How I fell in love with Darksiders (The Wrath of War)

 Darksiders was a game that came out in 2010. I can remember seeing the first trailer, people stuck in traffic, as a big screen on the side of a building talks about meteors falling. In between are snips of two creatures fighting. Then, all hell breaks loose as meteors land upon the earth, turning into demons and angels, all fighting to the death, with the demons already winning. Down comes another meteor, but this time it's not angel or demon, but something in between. Our protagonist, War, takes one look at the chaos and readies his sword.
    That alone got me to want to play the game, and I knew nothing else about it at the time. Over the course of the next few years, I followed the game closely. I'm sorry to say that it didn't do very well. It was put out at an impossible time. The game had to compete with the first Beyonetta game, which was getting rave reviews (being created by the same guy who made the original DMC games). There was no way a studio that no one had heard of was going to beat him out.
    I, of course, chose to buy Darksiders. Beyonetta just didn't really appeal to me. I did eventually get it, and beat it, but it's not a game I ever felt the need to come back to. I played it once, and that was enough. Darksiders, however, I kept. I LOVED it. Sure, it wasn't as tough as Beyonetta, but it was far better acted and the lore was miles ahead of anything Beyo had. Still, reviewers tore into Darksiders, calling it an amalgamation of God of War meets Zelda meets Devil May Cry, and it was, but who cares. I don't mind the repetitious bosses. I don't mind that I'm not getting my ass handed to me left and right. NOT ALL GAMES NEED TO BE FUCKING DARKSOULS! and when they are like Darksouls (Darksiders 3) then reviewers bitch about how hard the game is. The franchise just can't seem to win.
    From a personal stand point I don't think reviewers are very credible. Slight tangent here, but I'm an artist. That doesn't mean I don't like CONSTRUCTIVE criticism. But it has to be that, constructive. You can't just tear into something, because you think the game has a "poorly fleshed out story" which: ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? With the possible exception of Final Fantasy (which has been going to shit for the past couple years) this has one of the best stories I've played in a game for a while. In what realm is Darksiders story "poorly fleshed out?" Shadow of the Colossus was a beautiful game for it's time, 2005, and when the remaster came out 2015? reviewers said that "the controls felt clunky" the thing is, you said in your original review in 2005 that the "clunky" controls only added to the ambiance of the game. Other than an uptick in graphics (and some extra side quests) NOTHING ABOUT THE GAME HAS CHANGED! How can the controls "add to the games ambiance" and ten years later feel "clunky?" Seriously, if you're going to bitch and moan about a game then just stop, go be a journalist in a different field, the game industry doesn't want you anymore either.
    Okay, rant over. So, Darksiders. Let's take a look at the games "poorly fleshed out" story.

 The game starts with one of the four horseman of the apocalypse arriving on Earth just as Armageddon has been started between the angels and the demons. War makes his way around the city, killing demons, as well as angels, who all believe that it was War who prematurely started the end of times. When War finds the angel named Abaddon, the angel cries out "the seventh seal wasn't broken," before being crushed. War is then transported to an entity known as the Charred Council, whose primary existence is to keep order and balance between the angels and demons. They are ready and willing to punish War for starting the end war when the horseman convinces them to let him free, and to find out who is really responsible. The council reluctantly agrees, attaching a spectral creature called a watcher to him on his journey. The council tells him to seek out a demon known as Vulgrum, who is a merchant (and awesome in every way).
    Upon finding Vulgrum, War is told that if he wants answers, he should talk to a demon Prince known as Sameal. Finding him, Sameal tells War about the Destroyer, and where to find him, adding that, "You're no match for him as you are now," he then proceeds to tell War that the only way into the tower is to defeat it's four guardians. War does so, each time bringing their still beating hearts back to Sameal, who eats them, gaining more power each time. It isn't until the fourth guardian that War learns the truth, that Sameal has been lying to him.
    War kills the last guardian, bringing her heart to Sameal, fully expecting him to attack, but Sameal, delivers, as promised, creating a path to the Destroyer's tower. War goes and finds an angel named Azreal inside. He reveals it was he and Abaddon who prematurely started the end war. War is going to kill him for his treachery when Azreal tells him that he can help War escape, once the final guardian is destroyed. War accepts.
    He is taken to Eden, to the tree of knowledge, where he learns that Abaddon is the Destroyer, and that the only way to stop him is to reforge a blade called the Armageddon Blade. War goes on a quest to recover all seven pieces of the blade, and find one of the makers (the only beings in the universe capable of creating a weapon of such immense power). Upon retrieving the final piece of the blade War is confronted by Ureal, and angel who blames him for the Apocalypse, and she challenges him to a fight. War wins, telling her what he learned from the tree.
    In the final battle War defeats the Destroyer, and in his dying breath he reaches out to Ureal, who wants nothing to do with him. War kills him. It is then that the watcher reveals his treachery, saying that the council knew what would happen, and what War would do, so sent him down to kill everyone involved. Ureal kills War, breaking the seventh seal in the process. War is resurrected and kills the watcher. He leaves Ureal alone, holding up the Seventh Seal, as his three siblings come crashing down from the sky.
    So, yeah, very poorly fleshed out.

 Game-play in this game is very reminiscent of God of War and Devil May Cry, all be it a less complex Devil May Cry. The conjoining of the two fighting styles makes for a fairly simple game with some more complexities. Basically, it keeps the game engaging. (If I were a reviewer, it's here, I might dock the game some points, not because I don't think the game-play is fun, but because it all feels so familiar, if you've played the other two games mentioned above.) War starts out with the chaos eater and can acquire a scythe and a gauntlet to aid him in battle. Side note: in the original game you could type in the code "the hollow lord" and get a scythe called the harvester for free. In the War-mastered edition you have to pay 5000 souls for it.
    The alternate weapons offer some nice verity to combat, though not as much as I would like. You can buy new moves from Vulgrum but even then there's only about seven or so to chose from. I guess I'm just used to Ninja Gaiden's massive moves list. I want to stress though, that despite the smaller moves set, I do find the game fun, and with only three weapons, it's pretty easy to weapon swap on the fly and make for some fun combos with all three weapons at once.
    In the game you also get some other collectables, almost all of which can also be used as weapons. The first is the horn, which is used to wake Wardens and to blow enemies backwards. The next collectable you get is in the first level of the game and it's your first projectile weapon. The next collectable you get is the gauntlet, which we've discussed already. Soon after getting the gauntlet you receive the gun Mercy (one of Strife's Guns) which is the only collectable, besides the mask, that you can use on Ruin. The next one you receive is the Abyssal Chain, which can pull enemies towards you, though it doesn't really hurt them like the gun or the cross blade. In the latter parts of the game you get a portal gun, and the Mask of Shadows, which allows you to see into the "shadow realm".
 

 I can't talk about Darksiders or its game play, however, with out talking about the Legend of Zelda. To be fair, and at the risk of showing my age, I can remember playing Zelda on the original Nintendo. I never made it very far in the game, but I loved the open worldness of the game. That is, perhaps, why I love games like Final Fantasy and Shadow of the Colossus, because of the big expansive worlds that you get to explore. That being said, I can't really compare Darksiders to the Zelda games that came after because I never played them. It is obvious though, that Darksiders borrowed many elements from Zelda. The Mask of Shadows is similar to Zelda's "Mazura's Mask" and the serpent holes you use to fast travel from location to location is reminiscent of another feature in the Zelda games (can't remember the name of them).
    The boss fights in the game, while fun, are rather repetitive. Basically, you do X which causes the boss to do Y and then you hit the boss until it gets. Rinse and repeat. This goes for all the bosses. Honestly, the bosses are the more disappointing aspect of the game.
    This leads me to another of the downsides of the game. I mentioned it before, but a lot of the stuff is borrowed from other games, so if you've played them, everything may seem familiar and not very fresh to you. The game tires to change things up, even going as far as to have some sections of the game which play as third person shooters (or optional third person shooters I should say) as well as having puzzle solving elements.
    Personally, while I've always been interested in the Zelda games, I can only afford one console, and I chose the one that had more games I liked, that being PlayStation. This meant that I didn't get to play the other Zelda games. So for me, Darksiders is like a grown up Zelda game. One with a great story, and fun game-play, despite it being a rip off of other games.
 The first time I played the game, I fell in love with it. To me, the ideas were cool, and I liked how they changed up the game-play in parts. The characters and game-play were all very enjoyable. I've replayed the game more times than I can count and I love every second of it. Yes, the boss fights can be repetitive, but each one is slightly different, and still engaging. Yes, almost all the elements are borrowed from other games, but that doesn't matter. A game, for me at least, is about game-play, and about story. As long as those two things are fun, or at least interesting, I'm all in, and this game has some fun game-play and a great story, steeped in so much lore that they had to make a companion comic book just to tell the whole story.
    Darksiders if a franchise I will love forever, despite its short comings. Unless they fuck it up like Team Ninja did Ninja Gaiden, but I don't want to think about that.