Darksiders is a cult classic series that first saw the light of day in 2010 on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. It was influenced by games such as Legend of Zelda, Devil May Cry and even a bit of Portal for good measure. Darksiders took all of its influences and melded them together to create an enjoyable but flawed final product. Now that Darksiders has been released on current generation consoles in the form of the Darksiders: Warmastered Edition it is time to revisit and see how well Darksiders held up.

In Darksiders you play as War, one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse who was sent to earth to herald the apocalypse. This event begins after the gates of heaven and hell opened and angels and demons waged war with humanity caught in the middle. However, the seven seals that were (once broken) meant to call the horsemen to battle were not broken, so War has been accused of causing mass chaos and has been sent on a quest to clear his name.

During War’s adventure, you will be tasked with slaying both demons and angels, solving puzzles, upgrading War and his arsenal and going through areas that are extremely reminiscent of the temples from The Legend of Zelda series.

War starts off with only a large sword known as “Chaoseater” but before long you will gain access to a multitude of weapons like gauntlets, a Hookshot, and even a pistol. All these items are delivered at a steady pace so that as soon as you feel like you got the hang of one playstyle, Darksiders introduces something new and keeps breathing life into the game throughout its’ roughly 20-hour length.

During combat you start off with simple combos that can be chained using different weapons on the fly like in Devil May Cry, though only after upgrading the combos. Darksiders’ combat isn’t nearly as deep or stylish, but you still feel the power that a horseman would have which along with the varied enemies keeps the combat feeling fresh throughout. Enemies themselves pose a decent enough challenge as you will face off against demons that use brute force or angles that will shoot at you from afar. A cool little detail is that if you find yourself in a group of angels and demons, the two factions will continue to fight each other as you engage in battle.

War and his arsenal can be upgraded by trading souls of the dead (obtained through combat) with the demon merchant Vulgrim. Vulgrim offers a myriad of services from selling you upgrades for not only your health and Power meter but also combos (as the weapons level up through combat) and even creating wormholes for you to fast travel with.

Like The Legend of Zelda, Darksiders offers a world full of temples to make your way through. Though they are not as detailed or charming as the ones in Zelda, Darksiders does offer some fun temples to tackle and reveals some interesting lore that keeps players intrigued.

Darksiders lead artist Joe Madureira brought over his comic book style to the game and it is probably one of my favorite aspects about the Darksiders series as a whole. For a post-apocalyptic world, Darksiders is drop-dead gorgeous with its eye-popping colours, inked in sword slashes and explosions, and the bright environment keeps Darksiders looking great in 2019.

Unfortunately, this remastered edition suffers from a fair amount of technical issues. In my playthrough, I experienced multiple times where the audio would cut out from the game entirely causing me to have to restart my PlayStation to fix it. Cutscenes would end early but would still play the audio, multiple game crashes lead to loss of progress and to top it off, I had framerate issues that when the screen was crowded the game would crawl. As of the time of writing, there have been no patches.

Darksiders: Warmastered Edition is a decent way to go back to this cult classic THQ game; with fun hack-and-slash gameplay, a gorgeous art style, great voice acting and a solid story, Darksiders is a great game that should be experienced. However, this remastered edition is lacking the polish that was necessary to bring over Darksiders to the current generation. If you still own a PlayStation 3 or an Xbox 360 I would highly recommend you seek out a copy, if not then wait to find Darksiders: Warmastered Edition on sale.

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Darksiders Warmastred Edition

$19.62 USD

7

Score

7.0/10

Pros

• Gorgous art
• Engaging Combat

Cons

• Major Technical issues
• Disjointed world