The
protagonistic pair form one cohesive half of the Four Horsemen--a parade
of soldiers born from the ungodly union of angels and devils. And yet
Genesis' story is wonderfully witty and whimsically warm. War is a
belligerent and straight-laced gladiator who takes everything very, very
seriously, and Strife has brilliant fun hurling droll jests his way.
"Knock knock," opens one exchange. "What?" replies War. "You're supposed
to say 'Who's there?'," retorts an incredulous Strife. "Why would I
give away my location? I would simply smash through the door and face my
assailant," reasons War.
The pair are so radically
different to one another that the writing really has room to blossom
into something special. To make this even more charming, the majority of
Genesis' cutscenes unfold in a comic-book panel aesthetic--much like
previous Darksiders games. The animation is stylish and memorable, and
helps to ensure that Genesis never gets too grave--quip after quip,
panel after panel, it's a game about Hell and the end of the world that
maintains a delightful degree of charisma and warmth. It's also
spectacularly garish, to the extent that its inherent campiness becomes
its biggest strength.
Each of the two characters has their own distinct
playstyle, both of which are excellent. War uses his gargantuan sword,
Chaoseater, to tussle with enemies at close-range--he's a big, hulking
bruiser that enjoys a good knock. Strife, on the other hand, has a pair
of trusty pistols and excels when quickly moving about the battlefield.
Like his wit, his movements are sharp and precise, and he's very
well-suited to players who enjoy pummeling bosses in between
choreographed sequences of fancy footwork. Being able to switch between
the two on the fly allows for a massive amount of diversity in combat.
Although
the genesis of Genesis is the relationship between its joint
protagonists, these differences in combat style are what make it shine
as a Darksiders game. It may seem as if this is budget Darksiders--an
isometric camera angle and a short but sweet story. It's the opposite.
You emphatically feel like a member of the Four Horsemen. As you learn
new abilities--called Enhancements in Genesis--you gradually gain access
to combos so devastating that it makes sense for the masters of Hell to
fear you. War can channel lightning into his sword and unleash it upon
his enemies, whereas Strife can shoot legitimate lava bullets from his
pistols--he's half-gunslinger, half-volcano.
You have
two different variables to pay attention to while you're in the thick of
it: Health and Wrath. The former is a straightforward vitality meter,
whereas the latter is tied to special abilities. For every Wrath bar you
fill, you can use one of these powers--maybe you'll do a flaming
somersault or create a clone of yourself to serve as a decoy while you
leg it back to safety.
However,
the real fun starts when you fill your Wrath meter right up to the brim
and then some. After achieving this, you gain access to your Chaos
mode, which causes you to temporarily become a colossus. War lights
himself and his sword on fire, while Strife gets a gun that seems to
shoot space dust. If you're clever, you can deprive a boss of half their
health with a single Chaos transformation. It's an excellent mechanic
because it's difficult to obtain and necessitates a lot of risk--you
can't spend your Wrath bars on standard abilities if you're saving up to
go Plus Ultra, Darksiders style. However, when you pull it off, you
become a force of nature wreaking havoc on the hordes of hell and
reminding their infernal lords that the Nephilim are not to be trifled
with. It's almost as if they seem to forget that one of you was
literally named after war itself.
You improve your
Health, Wrath, and general attack power by investing in what's more of a
skill map than a skill tree. Because it's refreshingly easy to navigate
this skill map, you can experiment with a variety of combat styles
without having to pump hours into trying different permutations.
Although each character only has a single, distinct build, the wide
range of enhancements and abilities available to you begets combat that
never truly becomes boring or laborious, which is a massive testament to
why the game actually works. One minute you're using your sword to rip
up the ground and shoot a shock wave at your opponent, the next you're
putting on a red Iron Man-esque gauntlet and smashing hordes into bits
from above. The more fights you pick, the more the game opens up for you
in terms of varied belligerence.
However, the isometric
camera angle is not well-suited to the game's platforming sections
whatsoever, which means that any puzzle that requires mobility to solve
is a nightmare, especially on mouse and keyboard. At times, movement
seems entirely arbitrary, as moving right in one section might have the
same directional effect as moving up in another, even when tied to the
exact same angle and situation. Most of Genesis' puzzles are intuitive,
especially in co-op where the gear system really gets to shine--War and
Strife each have access to three tools, which are used for
problem-solving. However, once traversal comes into the question,
puzzles become chores, and the momentum of an otherwise excellent game
slows to a disheartening standstill.
There
are also quite a few bugs in Genesis, but they're relatively minor and
can be easily rectified. I got stuck in rocks on at least five
occasions, but because the game auto-saves so regularly, a soft reboot
fixed these pretty quickly. However, a more serious bug can occur in
co-op. The host is fine, but the person playing in their friend's server
can automatically switch to first-person mode, which isn't even
supposed to be an option as far as I know. Being forced to wander around
a world designed for third-person in first-person is far less than
ideal. This issue can be fixed by summoning your horse and immediately
dismounting it, but you can't summon a horse in dungeons or tight
spaces, and even though these bugs may be co-op specific, they break the
game. A shame, really, because co-op is where puzzles become complex
endeavors that necessitate proper teamwork, and where boss fights
encourage synergized button-mashing instead of 100 slightly-concentrated
mouse-clicks a minute--not that rapid clicks are a bad thing in a good
hack-and-slash. It's just more satisfying to strategize and quickly
dispatch enemies with a partner.
Despite these issues,
Darksiders: Genesis is a very worthy prequel to an established series.
The combat is excellently engaging, the writing is genuinely funny
without having to try too hard, and the art is consistently captivating.
It's a shame about the dodgy camera angle--this is a game that doesn't
really benefit from an isometric perspective for the most part, despite
the hack-and-slash aspects being easy to control in top-down view. But
at the end of the day, Darksiders: Genesis has a clear identity. It's
not the most experimental game in the world, but it takes a variety of
tried-and-tested systems and executes them with bravado and grace.
