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Darksiders 2 - oh boy what a massive improvement over the 1st game.
I've seen some opinions going around over how the first game is better than the 2nd but that is difficult to acknowledge since pretty much everything in Darksiders 2 is an improvement over 1.
At the beginning I was quite surprised because I was expecting DS2 to feel like 1 but it does not. Whereas DS1 took inspiration from God of War and Devil May Cry, Darksiders 2 is more of a Prince of Persia than anything.
That being said the game is quite massive so I'll just lay out what I loved and the improvements over 1.
POSITIVES
- The world building is done much better with a ton of characters to interact with and meet.
There are multiple worlds to explore going from demon realms to beautiful forests. Even Earth makes a brief appearance.
- The puzzles are fun, most of them they're built with a good thought and they feel satisfying to solve which makes the stages a joy to push through.
- Death has a lot of screen time, dialogue and while his character doesn't really change, his humour is somewhat memorable. He gave me a good chuckle every now and again. One thing for certain, it would be a mistake to mess with him and his enemies end up regretting it.
- The story is a big improvement. One of the main problems that I've had with DS1 was that the story was present throughout the game though not properly told. Darksiders 2 bursts with story and lore the whole way keeping the player involved whilst leaving plenty to be explored and uncovered. Death is also a great character to play as. Whilst War was a fun character to play as in the first game his boring dialogue and dry monotone voice acting was a huge let down. Deaths character however is the complete opposite, The acting is perfectly executed withdynamics which at times even make Death a witty and somewhat charming figure.
- Gameplay is fluid, fast, there are multiple skill trees and abilities to choose from which offers a lot of variety in terms of battles and the way you play.
- Each unique ability you unlock, from being able to clone yourself, to guns, to teleportation and more plays a role throughout the game as more and more puzzles expand but the tricks you learned for the 1st time don't become old tricks. You will become an expert at traversing this world of Darksiders 2.
- Visually the game is stunning. The art direction of all characters and scenery is brilliant, the textures in their remastered form are fantastic and something the game drips with is atmosphere.
- Customisation is decent and fun. Unlike War, Death has an RPG system. This means you can LVL up, wear various kinds of armour that increase several stats from Arcane to Critical, etc. This will most definitely affect your play style but it will intrigue you further to explore each dungeon and do side-quests in order to unlock more loot and gold that can help you upgrade weapons, purchase new ones, etc.
- Execution animations (especially the ones for the angels) are a joy to watch and do. Unlike War, Death cannot exit enemies at will, but only when a prompt is displayed which surprisingly makes such execution moves ever more rewarding.
- There are reasons for multiple playthroughs as well, at least a 2nd one simply due to how much you can unlock and the difficulties with which you can approach the story.
- Great sound design, atmospheric music and more. Really a feat.
NEGATIVES:
- While the gameplay mechanics are great, Darksiders 2, sadly sadly plays it too safe in places it shouldn't. While there are puzzles out there that seem like can be solved in multiple ways, the game won't let you climb an edge that's clearly within reach and things of the sort. You need to solve some puzzles as intended rather than trying to be creative or find other methods.
- The optimisation is great but sadly my game would always crash unless I had turned on V-sync.
- The sound would sometimes get messed up. In my 35 hours, the sound got messed up 3-4 times. Not a big issue but worth mentioning. Fixed with a restart of the game.
- Through some stages, portals and pathways would refuse to open after I cleared all enemies. This was also fixed by restarting which wasn't much of an issue since DS2 has a great checkpoint system but it was annoying regardless.
- Not enough legendary armour sets. You will be filled with weapons but the armour in the game is lacking which means that some of the dungeons and their rewards are not that valuable sadly.
- DS2 struggles with its villains and the main focus of the game. The 1st villain is actually introduced after several hours of playing and then he disappears until the end of the game, being in the background but not a force to really fear or worry about. I really wish DS2 had a more intriguing villain.
- While I understand that Death isn't War, the gruesome factor of DS2 is little to none.
War's brutality is minimised in the character Death.
CONCLUSION
All in all, DS2 is a phenomenal game, made by the book as a sequel should be, with great improvements over the 1st.