Darksiders Genesis

The Darksiders series didn’t follow a single trend during its three major releases in the last century. The first part was based heavily on The Legend of Zelda games, while the second part was more based on traditional RPG games and contained quotes from Prince of Persia. and the third part also brought an experience adapted from Dark Souls games, we now come to Darksiders Genesis, the first sub-version of the series presented by the Airship Syndicate development team, made up of a group of key names from the previously worked on the series at Vigil Games, with a version that also takes a different approach, moving towards a top-down action RPG game. Like the famous Diablo series, will the series succeed with this trend? We find out in our test report.

Story and Characters

The story takes place before the events of the first part. The Charred Council, the entity responsible for maintaining balance between the worlds, summons the knights War and Strife to send them on a mission to Hell to stop Lucifer, who is planning something with the Lords of the Hell. The story introduces us to the fourth knight, Strife, for the first time, giving some hints about his past and focusing on the differences between him and War. The latter is serious and stern and puts reason over the sword, while Strife has a sense of humor and shoots first and asks questions later. The story introduces us to the origin of the seven seals, which form an important part of the world of the series and its events, but they are present in this version. It was inferior in that it justifies the reason for your moving to different parts of hell and slaughtering demons, and it doesn’t present the usual story from the series that changes dramatically and clarifies things that weren’t taken into account and will You do be disappointed if the exciting story meets your expectations.

Graphics and Sound

On a technical level, the game looks very nice as it maintains the artistic and graphical direction of the series and presents environments full of fine details, while at the same time offering an excellent variety of environments as it follows the system of chapters/missions rather than one present open world. There are some minor technical issues that I don’t think had a significant impact on the experience. In general, except for one detail that we will mention later. The choice of melodies is good, but nothing will be memorable. The voice acting is excellent and distinctive for many of the characters, but the game still needed refinement in terms of the texts, as some of the dialogue was changed slightly during the development process, but some of the texts were not changed, and you will sometimes notice that the texts doesn’t match what the characters say, but that’s not a big problem.

Gameplay and Mechanics

The gameplay is very similar to previous versions of the series in terms of button distribution. You have a heavy and light attack button, with the ability to jump and run to avoid attacks, and special abilities are available that can be accessed by pressing the left shoulder button and selecting one of the buttons. Of course, you can’t say that this is a Darksiders game without transformations. The frightening appearance reflects the anger and latent strength of the characters.

Strife offers increased speed with less powerful dagger attacks, but he excels at ranged attacks with his pistols, which have a wide variety of ammunition. Some munitions are more like a continuous beam of energy, while others act more like bombs or electrical currents. Krieg, on the other hand, relies on powerful close attacks. Reach with less evasion and both directions in combat are an advantage to you, and you can easily switch between the two characters by just pressing two buttons. The game features a system for developing characters through a development tree using the cores you get from enemies. Some cores increase your speed or… strengthen your attacks, while others give you the ability to automatically summon a monster to help you. Each core has a level that can be increased by obtaining a certain number of these cores again from the same enemy to increase their effectiveness.

World Design and Exploration

As mentioned, the game follows a chapter system instead of an open world, which allows it to represent a diverse world with its environments. In each chapter of the story, you must complete one or more main tasks and complete the chapter. As the chapters progress, you will face many less powerful bosses (mini-bosses), with the presence of simple bosses that… Epic confrontations that require skill to overcome. Anyone who enjoys collecting and exploring will discover many secrets and treasures. There are also side missions in each chapter that give you access to secret boss encounters or other hidden treasures. The fights are fun and get progressively more difficult, which keeps things exciting. You also get tools. A new experience during the experience encounters a new set of puzzles and obstacles to overcome.

Cooperative Play and Additional Content

This version gives you the option to play cooperatively in split screen or online. When you join the experience with another player, the levels change slightly. The various puzzles and obstacles depend on the presence of two players to overcome them. The number of enemies is also doubled to provide a reasonable challenge, and exchanging characters between you and the other player requires your presence nearby. This player and his consent to the switch request and the details taken care of for the cooperative game phase make the experience in the cooperative game phase as enjoyable as in the solo game phase. The experience can be marred by the annoying map, which does not pinpoint your location but rather indicates your character’s presence in a specific area of ​​the map. That’s annoying. There is also a slowdown in the reaction of characters for a few seconds, which sometimes occurs when switching between characters, and these few seconds can mean a loss when enemies surround you from all sides.

Conclusion

As mentioned, hidden secrets and treasures as well as side missions add more content to the experience, and if you’re looking for a bigger challenge, there’s Arena mode, which offers 20 different challenges, and each challenge lasts a ten Rounds in which you face the hordes of Hell. There is also the final challenge option that will test your resilience and you will receive… In this phase you will receive points that can be exchanged for a certain prize.

We played through half of the experience on medium difficulty and the other half on high difficulty, which we found posed more of a challenge than it took us 12.5 hours to finish the story and collect some secrets. After completing the experience for the first time, you can replay it on Apocalypse difficulty to test your skills. Darksiders Genesis is a successful attempt by the development team at Airship Syndicate, especially because it is the first game. It offers this type. There are some minor technical problems and a story that was not at the desired level, but there are also many challenges and puzzles to make you enjoy the experience, especially if you play with one of your companions, in addition there is the possibility of the Replay stages and discover the secrets you missed.