Finally finished Darksiders III - Pros

I would have never acquired this game had it not been "free" with the PlayStation Plus membership. I had played Darksiders 2 and had fond memories of it, but I also remember some critical flaws of the PS3 game that made me not want to play it anymore...

I also stopped playing DS-3 at one point and it wasn't until I tried my hand at Nioh that I finally had the patience to "git gud" at Darksiders. Upon returning to Darksiders I had a newfound appreciation for how "not difficult" this game really is but mostly I felt that way because in my mind Nioh is waaaaaay too difficult for a casual gamer like me.

source

After thoroughly playing through the game I have my opinions about it, some are good, some are bad. Originally, I had the pros and cons in the same blog post, but it was too long so I broke it into 2 parts.

Pros

---

• Easy to pick up combat system that gradually becomes more complicated

There is no "block" in this game and your ability to avoid damage is based largely on how well you can time your dodges, this isn't really an issue with trash mobs but against certain more powerful enemies and of course bosses, your ability to sense their "tells" before they strike is absolutely essential if you are going to win

source

If you time a dodge perfectly, it also slows down time to give you an opportunity for a strong counter-strike.

---

• The aspects of Metroidvania are a nice touch

Certain parts of the game are only accessible later as you acquire more aspects to your weaponry such as the ability to jump higher, the ability to eliminate certain rocks in your path with a giant hammer, the ability to stand and fight underwater, and later, the ability to walk on water.

source
_{When you gain the ability to freeze water and walk on top of it, it opens up loads of previously inaccessible areas}

---

• The boss fights are simply epic

All boss fights are meant to be an experience but Darksiders 3 really did a fantastic job of it. When you encounter the various "sins" such as Wrath", "Sloth", "Envy" and more they range from skilled human-sized thing, to massive boss that takes up a great deal of the screen

source
_{this battle with "Sloth" was the one that took the longest for me to figure out}

At first the battles seem crazy but once you figure out the attack patterns, most of them become a far more reasonable difficulty. I never actually did figure out Sloth because he summons so many "helpers" that basically you are running away all the time, i just backtracked and gained a bunch of levels until I eventually was doing more DPS and basically just powered through - which brings me to my next "Pro"

---

• You have the ability to level up if you get stuck

This was a big factor for me. In many games a certain level will be what I consider to be "too difficult" and I will end up walking away from that game forever because of this. In Darksiders this happened to me on many occasions, but rather than just getting fed up and ditching the game, you can return to previous parts of the map and kill enemies to gain the souls that serve as XP. Then you return and feed the souls to this guy that also serves as your save-point and grow your stats.

source

After gaining like 5 levels by returning to previous areas (and also discovering new areas that I missed on my first time through said areas) I returned to Sloth to finish him off pretty easily. This is a fantastic aspect that I am really happy they added to the title.

source

Most people feel as though strength is the most important attribute to level up, and I agree. This is because it affects all attacks and since the idea behind the game is to not get hit and there are plenty of healing items, health was the least important for me.

---

• The game is sort-of non-linear

There are of course some rules about progression such as you can't possibly walk on lava until you have the the correct elemental form and this is true for "wind walking", "purple rocks blocking your path" that can only be destroyed by the hammer, and of course walking on water.

source
_{you simply cannot get through that without the right gear}

The bosses can even be defeated in an order that is to a degree, up to you and once you open up the waypoint that is right next to them, you can return to have another go anytime you feel up to it. None of the battles are "gated" (meaning that once initiated you can not exit the fight) and this made the game a lot more fun to me.

It isn't purely open-world like The Witcher is, but it is close enough. The ability to level up and craft new upgrades by backtracking is a very welcome addition in my book.

---

Overall, I think this is a great game and if you can get it for less than $10 - which is very likely considering that it is 2 years old now - I think it would be a good purchase. However, it isn't perfect and has a few extremely annoying aspects of it that resulted in me putting it down and even temporarily deleting it from my PS4.... I'll get to those later