Darksiders Genesis - Review

Darksiders fans have had it rough. Three games into the series and never knowing if another game will actually propel the story forwards instead of reliving the same period of time. Darksiders Genesis isn’t going to help that feeling. It’s a prequel to the previous games so it’s almost going backwards! As a long time Darksiders fan I’m still happy to spend time in that series again. The most I can ask for is that I get more time with some of the four horsemen. Time to saddle up and give this game the ultimate judgement.

Set before the previous three Darksiders games this prequel follows two of the Horsemen; War and the finally playable, Strife. The Charred Council sends them to deal with Lucifer and whatever plans he may have to upset the balance between Heaven and Hell. This sends War and Strife off after a series of important demons loyal to Lucifer, while having to confront their pasts as Nephilim who had to betray their kin and wipe out their own race for the Charred Council. Strife is happy to be doing what he does best; killing, but is uneasy about the Charred Council’s motives. War is seen as less questioning, with morals that barely waver compared to Strife doing as he wishes. Set before the first Darksiders, War is yet to be wrongfully imprisoned for the early end of humanity. This entry sits in a weird place given Darksiders 2 and 3 managed to revisit alternative angles of the events that happened in the first game. Although they still managed to flesh out the rest of the Horsemen across those games, this time it feels like it’s finally Strife’s turn.

As your journey progresses, there is plenty of time spent with Strife and War. As a fan of the original game I’ll admit it was nice to spend a little more time with that way-too-serious curmudgeon called War. It’s been a decade since we spent a whole game with him and it’s about time we got some more.

Strife is almost the exact opposite to War personality wise. For a franchise that often leans into the serious, regardless of the over the top ridiculousness, Strife’s joke quipping stands out. I’m still not sure how I feel about it. He comes across as an always-quipping wise ass, clashing with the tone of the series. It does make Strife stand out from the other three horsemen, but he also manages to be more annoying than funny. Yet after all his quips I still liked the character as a contrast to the other more serious ones.

While it can be reductionist to just compare a game to another game, Genesis feels like a Darksiders take on Diablo hack and slash dungeon crawlers. An isometric undertaking as you bring an early demise to the many creatures of the underworld and beyond, only here you aren’t getting a ton of new weapons and gear. It’s not as simple as treating it like a Diablo clone, it retains a lot of what the previous games in the series were. Often it feels like this could’ve been another third person RPG adventure game like the others, only with an isometric camera giving you a different angle.

With War and Strife both on the job, you have the option of playing Solo or Co op. Solo play means swapping between the two to utilise each of their unique abilities or weapons. If you’re playing with someone else you only get to be one of them, but you have some back up with you and it’s just generally more fun. Personally I preferred Strife’s ranged focus which turned moments into an enjoyable twin stick shooter. War has his place too, being the heavy hitter up close. You’ll be at a great disadvantage if you don’t play to each character's strengths or account for their weaknesses.

Randomly when you kill enemies they’ll drop a Creature Core. These items each have buffs and stat increases attached to them. By themselves they don’t do anything, the codes work similar to an upgrade tree in an RPG. There’s a grid/tree with sockets to place the cores, but you can’t just place them willy nilly. The cores have different types, some are health, attack or wild. Placing the right core in a socket of the corresponding type gets a bigger boost. It’s also how you increase your strength stats, which you’ll need to keep on top of if you want to progress - it’s the closest you get to levelling up. Each chapter will also give you a recommended power level to have your characters at before you go in. However, I never found myself out of my depth.

Over the 15ish hours you’ll gain a handful of new abilities. Each one is character specific and can be used to solve various traversal roadblocks and other out of reach areas. While they open up the way when required, in previous chapters there’s also points where you can go back and use these abilities also. The real question becomes if you want to get every single item and open every single locked door, or if you just want to see the story out. If you’ve played the previous games you’d be familiar with some of the gained abilities. Strangely when you’re using Strife, they’ve decided that using his ability you need to click in the analogue stick instead of a button. This is a horrible way to activate this ability, it’s neither intuitive or reliable that the game will recognise the press.

Like any hack and slash game worth its salt, there is also an Arena. You're only forced to fight through one rank to progress the story. I personally am not a big fan of Arena modes, too often they just provide padding to hide some decent in game rewards behind. At the same time I can understand why they are added, for people who want to get the maximum time out of their games. It adds a few hours more as you try to complete everything. If you ever want to kill a ton of demons, bugs and various evil doers it could provide a decent distraction from the story.

At certain points across each chapter, you’ll find a crystal that allows you to access the shop from the main world hub. More importantly, here is where you can activate split screen Co op if you have someone to jump in. You can also choose an online session from the main menu if you want to give any other friends with the game the opportunity to jump in and join you. If you have someone with you and want to work together split screen style, you should prepare for a drop in framerate and an even further drop in quality aka more smudginess. It is the sort of game that benefits from having a friend join you, if you can tough through some choppiness together then nothing can stop you. The only online option available to me was to have an online session open to friends who also have the game, the only problem being no friends also playing Darksiders Genesis. This is part a damning indictment on my amount of friends and their taste in games, and also a missed opportunity to provide an option for players who don’t have someone free to split screen with them. There was an option to join a game, it looked like I could hop in with a random player. This attempt at forming a new online friendship was hampered by the game refusing to let me actually join their game. I saw some people playing a game, but Darksiders didn’t want to let me in.

There are a variety of environments where the dungeons are found, and each chapter manages to stand out from the others. Whether it’s the frozen tundra of Hell, or the dark poisonous caverns glowing with acid. The tasks required of you are often the same throughout, but at least they look nice. With the Switch as always lacking the same power as the other consoles, it does suffer here. Visual hiccups occur as lighting or textures pop in and out, on top of a general drop in detail. It also seemed too dark where it impacts on the game. I lost way too much time stuck on a level where the levers/switches weren’t highlighted or even visible. Luckily I noticed that a button prompt showed up out of nowhere and I stumbled across the solution.

Genesis has a starting screen theme that makes me ready to play a Darksiders game and hope for another grander scale adventure. The rest of the music works too, but it was the beginning music that set the mood. Long time fans will be happy to know all (if not, most) of the original voice actors are back. Good news if you also like Liam O’Brien’s War, or a touch of nostalgia for Phil LaMarr’s Vulgrim. I can’t really complain about the sound, it’s also the sort of game where you can pop on some music or a podcast as you stab and shoot your way through the chapters, just keep the voice volume up.

Darksiders often feels like it’s way too close to the action. When there’s multiple pathways, there’s no way of telling if you’re on the way to pick up some out of the way item. It’s far too easy to wind up progressing and unable to backtrack to find said items. I found it frustrating, especially when there’s rewards tied to completing side tasks around the chapters and you never feel free to explore. You should never feel like you might be missing something because the game is purposely hiding it with a bad camera.

The map also doesn’t do much to help. It's not detailed enough to help work out where you need to go if you want to get everything along the way. This is only after you find a map in the chapter which is sometimes over half way in, otherwise you have absolutely no idea what the lay of the land is.

In some areas the framerate noticeably dropped and it nearly became a slideshow on the odd occasion. Pressed buttons aren’t always recognised, leading to failed jumps or annoying puzzle moments as I wrestled with the analogue stick presses. There was also a crash during a loading screen, thankfully the auto save was generous because if I had to redo the whole chapter again I would’ve been tempted to not go back. It’s no surprise that the Switch version is the weakest of the group. Fortunately it generally holds up as completely playable. Being playable shouldn’t be an achievement, but it still matters if you want to know if it runs well.

Darksiders Genesis is an alright entry in the Darksiders series. It doesn’t add anything to the overall story, but it is more time with the Darksiders characters for long time fans. Underneath a few frustrating issues there’s a decent game waiting to be enjoyed, especially if you’re hungry for more hack and slash games to play with others. Genesis fits in a niche of comfort food games, you can play it while you have something else running in the background.