Skip ahead 5 years and I'm replaying DS2 Deathinitive and I'm thinking again, "Man, I really, really LIKE this game but DS1 still felt better." Then I go back and play DS1 and I realize that the game isn't as good as my memory. I was like, this is fun and everything, but it's lacking something that DS1 had. I initially felt the same the first time I played DS2. The RPG system is a bonus, I would have almost prefered it without the items loot and more story. We see some makers sculptures here and there in the cauldron for instance but that's it, at least as I recall it.Īnyway, when you're looking for more than destroying demons and finishing the game, I found it quite nice. One thing that LoK had and DS lacks in my opinion are some traces of the previous lifes of those who lived in the ruins we visit here and there. I love having some background and description of the universe where your game is evolving.
Now we know of his maker origins and that the horsemen are nephilims (which kind of rings a bell for all Diablo players). In DS1, we were aware of 3 races : demons, angels, men AND Ulthane whose race was. Indeed the makers come from out of nowhere but that's interesting, same as the nephilim. Even Samael castle, up to the very end of the game is well thought, nice to look at and doesn't feel like a "oh shit guys, we need to finish the game in 3 weeks, tests included" ending. At the pace I was going at (exploring as much as I could, finishing alter quests, etc.), it took me a good 3 weeks and I loved it. I usually am sad after having finished that kind of games after 1 week. I personally loved the fact that the game was long. The open world, manipulations, strong voices, time travel, purple moron on a quest for revenge and absolution, all that reminded me of the LoK saga (minus a real complicated story). I have been a huge fan of the Legacy of Kain saga from the release of Blood Omen in 1996 to the last opus in 2004. what do YOU like about Darksiders 2? How do you think it compares to Darksiders 1? I actually want to know if I missed something, or if people were just looking for a different experience than I was. The last two dungeons of the game were also more creative and felt like more work was put into them especially the boss fights. I'm not a big fan of randomized loot drops outside of MMO's, but that's more of a personal preference thing. The way Death fought was smoother than DS1, but the new gear system made it feel clunky at times when I was too over or under powered. The things I DID like were the aesthetic style that was carried over from DS1 and the combat. Why have a ton of open areas with close to no enemies when there are only two or three points of interest on the map? I wouldn't have a problem with this if the map was more fleshed out or if there were more things to do outside of quest hubs and dungeons. The open world was also a weird design choice, considering how empty it was. I was able to autopilot through all of the dungeons pre-Voidwalker since there was always only one direction to go and the puzzles never got even mildly challenging. The dungeons are all very linear (both in design and progression) with very few puzzles past "where is the climbing wall?".
The fanservice of bringing back both Samael and Uriel also felt very forced. The rest of the game felt like filler, with little to no relevance to the overarching lore of the series. None of the characters actually matter to the story except Death, Absalom, Lilith, and The Crowfather. The actual plot is also really shallow and could have been told in two hours or less. It gets old after resurrecting The Guardian, but still continues for the rest of the game. The ENTIRE game is along the lines of, "You need three X to find the second of three Y's to progress in the story". The plot structure is one big fetch quest.
I had to force myself to finish it to experience the plot in preparation for Darksiders 3's launch. As a fan of Darksiders 1, I went in ready to love it, but I found there wasn't much to love. I just finished Darksiders 2, and I do not understand where all the praise comes from.