3/5 ★ – DaysposableHero's review of Darksiders III.

Darksiders III reinforced for me two positions which I had developed prior to booting up the game. The first is that I am a fan of the Darksiders IP. The second is that I don’t enjoy souls-like games. Unfortunately, this puts me in a bind when it comes to Darksiders III, as it retains the goofy Saturday-morning-cartoon feel of the story, characters, and art – i.e., Christian mythology brought to you by the Hasbro corporation – which I like, while also reinventing the gameplay to be Gunfire Games’ version of Dark Souls. For me, this is a bit of a pickle. Kind of like an Oreo where the cream has been replaced by Vegemite. It has the trappings and outer appearance of that thing I like, but once I bite into it I realize that it doesn’t have the taste that I came here for. This being the third game in the franchise, it has the same background story and setting as both of its predecessors. Namely, the final battle between Heaven and Hell has been triggered prematurely, and the supernatural powers that be are not happy about it. Evidence suggests that War, youngest of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, is the one responsible for setting Armageddon into motion ahead of schedule. The first two Darksiders games see you playing as the horsemen War, on a mission to clear your name and discover the true culprit, and Death, seeking to aid in the exoneration of War and to restore humanity, which has been decimated by the conflict between Heaven and Hell. In Darksiders III, you take on the role of Fury, the third Horseman in as many games, as she hunts down the recently escaped Seven Deadly Sins. In the world of Darksiders, the horsemen Famine and Pestilence have been replaced by Fury and Strife, for reasons that are not made clear in the mainline game lore. The third game in the series marks the third genre mashup in the Darksiders franchise. Darksiders was a classic hack-and-slash action game, with upgrade and puzzle elements reminiscent of a Zelda game. For Darksiders II, developers steered closer to an action RPG format, with side quests, loot, and dialogue options. Now, Gunfire Games – the current (and kind of prior) owners of the Darksiders property (don’t ask, it’s a mess) – has once again shifted the rudder on how they want the gameplay to feel. The result is Darksiders a la Dark Souls, and it seems like they’ve done a good job. Combat is now less hack-and-slash and more methodical. The game ceases to reward aggression and engagement, and now rewards patience and a strategic approach to each enemy type. As Fury, I never felt any more powerful as I progressed in the game, even though I was using the collected souls of my enemies to upgrade my health, physical damage output, and arcane damage output as I went along. Enemies in Darksiders III are not messing around, and Fury can fall to their blows in just three or four hits, regardless of how much grind you’ve put into any particular area. For some gamers, I understand that this has the effect of keeping the combat interesting, as enemies at higher levels are just as, if not more lethal than those at earlier levels. But for me, this puts a damper on the feeling of “leveling up.” I want to feel like I’m actually more powerful than I was before, and I don’t mind a bit of creep stomping to indicate that. The Dark Souls genre expects the player to get their sense of accomplishment and development from the real-life improvement in their gameplay. And it does feel nice when something finally clicks and I “get gud.” But I’m pushing 40. At this point, if I have to spend multiple hours of my life learning the particular quirks and possible surprises of one video game boss monster, I’m inclined to look elsewhere for entertainment. Nothing in Darksiders III was quite as difficult as that, don’t get me wrong. But that’s the spirit of the game, and I did find myself frustratedly restarting level areas and boss fights more than was fun for me. Even I was eventually able to roll credits, so this game isn’t very high on the list of punishing souls-likes, but it takes enough cues from that genre to reinforce to me that I’m better off with my silly baby games for babies. As I mentioned before, however, I do like the Darksiders franchise and IP. I don’t get the feeling that it takes its world and lore too seriously, and it doesn’t feel particularly beholden to the Christian mythology from which it pulls its characters and events. It’s honestly as if every character in the series was written by Reaper from Overwatch after someone described the Book of Revelation to him at a party. It’s giving edgelord, but we’re all laughing together. I was surprised to see genuine character development happen to Fury. As she progresses through the game, and pieces together the mystery of who released the Seven Deadly Sins from their ethereal prison, and why, Fury is made to re-evaluate her worldview. She goes from hotheaded fanatic with destructive personal ambitions to a more introspective fanatic with more constructive personal ambitions. It’s not a huge leap, but that makes it feel more genuine. In place of a seismic shift of personality that we might see in another take on the story, Fury simply comes to the realization that perhaps things are more complicated than she thought, and not every problem is susceptible to screaming and physical violence. Lots of them still are, but not all of them. Darksiders III is a game that I could’ve liked more than I did. Had it stuck to the design philosophy of either of its predecessors, I probably would’ve given it a higher rating. As it is, I was frustrated more than I’m comfortable with. Even though I wanted to see Fury’s story play out, and see more of Darksider’s cereal-box Christian mythos, I didn’t want to slog through Darksiders III’s combat any more than absolutely necessary to do that.