Introduction
Darksiders III is an action role-playing game developed by Gunfire Games and published by THQ Nordic. It was released to PC and consoles in November 2018.
Video Review
Review
The apocalypse has commenced and the four horsemen are called upon by the Charred Council to deal with things. War is still in chains for causing it all, Death is nowhere to be found, Strife is dealing with other matters, so Fury is called upon for the arduous task. It is up to her to defeat the Seven Deadly Sins who have found their way to earth and must be disposed of to keep the order of balance.
Considering I’ve played the other two entries in this series a multitude of times and really enjoyed them, you’d think I’d have played this one long before now right? Well unfortunately that’s not how gaming works most of the time. But my god when I started playing, I was hooked. The story in the game was an awesome time seeing Fury go through earth, many many years before War does. You get to see what kind of demons ravaged it before the Destroyer and his horde of demons got to it.
There’s a couple characters that you actually see from the series while you play through this entry. Like Ulthane the maker! I love that guy. Though the story was basic, I loved the take on all the seven deadly sins, my absolute favourite being sloth, only because of how he was portrayed. But the better part of the story was watching Fury grow as a character. Which is a surprise considering, well she’s a horseman. The one downside to the story honestly though, is just knowing that some events in the game don’t actually come to fruition, only because this takes place before the first game technically. So if you’ve played that one, you know about the characters that are still alive in the entirety of the lore that you meet in this one.
As great as the gameplay was in this, and I really enjoyed it, it could’ve been just a bit more polished. The game tries to take some elements from Dark Souls, but honestly doesn’t take much from it. When you die, you get taken back to your most recent fast travel point, and you lose your souls that you’ve collected, which are used as currency. Except if you die again without collecting them, they don’t go away. They just stay where you died. I thought the gameplay would be very slow and methodical like that as well, but it was just fast like Darksiders. Which is even more weird considering the game asks you if you want to play with a more methodical gameplay style, or not.
So the gameplay sort of ends up just staying a fast paced hack and slash game, where death can come sort of fast, but that’s kind of the case even with the other games if you don’t play right. As I said I had a ball with the combat, especially when I learned the moves of the enemies and I dodged at the right time, which let me unleash a really powerful counter attack. The only downside is that if I was in the middle of an attack combo, I couldn’t cancel the animation and dodge an attack, so I’d just have to eat the damage. This really sucked against boss fights that moved fast or had some attacks that weren’t choreographed at all! Damn Kraken!
When it comes to getting stronger, you could only put your level up points into three categories; your health, melee damage, or counterattack and magic damage. There was nothing else. You get to upgrade your weapons at Ulthane so long as you have the required materials, but you never get to upgrade your armour, nor do you find any other pieces of armour, which I found to be really weird. As you kill bosses, you get new weapons which also give you new means of traversal, like floating, or wall hanging, but you’d have to equip the weapons to get said traversal ability. Most of the time I just stuck with the high jump because that’s what was needed 85% of the time.
The last thing I want to hit on, is the waypoint system. All you have for direction is a compass at the top of the map, that shows a skull on it for where to go next. It guides you through the areas for the most part, but sometimes when it breaks, it breaks bad. Near the end of the game, I kept trying to get out of an area, and it kept sending me to a cliff I couldn’t scale. During another area, I just had to hope for the best where I was going because it kept sending me in circles. When you fast travel, you get a diamond on a fast travel point that’s closest to your objective. If the waypoint was broken, so was this. So I’d just fast travel to the point in the game where everything branches from and hope for the best. It was so stupid! Especially because you don’t get a world map in the pause menu at all! Plus the game has a whole lot of screen tearing and points of loading randomly.
Rating
Pros:
- Enjoyable Combat
- Fantastic Story
- Ulthane Because He’s Awesome
Cons:
- Combat Isn’t Exactly Fluid
- Waypoint System Breaks Easily
- Traversal Abilities Feel Wasted
Summary
I really enjoyed this game. I loved the combat even if it wasn’t as fluid as it needed to be. I loved the added lore, even if I knew events that wouldn’t happen. I loved the boss designs. I just wish the soulsborne aspects they used weren’t so half baked. But now I want Darksiders 4, and no, Genesis doesn’t count!
If you enjoyed this review, why not check out some more we have?
You can also join us in our Discord, Follow us on Twitter & Subscribe to us on YouTube
Game & Developer Information
Developer Website: Gunfire Games
Developer Socials: Twitter
Publisher Website: THQ Nordic
Publisher Socials: Twitter
NODE Gamers 