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[Tathanen]

Spoilers and whatnot, but really who cares.

So I just beat this game, surprisingly enough. I say surprisingly because it sure just fuckin ended, with very little fanfare, exceedingly anticlimactically, after a "final boss" that was a complete joke.

There were four worlds in this game, and the first two felt pretty Proper. Huge places, tons of mini dungeons, full dungeons, sidequests, huge maps, tons of stuff to do. Then the third world came around, and it had less than half as much content as either of the previous two. Then the fourth world had literally only one dungeon in it, and even that dungeon felt only like half of a dungeon. Then you went to the final boss, which was basically just a miniboss, while worlds 1 and 2 ended with these huge fuckin crazy fights.

So did Vigil just.. run out of time and ship a game that was nowhere near done? Let's not even bother talking about the glitches and crap where I literally had to save and reload in order to get a button prompt to appear. After the first two worlds, it felt like huge swaths of content were just cut entirely from the last two worlds, the final fight, and the plot in general. There are even five ability slots in the main menu, and the last two never get anything in them! Ever!

I remember people saying that the game went to crap in the latter half, and I didn't think it would really happen, and I still don't REALLY think it did. What WAS there was pretty fun to play. It's just that there is so LITTLE of it, and it's so disjointed.

And it's pretty great how the Wii U version, which I played, also just "never got" the second and third DLC packs. Preeeetty great. Though thinking about it now, maybe that's where all the second-half content went. Sucked out of the campaign so they could charge more for it later on. Which I can't even do, "ha ha."

Overall I am just sort of shocked. I have never played a game where the second half was so obviously missing virtually half of its content. It's like they got halfway through the game then had a month left and "oh fuck." Pretty tragic, really.

 

[BurnOutBrighter]

Yep, that's it

A shame, because Darksiders 1 was great.

 

[sn00zer]

i love darksiders but will admit it did feel unfinished a lot like mafia 2 in that regard

 

[MattKeil]

I have never played a game where the second half was so obviously missing virtually half of its content.

It happens now and then.

 

[HardRojo]

Yep that's it, I don't know what the final scene really means, it's probably

Spoiler

War, at least it sounded like him.

 

[Iceblade]

The game was already getting too long in the tooth. It should've ended much earlier.

 

[Tokubetsu]

The first game is much better, I don't care what anyone says. Darksiders 2 could have used a lot more focus and linearity. I don't know why they felt the series needed diablo style loot. It's like they took all the Zelda comments/comparisons as a negative and decided to go in the totally opposite direction. Game suffered for it.

 

[Salsa]

it's pretty bad

full price at release, was disappointed

 

[Data West]

No screen tearing they said.

YEAH IM NOT LETTING GO OF THAT

 

[Tathanen]

Man, even the ending. Death's story resolves[ish] in his sacrifice, then it's like they remembered "oh shit he showed up at the end of the first game didn't he" so he's back literally "because there were supposed to be four."

This game just did not end how they intended it to, it can't have.

 

[HardRojo]

The game was already getting too long in the tooth. It should've ended much earlier.

Ah yeah, I played it on Apocalyptic and it felt like it dragged for way too long, took me close to 30 hours to finish it, the second half of the game was basically "Hey you need to do this, pick 3 pieces of this, oh and you have to pick 3 more pieces of this and the last piece of that requires you to go to the most pointless level of the game

Spoiler

Earth

to once again find 3 pieces of something.

 

[WickedLaharl]

It's a shame that such a versatile combat system is tied to such a disappointing game.

 

[doemaaan]

wow, i just completed this game 3 days ago (ps3). pretty much agree with everything said in the OP, but i didn't run into one glitch the entire playthrough. it was only after i beat the final boss, that i ran into two game freezes. i changed the difficulty to "easy", so i could blow through the side quests (NOT the collectables). i guess it happened because i was moving through the levels so fast and my ps3 couldn't keep up??? idk.

ANYWAY... what i'd like to know is who was talking to Lilith in that secret cutscene after the credits. anyone know?

 

[RobbieH]

The game was already getting too long in the tooth. It should've ended much earlier.

I was ready for it to end sometime during the

Spoiler

Kingdom of the Dead which is incredibly padded, what with its rule of three fetch quest. Earth compounded the misery.

 

[Oni Link 666]

The game was already getting too long in the tooth. It should've ended much earlier.

That's what I thought too. It was way too long for its own good. It felt like you were just doing the same shit over and over and there weren't enough new items to keep it fresh, like in a Zelda game.

 

[Vexxan]

Yep, Darksiders 1 is definitely the better game. DS2 is really weird, the main character keeps stating he's not some errand boy and yet that's pretty much what you do the whole game. I also feel like the loot/gear system was really out of place and thrown together(and I'm pretty sure I've heard it was supposed to be in the first game as well but was cut for some reason).

 

[Bronetta]

The loot was the worst thing about the game considering the combat is so solid. In the first game when you found a chest, you felt rewarded and excited to see what you had found. In DS2, its like yeah... fuck this garbage after garbage I keep finding because the preorder weapons I got are better than 90% of the stuff in game.

The combat and art style are the only good things about the game. A shame because I loved everything about the first game.

 

[Data West]

To me, it's the ultimate example of 'not all games need loot' because I feel like all the 'dice rolling' going on made trash take WAY too long to die. It wasn't even hard it was just that everything took WAY more hits than things did in DS1 or DMC or NG or anything it was trying to emulate.

 

[Tathanen]

To me, it's the ultimate example of 'not all games need loot' because I feel like all the 'dice rolling' going on made trash take WAY too long to die. It wasn't even hard it was just that everything took WAY more hits than things did in DS1 or DMC or NG or anything it was trying to emulate.

I never really got that feel, honestly. I'd always have a super-strong super-heavy secondary weapon tho, that if you hit with after hitting with the scythe first, you can start a pretty fast and devastating combo with. I cut through guys pretty effectively for most of the game. I played on normal though, maybe it's more grindey on Apocalyptic.

 

[doemaaan]

The loot was the worst thing about the game considering the combat is so solid. In the first game when you found a chest, you felt rewarded and excited to see what you had found. In DS2, its like yeah... fuck this garbage after garbage I keep finding because the preorder weapons I got are better than 90% of the stuff in game.

The combat and art style are the only good things about the game. A shame because I loved everything about the first game.

i wouldn't necessarily say the majority of loot was "garbage"... basically, everything that wasn't a common (white) drop, except for common scythes, were useful for sacrificing. possessed weapons were the shit. way to op.

 

[Bronetta]

i wouldn't necessarily say the majority of loot was "garbage"... basically, everything that wasn't a common (white) drop, except for common scythes, were useful for sacrificing. possessed weapons were the shit. way to op.

I exaggerated but still, there was NO excitement involved with finding new weapons or armor and most of it was junk. Meanwhile in the first one every new weapon or piece of armor felt like a huge achievement and a new toy to play with.

 

[doemaaan]

I exaggerated but still, there was NO excitement involved with finding new weapons or armor and most of it was junk. Meanwhile in the first one every new weapon or piece of armor felt like a huge achievement and a new toy to play with.

true, no arguments there. i wonder what went wrong though. comparing this game to borderlands, i'm WAY more excited when loot drops in that game.

 

[TemplaerDude]

i wouldn't necessarily say the majority of loot was "garbage"... basically, everything that wasn't a common (white) drop, except for common scythes, were useful for sacrificing. possessed weapons were the shit. way to op.

I'm replaying the game right now. The vast majority of the loot is garbage.

 

[Tathanen]

Just to be fair to the game, I will say that while I've got a ton of issues with the progression of the latter half, I've got a huge boner for the art. I know the character art can be divisive (luckily I'm a big MAD fan), but the environments were just gorgeous overall. Tons of amazing architecture, statues, and world design. Honestly it felt a lot like Metroid Prime to me, with Retro's trademarked stylings of huge polygonal and artistic detail in every little thing whether it matters or not. Hell even some of the music reminded me of Prime sometimes. Didn't some Retro guys end up at Vigil?

But anyway, super great to look at, and I love the vision of their world. Even as the game started to fall apart, at least the environments continued to be gorgeous. Shame the performance couldn't keep up.

 

[Jac_Solar]

I'm still on the first world in DS2, so I can't really comment on that, but I think the main reason why I enjoyed the first game so much was because it kept introducing new mechanics, new ways for you to interact with the game world. It kept it fresh almost throughout the entire game, or at least up to the teleport/dimension weapon thing. I think you get it a bit after the first half of the game.

The teleport/dimension weapon thing slowed progress down to a screeching halt; progress from a to b would now take, at least, twice the amount of time compared to standard progress (Without the teleport/dimension thing.), it was needlessly complex, and extremely repetitive. Compared to before, when you moved from area to area relatively fast, you were now forced to spend a lot of time running around in a single area. That mechanic alone almost ruined the entire game, or at least the enjoyment of the game up to that point, since it was so horrible.

 

[Vinterbird]

I have a dream of starting this sometime in the future, how long is it?

 

[Ninja Moomin]

A real shame...


I am replaying darksiders 1 right now and it is better in every respect!

 

[Sentenza]

I even preordered this game, which is very rare for me, thinking "I liked Darksiders quite a bit and this will only be better".
Nope, it wasn't.
For several reasons, but the worst offender was the terrible idea to turn a saga praised for how well it attempted to be "Zelda-like" in a "Diablo-like".

Seriously, fuck random loot in action adventure games. Way to kill any sense of progression/achievement.

 

[ezekielpacman]

The shift in scope for the last two worlds was certainly jarring, but I was absolutely grateful for that as the game had already outstayed its welcome.

 

[Vexxan]

I have a dream of starting this sometime in the future, how long is it?

It's about as long as the first game, ~20 hours.

 

[Silent_Ocarina]

I'm not particularly invested in the lore of Darksiders (I mostly skipped through the text, and that's the first time I've done something like that), so it was even more obvious that the game ended abruptly. I did get annoyed with the incessant fetch quests. I seriously remember having to find three things, and to obtain one of those three, I had to find three other things.

I enjoyed the combat and customization. I definitely abused Teleport Slash and Redemption. However, I felt like I had dungeon fatigue rather early in the game. I felt as if I were in a dungeon the entire game, and I still think that Zelda dungeons continue to be superior.

Screen tearing was absolutely awful. It was disorienting during some segments. I can't be too upset, though; I grabbed it for a fair price, and I think I was just dying for a game to play on Wii U.

 

[Schlomo]

I don't get complaints like this, I felt the game still had more than enough content. Bought it full price, didn't regret it one bit. The final boss would have needed a little build up, I grant you that. But apart from that I thought it was fantastic.

 

[malfcn]

The art and music are great.
Too many glitches and missing stuff.
DLC was really bad. And they screwed themselves out of guaranteed sales if there were achievements/trophies. People will buy that shit for 100% completion.

 

[JaseC]

I'll repost my thoughts on the game from an earlier LTTP thread:

I actually liked the change of direction in general, with the game going from a Zelda/God of War lite hybrid to a frenetic third-person action-adventure romp -- the combat in particular I found to be rather enjoyable. My key issues, however, are that the loot system was clearly designed around the possessed weapon concept, rendering most of it useless (not unlike Blizzard designing Diablo 3's loot system around the RMAH), and the game is simply too big for its own good: while the first two worlds are generously sized, the quests are utterly uninspired and repetitive, requiring copious backtracking, and the latter two worlds are comparatively tiny. The campaign ought to have been limited to two larger worlds in an effort to flesh them out more, and another six months in the oven at the least wouldn't have gone astray. Also, most of the skills on offer are useless; there's one in particular that claims to lure enemies to attack your summoned ghouls rather than you... but it's of no importance as this is the default enemy AI behaviour. Oh, and there are bugs aplenty, some of them game-breaking and virtually none of them patched; the last update was three weeks after release.

The chiefly dull loot combined with the poorly-conceived skill tree means that even if you're enjoying what the game has to offer, you never feel as though you're improving your character in any meaningful way -- again, not unlike Diablo 3.

Darksiders 3 adhering to much the same formula with a smaller, more fleshed out campaign would be great news to me.

The art and music are great.
Too many glitches and missing stuff.
DLC was really bad. And they screwed themselves out of guaranteed sales if there were achievements/trophies. People will buy that shit for 100% completion.

Dat boss theme.

 

[Brerlappin]

DS2 was the biggest disappointment ive had in videogaming this gen. Well, 2nd biggest after Colonial Marines.

I absolutely loved the original, warts and all. Finished it on 360 & PC. Loved the art, the story, the world, the gameplay (but yeah, the portal rip off section went on FAR too long).

I was so hyped for 2, put down my pre order months in advance. Good god. DS2 pretty much just straight up threw everything in DS1 into the garbage because FUCK IT, and told a (poor) story about an uninteresting character, in a fantasy land i didnt care about, with blunderlands rip off loot shit, all the zelda elements chucked out, War gets shitcanned, it was unbelieveable. Never have i seen a sequel so wilfully ignore what made its predecessor so memorable. Its almsot like it was developed by a totally different team who were out to prove they could make a smash hit without relying on another teams previous success.

I got as far as the "fetch me 3 ye olde fucksticks" quests in the land of the dead and quit for good. At that stage id palyed 10 hours and still felt like i was waiting for the game to start.

RIP in peace, Darksiders.

 

[Ushojax]

Yeah, this game was rubbish. Clearly half-baked and put me off the IP altogether.

 

[Star Falcon]

Agreed it was a big letdown compared to the first one. First half of the game in particular was just BORING. I can barely remember the final boss, some blue thing?

Not quite on Dragon Age 2 levels, but close enough.

 

[SkylineRKR]

I'm convinced that the developers hated the original game. The so called 'ending' confirmed it for me. If the Earth level already didn't, as that was the throwback to DS1 and its hands down the worst section of any game I played this gen.

Its a mess, this game. Story doesn't go forward, cut 80% of this game and it could tell everything as well. Problem with its design was that there was a lot of filler, there were like 4 dungeons inbetween upgrades, so thats 4 dungeons with the exact same mechanic ie. incredibly predictable and repetitive. Its also not Darksiders 2, its more like Darksiders; Death's adventure.

I liked the music, its art direction... gameplay even. But everything else was lacklustre.

 

[Samir Sedlar]

Personally speaking I loved Darksiders II, one of the best games I ever played, it was so good, yet I can totally see where you are coming from with the worlds, bear in mind you visited the Maker realm and the Kingdom of Dead so they had to be huge, but the other two, well one was outpost of Heaven so it made sense it won't be huge, & the other was Shadow's Edge and that should have been bigger.


Darksiders II had an amazing combat, the fluidity and amount of control was superb, it was really one of the best, and I don't think anyone would go saying it was a rip off from God of War, they also nailed the art design.

The Loot system may have grown old with time, but that was because after the first 2 realms there was no strong weapon, rarely you came upon a strong weapon, but the system was cool non the less, being able to customize Death's appearance to ones liking was actually pretty good, and I collected some good looking weapons.


There was a bit of repetition when it comes to quests, but actually I noticed that when someone mentioned it, when I was playing the game I was so absorbed in it that I didn't notice the "go do 3 things" over and over again, so it was okay.


The boss battles were amazing, I also think the Lost Light boss battles were amazing, and I loved the Archon fight & Samual fight, two of the best, can't say they were weak compared to the other ones before them, heck I think they were even more special, the problem was with the final boss battle, which was kinda disappointing in so many ways, mainly because he wasn't really that great.

I know some people had trouble with the game, glitches, bugs, and whatnot, but me and my friend who borrowed it and fall in love with it, had no problem whatsoever.



IIRC Vigil said that in Darksiders III they intended to do a bit smaller world, but filled with characters and NPC sort of speak, so they seem to have known some of the problems and were going to fix it.


The Story was pretty good, but it needed content with old Death, Death was a great character, he needed more, I didn't really care about Absalom, nor felt his fight to be as climatic as say the Archon or Samual, heck Samual fight was a huge anticipated fight on my part, so it was kinda sad to not see the final fight being as epic.


On last thing, I kinda wish Death the Nephilim, it would have been really cool, imagine huge battles with your kind, though I think the Nephilim would have came back one way or another later on, since Lilith master really wanted them.

I actually wanted to play as Strife and Fury next, each in his/her own game, though their stories may also be something unrelated to War, which may lead to their story being diluted a bit, but personally I kinda wanted the 4 horsemen to be there in Darksiders V, I wanted to play as each on in his own story before I can play all of them together, especially Fury, well this is one franchise that I wouldn't have minded a yearly release for, assuming the quality and how huge the game is remained the same.

Over all I was happy with Darksiders II, I don't regret getting it in day one, it was an amazing game and totally worth the money, especially when I put around 40hrs in it and never felt bored, unlike other games that ends in 8hrs -which feels like a rip off-, Darksiders II was kinda double Darksiders I, and I liked that very much, there a few things from Darksiders I that would have added alot to Darksiders II if it was there, but alas over all it was still pretty damn good.

 

[sn00zer]

.

totally agree on everything said

 

[luxarific]

Enjoyed it for the gameplay and the OST, particularly this song, but I agree that the loot and story/characters were lacking. The last two (three) worlds in the game were obviously unfinished. Kind of sad, since we'll probably never get a sequel.