Darksiders Genesis (2019 Video Game) User Reviews

Enjoyable and worth playing, but what we really want is Darksiders 4

[Kosh32 · 7/10 · 14 August 2023]

I was pleasantly surprised by this entry in the Darksiders franchise. I thoroughly enjoyed Darksiders 1-3, and I eagerly await Darksiders 4, but I was apprehensive about playing this entry though as I do not usually go for games in the Diablo style gameplay. It's a prequel to the main entries in the franchise and finally introduces the horseman Strife as a playable character. The story line is decent enough, not quite on par with the likes of Darksiders 1-3 but for the style of gameplay it was good enough. The musical score though is certainly on the same level as the rest of them, especially the level called "Decay".

It was great to see that many of the voice actors involved have reprised their roles: Liam O'Brien (War), Vernon Wells (Samael), Phil LaMarr (Vulgrim), as well as a few other that voice different roles this time such as Keith Szarabajka and Troy Baker.

This brings me to the sole disappointing aspect of this game; that being that I felt that Chris Jai Alex voicing Strife was a poor choice. The dialogue from him is clearly of a different calibre than that of Liam O'Brien, Michael Wincott and Cissy Jones voicing War, Death and Fury respectively. It's as if Chris Jai Alex is just playing himself in the game; making little effort to sound any different than a modern American, even to the point of uttering grammatical errors (such as saying "don't got"). Interestingly enough though, Phil LaMarr, who has voiced Vulgrim throughout the franchise, actually voiced Strife in the final scene of Darksiders 3, I would love to know why they didn't ask him to reprise this role in Darksiders Genesis since he was already included in the cast. Given his acting talent, we can only imagine the wonders he could have worked with Strife here. I can only hope that they do call upon him to voice Strife in Darksiders 4.

I paid £6.99 for it on the Playstation store, It's worth that much, I wouldn't have paid more for it though.

my skepticism to play this style of game was put to rest within the first few hours

[LovecraftKaiju · 8/10 · 24 February 2024]

TL;DR - A true Darksiders game in soul and this is coming from someone who has never played a Diablo game in his life, my skepticism to play this style of game was put to rest within the first few hours.

If you are a fan of the DS series this game will not disappoint for your first hands on with Strife as a character.

War being playable and the kinship between the horsemen as well as Co Op makes this a must buy for all Darksiders fans Platforming and Area traversal had some major issues when I played the game and the load of bugs made this a frustrating play-through, but by now this shlould have been fixed.

A little context to my thoughts.

Been an absolute fan of this franchise since I played the first game over a decade ago.

DS2 followed along and even though it had a slight changes from the War's version Death's character as well as the game on a whole was an excellent experience.

DS3 manages to be a formidable game though not as finessed as the last two considering the massive shift in it's developers roots, yet this still managed to feel like it belonged in this universe and Fury as a character grew over me through the game.

The Good - Now to the main Dish

Darksiders Genesis with it's departure from the Third Person/Over the Shoulder to a Top down Dungeon Crawler. DS Genesis manages to retain it's essence for the DS universe and provides us with a great experience and a layover heading to the eventual climax of this saga going on for over a decade and a half now.

The story though not overly affecting the overall plot we have been following since War's Crater Landing, even so manages to be an excellent hack and slash/dungeon crawler experience raised above it's mediocre game design due to War and Strife's characters and the kinship between them.

Strife as a playable character was the highlight of the game for me since I am not really a 'Diablo' person and was really skeptical going into this game, but the soul of DS hack and slash is well and alive with amazing combat mechanics and excellent character handling.

The BAD - That of course exists in all forms of media was a particular let down.

Even if I were to take into calculation that this is a combat focused game and not a platforming focused game, still the area traversal and platforming was one of the worst aspects of this game.

Some of the traversal puzzles were so very frustrating not because they were hard but because of the weird camera angles and various bugs related to glitching which would usually end with me having to take a break and or restart the game for it to function right.

Multiple times the game would lock up my character barring me from preforming any actions other than a single jump and moving around.

Hopefully these problems are now fixed.

Conclusion - There is a lot of good here as the combat is very satisfying giving you the vicarious feeling of being in control of one of the all powerful Horsemen !!