Well, this weekend I finally cracked Tiamat and got going in the game again. Currently navigating the worms in the Ashlands. I'm really loving it- it hits that old school sweet spot without feeling stale or unimaginative.
As I mentioned in the weekly thread, Darksiders should be played before Bayonetta. Otherwise, the combat comparisons will be inevitable, and the combat in Darksiders pales in comparison to Bayonetta.
I'll inevitably compare the two games, even though they present much different opportunities for fun. Bayonetta, especially in the more advanced levels, is visually overwhelming. At some point, you just have to trust the controls and the vague sense that your moves will work. I think that my brain was able to speed up to catch up to Bayonetta's combat pace. And Witch Time helped immensely; hitting the Witch Time trigger at the right time gave me some room to breathe during the frantic combat.
There were moments last night, while I was dealing with the first four combat challenges, when I was wishing that I had Witch Time. The camera in Darksiders is just a bit off; as Bryan stated, I wish I could adjust the angle of the camera slightly. Furthermore, I really wish that there was a quick reverse button or button combination so I could see what's behind me. During the fourth combat challenge, where I had to kill 30 enemies with finishing moves, I had a hard time keeping track of the big flaming monsters because the camera was just a bit too close on War.
I love the color palette used in the game. The stages are incredibly vibrant for a post-apocalyptic world. And I haven't encountered the screen tearing or the bugs that were mentioned upthread yet.
Will I have the chance to upgrade my dash? It just seems a bit too short by a half second. I know that I'll get my horse back, which will help with the world traversal, but a slightly longer dash would be great.
I've been using the Scythe primarily to upgrade it, but I love the weapon animations in the game.
Gripes about the camera and the dash aside, the combat finally clicked for me during the challenges last night. The combos are not as adaptable as the combos in Bayonetta, but they're about as adaptable as the combos in Dante's Inferno or the God of War games, so they'll do.
It's funny how we have such different frames of reference for this game. All along, my main comparison for Darksiders was Zelda, so I kept thinking, "Oh, man, the combat in this is so much fun!"
The last Zelda game I played to completion was A Link to the Past, and the last Zelda game I tried was Twilight Princess, which I only played for a few hours or so. I wasn't a huge Zelda fan as a child, and I did play Bayonetta earlier this year, which might explain why it's so prevalent on my mind. That, and I find Bayonetta's combat systems to be one of the best and deepest third person combat systems I've ever played.
That's not to say that the combat in Darksiders is terrible. During the fourth challenge last night, it finally clicked that I had some limited ability to steer my attacks on the third hit of the combo, and with the Scythe, I was able to maintain crowd control fairly well. Whereas I could control crowds in Bayonetta by bouncing from enemy to enemy and using Witch Time, the Scythe allowed War to keeping most enemies at bay while I wailed on one or two guys at a time. That might be why I wasn't as happy with the combat in Darksiders when I was using just the Chaoseater.
I'll say this much about Darksiders: I really, really appreciate the save-anywhere option.
Just ran into some neat scripting in Darksiders. I've entered the catacombs of the Twilight Cathedral for the first time, and I see an enemy ran down the stairs ahead of me. As I turn the corner, six enemies ambushed me. Very neat sequence there.
What were the odds that two games this year would pay homage to Sega onrail shooters? In a separate event, what were the odds that both games that would homage Sega onrail shooters would be third person action games that feature angels and demons as primary characters? Despite how long the odds were, we had Bayonetta's Space Harrier-esque stage and Darksiders's Panzer Dragoon stage this year. Sega onrail shooters are on the gestalt ideaspace?
As I mentioned in the weekly thread, I'm about to encounter Ulthane, which means that I just completed the second set of combat challenges. (Hey, another point of similarity between Bayonetta and Darksiders, though the Alfheim challenges in Bayonetta aren't required to advance the plot. On the other hand, combat challenges are required to advance the plot in Dante's Inferno, which can lead to great player frustration.)
Even with the scythe that boosts souls from destroying environmental objects, I'm facing difficulties with getting enough souls to buy more combat moves and other things. So, I'm sticking with the default attack combos which, while effective, gets repetitive after some time.
Angelic weapons being weapons of mass destruction? What other game that I've recently played also allowed me to use angelic projectile weapons to devastate my enemies?
I met, fought, and bonded with Ulthane last night. He's quite a character, but those angels, on Apocalyptic difficulty, are a real pain in the ass. Or, they were, until I blasted them to smithereens with the appropriately named Devastator.
I destroyed the Griever last night, and it seems like the boss fights have, so far, been pretty gimmicky. Tiamat's gimmick involved the inert bombs and the Crossblade, while the Griever's involved the Tremor Gauntlet. So, it is very much like a Zelda game in that the tools and weapons you pick up inevitably are used against the bosses of the stage in which you acquired the tools and weapons.
Accumulating enough souls to buy upgrades is still problematic, but I have a lot of combat options by this point. I'm more concerned about building up experience points for my weapons. I'm about halfway through the game, and I've only leveled the scythe to 2.75 levels. The Tremor Gauntlet hasn't been leveled much at all. I've equipped the Gauntlet with the experience point boost enhancement, but it still is a chore to grind.
I poured all my souls into sword moves; unlike you I barely used the scythe at all during the game.
I'm up to level 3 on my scythe, and I am just mowing enemies down. Now that I also have Ruin, death will be rained upon my enemies from on high.
The worm boss battle was pretty good, though I dread to think how it would have gone if I hadn't bought the damage upgrade for Mercy before the battle.
I also popped the 3000 gallons of blood achievement last night.
I still wonder why the fast travel forces the player to traverse that subworld, especially since the subworld allows the player to fall and damage himself.
I spent some time grinding the Tremor Gauntlet and the scythe to level 4 today, which also netted me about 16K+ in souls, so I was able to unlock the remaining moves for both the Gauntlet and the scythe. I also empowered Samael, which I'm sure will bite me in the ass either in the endgame or in the sequel.
I'm now in the Black Throne, and I definitely feel like I'm entering the last third of the game.
They got pretty stingy with the waypoints in the puzzle sections in the Black Throne, but now I've gotten past them, including getting enough use of a Portal-style puzzle device that I have no desire to replay Portal itself any time soon. The puzzles in Darksiders weren't as fiendishly clever as the puzzles in Portal, but they were challenging enough to make them worthwhile. I did get tired of them by the third iteration though.
I suppose that beating Straga, the boss I'll fight here, will rely heavily on knowing how to use the Portal-style gun.
As predicted, beating Straga relied heavily on knowing how to use the Voidwalker. Some of the puzzles between artifacts/life shards/wrath shards and me that relied on the Voidwalker and other tools were actually pretty clever.
This game really hits all of the Zelda beats.
Armageddon Blade = Master Sword
Abyssal Chain = Hook shot
Crossblade = Boomerang
Life Shards = Hearts
Ruin = Epona
Beyond superficial comparisons, it just has the same beats as a Zelda game. I get stronger, while the puzzles get tougher. By the end, I have to use multiple tools in sequence in order to solve puzzles. The bosses aren't pure combat bosses, but rather puzzles in and of themselves.
SPOILERS FOR THE ENDGAME START HERE
I defeated the Destroyer and Abaddon last nigth in about 20 minutes, including ending cinematics, and as I had feared, the boss fights were simply too easy. While the fight against the Destroyer required that I use some familiar strategies, such as using Ruin to reach my enemy, the fight against Abaddon seemingly required that I use the Block Counter, a skill that the game had not taken care to emphasize in its importance. Part of the disappointment might come from the fact that War's dash evade, could be too effective in every fight except the last fight with Abaddon, whose attacks have just enough range that the dash evade doesn't always work. His strong defense and high powered offense cornered me into using the Block Counter as the most effective way to defeat him. Unfortunately, my eyes weren't trained, as they were in Bayonetta, to look for the ideal moment to use the Block Counter, especially since some bosses and mini-bosses, like the heavily armored demonic knights, have unblockable attacks. The Abyssal Chain, Crossblade, Voidwalker, Mercy, and Mask of Shadows were all put aside for these two fights, which surprised me.
The point of comparison with Bayonetta comes up once again. As annoying as the instant-death attacks that the final boss in Bayonetta used were, they required me to use the same dodging skills and strategies that I had utilized throughout the game. Maybe it's because Bayonetta's combat system, as versatile as it is, is built around the Wtich Time mechanic, and the game took great care in emphasizing to the player how important it was to grasp it.
Darksiders, as an amalgamation of third person combat games like God of War and action adventure games like the Legend of Zelda, doesn't have that focused mechanic, which makes the various boss fights seem more scattershot in approach.
The game's systematic climax is undoubtedly the Black Throne, which forced me to combine the Abyssal Chain, Crossblade, and Voidwalker in interesting ways to solve various puzzles. And maybe that's why the Destroyer and Abaddon fights seem so flat in retrospect. They weren't fiendishly clever, but they were very competently done and just hard enough to make me exert some mental effort.
One thing to note is that there are hardly load screens at all to transition from one zone to another.
Darksiders also draws a comparison with Batman: Arkham Asylum in how each game handled showing its collectibles on player's world map. Because of how some of the zones in Darksiders branch off, it's often difficult to know where some of the collectibles are. Its multi-tiered map, which lacks zoom, also can make it confusing. In all, I preferred how Batman: Arkham Asylum dealt with collectibles and maps.
Lastly, while I appreciated how zone had its distinct look, traversing one never felt very different than moving through another. That's not to advocate for the Lava World/Ice World/Water World/Air World approach, the world of Darksiders, except for the Black Throne, felt oddly two dimensional. And again, in what's probably an unfair comparison with Bayonetta, the character designs felt almost cliched in Darksiders. The design of the angelic enemies in Bayonetta drew inspiration from gargoyles and angelic reliefs, which is more unique than the designs of angels and demons in Darksiders. I don't hate the work Joe Madureira on character designs, but it didn't feel as inspired, new, or memorable as the enemy design in Bayonetta.