more often than not simply not executed well.

Despite its various flaws, Darksiders is still an amazing game and the core gameplay is executed almost flawlessly. A new developer making a game that consists of a blend of existing mechanics from other games, let alone deciding to launch it on the same day as the much-hyped Bayonetta, is something that really just shouldn’t work, yet it somehow does. Mechanics taken from other games are familiar enough that they instill a sense of nostalgia while at the same time they mix together to create something refreshingly new. Even though 2010 has just barely begun, it seems that Darksiders may very well end up becoming the top sleeper hit of the year.