Darksiders II: Deathinitive Edition

With the new "Deathinitive Edition", Vigil Games’ popular hack-and-slash ARPG Darksiders II once again finds its way onto PCs and, for the first time, 8th-gen consoles. The new edition features updated graphics and all DLC packs thus far.         

The story of Darksiders II revolves around a group of four “Nephilim”, beings born of angels and demons, who have decided to abandon the bloodthirsty way of life that their brethren have lived for ages. They resolve to serve the Charred Council, a body tasked with maintaining the balance between light and darkness in the universe, and are thenceforth known as the “Four Horsemen”: War, Strife, Fury, and Death. The Council grants them nigh-unlimited power, but this in turn leads to the downfall of one of their numbers. War stands accused of bringing about the Apocalypse and unleashing chaos and damnation upon mankind and destroying the tenuous balance that had kept things in order. Now, War is being held captive, and will soon be appearing before the Charred Council to answer for his crimes. His brother Death, however, is determined to rescue his brother, and is even prepared to restore humanity in the process. But Death has no idea how he’s to go about doing this, so he seeks the wisdom of the legendary being known as the Keeper of Secrets in the hopes that the Keeper will be able to give him some advice. And this is where the adventure begins, and you will soon be facing a diverse range of challenges across multiple unique worlds.  

Gameplay

The controls can be adjusted however you want, but the standard control scheme is pretty good and makes a lot of sense. You move Death around using the WASD keys and jump using the spacebar. There’s a variety of different weapons you can use in combat, and standard attacks are performed using the right and left mouse buttons. You can dodge enemy attack by pressing Alt at the right moment, and if you’re confronted with a group of enemies, you can press the Shift key to focus your attacks on the weakest one first, getting him out of the way so you can concentrate on the others.

Death is also capable of running along certain specially marked walls using a combination of the movement keys and the jump key, allowing him to get past deep chasms and other pitfalls. You’ll also run across walls overgrown with winding plants, which you can use to give yourself a boost to get over walls that are too high to get past using jumps. Sometimes you won’t be able to run along the walls, and you’ll have to look for other ways to get up or down. You can use various wooden beams here, but this can get a bit tricky – to move from one beam to the next, you have to use the movement keys to turn in the direction you want to go, then make a daring backwards to reach the beam you want to grab onto. Death will lean slightly towards the spot he’s going to jump, so you can see where he’s actually going to land.  

Another special ability your character possesses is the ability to jump back and forth between two parallel walls, in order to get to whatever’s at the top. This allows you to get past all kinds of obstacles. Several parts of the game require you to combine various movement types, which means that a certain amount of practice and even routine is necessary if you don’t want to end up getting really frustrated. But this additional challenge only adds to the game, ensuring that at no time does it get boring. As a Horseman, you of course have your own horse, a rather majestic beast who helps you move about more quickly through the game world. Your mount goes by the pleasant name “Despair”, and you can call him up using the C key. There are lots of places where you can’t take a horse, though, in which case you just have to dismount and hoof it yourself.

Each weapon features a variety of combo attacks, which you can perform by pressing different keys in sequence. Combos are typically more powerful than standard attacks, or have certain negative effects on enemies, making them useful in combat. There really are a lot of them to keep track of, so you can always press the O key to open the “Move List”, where you can see the individual sequences used to perform each one. There’s also an inventory menu that allows you to manage the items and weapons you’ve picked up along the way and equip them if you need to. Useful items like healing potions or bits of armor can be acquired in several different ways in the course of your journey. Treasure chests are located in various places throughout the world, just waiting for you to loot them. There are also all kinds of things on the bodies of your fallen enemies of course, which you can snatch up after the dust has settled.

But defeating enemies doesn’t just get you cool items – you earn valuable experience points, which allow you to level up and improve your character. Every time you level up, you get a certain number of skill points, which you can spend in the skill menu. The skill menu is where you can unlock new skills and attacks that will help you in combat as the game progresses. In contrast to your standard attacks, several unlockable skills require a certain amount of “Wrath”, which has its own meter under your health bar. To use these special attacks, you press the Tab button and select the one you want to use. One way to refill the Wrath meter is by drinking a Wrath Potion – the equivalent of a Health Potion for your HP. You can assign potions to the number keys and use them both in combat and out of it.

Boss battles and scenes relevant to the storyline where you meet important characters are accompanied by brief cut scenes. If you’re not one to wait, however, you can alway skip these animated clips and just get on with the game.

The minimap in the lower right corner of the screen helps you explore your environment, and also shows you where your next mission objective is located. It also shows you the location of Death’s little raven “Dust”, who often flies a few yard ahead of you to help guide you in the right direction. You can also open a large map showing the whole game world in the options menu. The game automatically saves in important spots, but since these autosaves are rather few and far between, it’s always a good idea to save the game manually at regular intervals.

Graphics

Sound

The music in Darksiders II is mostly made up of discreet orchestral pieces dominated by strings and choral arrangements, which is perfect for the environments in the game. The music appears to adjust to fit the atmosphere – for example, when you go through the forest you hear a lot more flutes than you would in the icy wastes. Voiceovers and sound effects are also pretty good, rounding out the sound design in a way that lines up with the overall atmosphere they’re trying to create. There are also subtitles for the voiceovers, which you can turn on and off in the options menu.