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Darksiders II Review PS3

Story


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This game takes place during the first games events, during Wars years of imprisonment in the first game. Death, the leader of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, is unconvinced that his brother is guilty for triggering the Armageddon on Earth prematurely. He traveled and looked for the Tree of Life, where he encounters the Crowfather, the Keeper of Secrets. After killing him, he was transported to another world, which is the realm of the Makers, Forge Lands. In order to get to the Tree of Life, Death need to help others in his quest to save his brother.

The storyline is simple, yet good and interesting. The story is a bit of an improvement since the last game, and I like Deaths character a lot. There isnt much plot twists in the game to make the story more interesting, but it is still fairly interesting. I was hoping there is some kind of database log that captures all information of enemies, terms, and etc in the game, since any players new to the Darksiders series might find themselves lost to the games terms, such as the nephilim, Tree of Life, Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, etc.

The characters in the game fits their role, such as Death, Crowfather, Eideard, and many others. I felt that Death himself shines above all other characters, with his dark humour, sarcastic wit and hell-bent attitude to save his brother.

Gameplay

i) Exploration and Progression Section



The game feels more open world than the previous game, with four different realms that have bigger areas for you to explore. As you progress in the game, you will travel to new and different realms that have unique enemies live in distinct realms.

To progress in the game, you need to complete your Primary Quest by going to the marker on your map. Many of the Primary Quests take place in dungeons, where you need to solve a number of puzzles and killing enemies in order to progress. You can use Dust as your guide in the dungeon if are you stuck somewhere.

Outside of dungeons, you can summon Deaths horse for quick travelling in the game. However, you can summon him outdoors, and you cannot use him in dungeons.

Each dungeons have different puzzles for you to complete, such as requiring you to use a bomb to trigger a switch, and etc. The puzzles can be both challenging and fun to do, depending on how good you are. Some of the puzzles require you to use certain tools to complete, and may need some thinking out-of-the-box to complete those puzzles successfully.

To reach many places in the game and completing puzzles, you need to do platforming in many sections of the dungeons, such as wallrun, climbing ledges, and etc. Most of the platoforming sections are easy, but some of it can be challenging depending on the player.

In this game, you can Fast Travel to any locations you have visited. If you use Fast Travel from a dungeon to another location, you can leave a Dungeon Waypoint where it allows you travel back to the spot in the dungeon where you have left. This is useful if you are short on supplies or finding that the enemies in the dungeon are tougher than usual.

You can also side quests in this game called Secondary Quests, such as collecting pages, relics, helping someone to retrieve an item, and etc. Completing these quests will reward you many things, such as Skill Points, XP, money, and etc. Doing these side-quests will help you a lot in the game.

ii) Leveling, Upgrading and Customisation Section



This game features a lot of RPG elements that are new to the series, such as leveling system and looting system. Death has his own stats, such as Strength, Arcane, and etc. His stats can be increased by leveling him up through accumulating XP (Experience Points) in combat and quests. As he levels up, his stats will increase and he will be able to obtain a Skill Point to learn or upgrade his skills.

Deaths skills tree is divided into two, one is for Harbinger skills and Necromancy skills. Death can only learn new skills by gaining more levels. All of his skills are Wrath skills, and he has eight different Wrath skills. Some of is Wrath skills have complement upgrades that can make the particular Wrath skill be more potent in combat. For example, Aegis Shield has a side-upgrade that allows Death to reflect 10% of damage taken in combat. Skill Points can be used to upgrade your main learned Wrath skills, or to learn and upgrade side-upgrades for each main Wrath skills. Take consideration into what build you want Death to be, since his stats play important role in Deaths abilities in the game.

Defeating enemies in this game will sometimes drop money, items, weapons, or armour pieces. There are two main items in the game, which are Health Potion and Wrath Potion. Like their namesake imply, Health Potion restores health whereas Wrath Potion restore Wrath. Money can be used to buy those potions or armour pieces. You can get money by opening treasure chests in dungeons, killing enemies, completing Primary Quests and Secondary Quests, or by selling items.

In this game, you can customise Deaths appearance by equipping him with various armour pieces, such as spaulders, boots, and etc. Not only they will give Death a unique appearance, the armour pieces will grant Death various stat bonuses, such as Strength bonus, Defense bonus, Arcane bonus, etc. Examine each armour pieces and use accordingly to your playstyle. For example, if you prioritise offense in combat, equip armour pieces that have Strength and Critical Damage bonuses.

Death can equip two weapons, one primary and the other secondary. His primary weapon is twin scythes, and there is a lot of variety of scythes that can be found in the game, such as scythes that allows you to deal fire damage, etc. His secondary weapons is varied, such as mace, axe, gauntlets, buckler, and etc. Like his primary weapons, there is a lot of variety of it, such as maces that deal ice damage and etc. Both primary weapons and secondary weapons have their own attack stat and stat bonuses such as Strength bonus, so try experimenting them to see which is best in different fighting situations.

There are two unique types of weapons in the game, such as Possessed weapons and Legendary weapons. Legendary weapons are rare weapons that can only be obtained with special means, such as defeat an optional boss in the game. Possessed weapons are unique that they can be upgraded by sacrificing a piece of an equipment to it. As the Possessed weapon levels up, you can carry over a stat bonus from the sacrificed equipment to the weapon itself. Possessed weapons can be found in both primary and secondary weapons. Once upgraded fully, sometimes the Possessed Weapons can be much more stronger than normal weapons in the game. Likewise for Deaths Wrath abilities, Death cannot use any weapons that have higher level than he is.

There are various types of vendors in the game that sell various pieces of equipments and other items to you. As you all may know, strong equipment are more expensive than regular ones. You can also sell any unwanted items or pieces of equipment to them for money.

iii) Combat Section


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In combat, you have access to primary weapon attack, secondary weapon attack, and Wrath abilities. Your primary weapon attack involves Deaths twin scythes, where he can use it to attack enemies quickly. His secondary weapon attack is varied, such as powerful heavy attacks using axes or maces, or quick attacks using bucklers and bladearms. Death can have use both attacks to create deadly combos, such as chaining both primary and secondary weapons attacks together.

Usage of Wrath abilities drain Deaths Wrath bar. His Wrath bar can be restored by hitting enemies, or by using Wrath Potions. In this game, health restoration is scarce, and can only be done by using Health Potions, or using weapons that have certain type of stats that allow you to recover some Health by killing enemies. As you all know, if Deaths Health is empty, it is game over and you need to restart from your last checkpoint. You can also lock on enemies to focus your attacks, or you can also dodge any incoming attacks.

While damaging enemies, sometimes there is a popup button that allows you to kill an enemy instantly. This is called Execution. However, you wont be able to execute enemies like in the first game, since there is now a new stat called Execution Chance that determines the chances of you to do Execution on enemies. This is a good thing, as it makes you not to rely on QTEs too much during combat.

Death can learn new combat moves by purchasing them from trainers scattered in the game. It is recommended for you to buy them to increase your combat versatility. Also, like in the first game, Death can transform temporarily into a more powerful form called Reaper Form. The Reaper Form allows you to hit enemies harder, and allows you to take reduced damage in a short of time. Reaper Form can only be used when Death has enough Reaper Energy, and it can obtained by hitting enemies or using a certain Wrath ability. Once you have enough, you can transform to Reaper Form to make short work on enemies and bosses.

In this game, there are many types of enemies, such as constructs, skeletons, necromancers, wraiths, and many more. They are easy to beat, but they can kill you if you are overwhelmed by many of those enemies. There are also mini-bosses, such as a skeleton giant. Although they are dangerous, they can be defeated if you have good weapons and skillful at dodging. There are also boss fights in this game. Most of it are fairly unique and fun, some are tough to defeat if you are low leveled or do not have good equipment. Many of the boss fights require certain strategy or method to beat them, but other boss fights require you to hit them mercilessly. Of course, bosses are more tougher than regular enemies, and they can kill you faster than usual if you are not careful.

iv) Gameplay Conclusion


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I like the overall gameplay, with fun combat system, deep leveling, looting and upgrading system, bigger open world exploration, variety of enemies and bosses, as well as good and creative puzzles. Unfortunately, the game suffers mild repetition, such as repetition of Primary Quest objectives. All of the Primary Quests objectives require you to clear a dungeon, retrieve an item, and report back to the quest giver. I dont mind the objectives being repetitive, but I was hoping that the means of completing it are different in each Primary Quests objectives, such as need to ride your horse to go a certain location, obtain an item within a time limit, get KOed by certain bosses, and etc. The progression feeling in the game feels the same in each dungeons, and this is a problem that occurs previously in the first Darksiders game. Also, the platforming sections in this game are too linear and obvious. The climbable ledges are the same in every dungeons in the game, same climbable overgrowth on walls, and etc. Although the platforming sections are creative, they are fairly linear and you can obviously know which ledges you can climb and which are not. However, I must applaud Vigil Games for implementing RPG elements that makes the gameplay much more fun and interesting than the first game.

Graphics



As in the first Darksiders game, I like the visual style. The games atmosphere and art style are certainly unique, and I like both a lot. The different realms atmosphere and art style are certainly unique and cleverly contrasting each other, such as the Forge Lands environment filled of rocks and trees that are close to the nature, whereas Kingdom of the Dead environment is filled with barren wasteland.

Unfortunately, this game suffers a number of glitches, such as game-freezing glitches, and glitches that stop you from progressing in the game. I hope that Vigil Games will release the patch to fix all these problems as soon as possible. There are also screen-tearing present in the game, but fortunately it did not occur in many sections in the game. Another thing I must comment is the characters lip syncing. Some of the characters lip syncing is a bit off, such as the Crowfather, Alya, and many more. From what I played of both Darksiders games, Darksiders II graphics looks better than Darksiders, but Darksiders have less graphical and technical issues compared with Darksiders II.

Sound


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I like the voice acting in the game, complemented by various talented voice actors that bring their character alive in Darksiders universe. Deaths voice actor (Michael Wincott) is especially terrific, delivering memorable and sarcastic lines to other characters, as well as many other good voice actors such as the Crowfathers voice actor (Keith Szarabarjka), Samaels voice actor (Vernon Wells) and many others.

The soundtrack is good, filled with good ambient tracks that suit each realms tone, both during roaming and combat. However, I felt that the soundtrack lacks more epic and pure orchestral track during battle or other events. The only orchestral theme played is during Deaths intro in the game and the Guardian boss fight, which is my favorite theme in the game. Unfortunately, that particular track is not included in the official soundtrack and is only released on Jespet Kyds Soundcloud page. Noticeably, the games soundtrack feels very similar to Assassins Series music, and it is not coincidental since the soundtrack composer himself composed the music for both Assassins Creed series as well as this game.

Replay Value

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This game has fairly good replay value. You can attempt to complete the Secondary Quests in the game, play the game again in harder difficulty mode such as the Apocalyptic mode, or challenge The Crucible. The Crucible is a challenge of 100 enemy waves, and you can either press on after completing five waves or leave and take a reward. There are also a fair amount of collectibles in the game, and all the collectibles in the game are directly involved with the Secondary Quests. This game also has New Game Plus, where you can carry over your level, stats and equipment to the next round. However, your tools such as Deathgrip will not be carried over.

Conclusion


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I personally feel that this game is an improvement since the first game, and I feel that this game is more fun to play with. Not only you get to play as Death himself, the game has good implemented RPG elements such as leveling and looting, as well as fun combat and creative puzzles. However, this game suffers mild repetition in progression, as well as glitches. I highly recommend that interested players to wait for the latest patch to be released so that you can play the game without worrying dangerous glitches such as game-freezing glitches while playing.

Score

Story: 8/10
Gameplay: 9/10
Graphics: 8/10
Sound: 9/10

Final Score: 8.5/10 or 34/40

Pros and Cons

Pros

- Fairly more interesting story than the first game.
- Death is an interesting character.
- Well-designed and unique supporting characters and enemies.
- Deep leveling system.
- Good skill learning system.
- Good looting system.
- Fun and intense combat.
- Distinct and unique visual style for both characters and environments.
- Good replay value.
- Intense boss fights.
- Creative puzzles and platforming sections.
- Bigger open world exploration.
- Fun customisation for Deaths equipment and skills.
- Good voice acting.
- Nice soundtrack by Jesper Kyd.
- Lots of side activities to do, such as exploring new and secret dungeons in the game.

Cons

- Story does not explain certain mysteries left in the first game.
- Mild repetitive of progression, with no variety of means of completing objectives.
- Repetitive objectives.
- Linear and too obvious platforming sections.
- Has glitches that freezes your game, as well as screen-tearing.
- Lip-syncing on certain characters during cutscenes are a bit off.