My view of Darksiders III, the first installment of the franchise released after THQ went under, was...mixed: I was glad to be brought back into the world I enjoyed so much and liked having an "easier" version of the Soulsborne experience to play, but the plot, (new) characters, designs, and dialogue didn't live up to the version of the setting I'd come to love as of Darksiders II. This latest entry remedies some of that and left a much better taste in my mouth, but there's still considerable room for improvement.
Let's hit the story first. I wasn't expecting Strife's game to be 1. a prequel or 2. a "shared" narrative with one of his siblings, but both aspects work pretty well in bringing Genesis close to the tone and style of Darksiders I and II. Set very shortly after the dawn of mankind and the fall of Eden at the hands of the Nephilim, Strife and his brother War are tasked by the Council to enter Hell and stop Lucifer from enacting a mysterious conspiracy that's likely to upset the Balance. It's pretty cool to get to explore Hell and, briefly, Eden rather than Earth all over again, and some of the dialogue references The Abomination Vault, which is a nice demonstration that the new people working on these games do care about what came before; as for the story itself, it has a pretty surprising conclusion and does feel appropriately larger-scope for two Horsemen of the Apocalypse to be embroiled in. Speaking of which, Strife is to me the most polarizing part of this game: I like that he's got a return to form for Darksiders protagonists in that he doesn't undergo character development so much as he gradually reveals facets of his character over the course of the game until we've got the full picture, but his dialogue just...doesn't make sense sometimes (it's at least 3000 years before the events of the first game, why are you mentioning seeing movies?) War, on the other hand, is just about what you'd expect after playing the first game with a bit of extra characterization thrown in that's related to what he experiences over the course of the story, and with Liam O'Brien back, he's a good time all around, so it's not all mixed bag. Though I was playing by myself the whole time due to not having PS+ for online play, it still felt like a road trip with two brothers, and that was fun. Oh yeah, and my boy Samael making his return in his most prominent role yet was excellent, even if most of his lines fell victim to an issue mentioned below.
Onto gameplay. Of the four Darksiders games released so far, Genesis has been the only one to revolve around a gameplay style/genre I haven't experienced before, that being Diablo-style dungeon crawling - as such, I don't really have anything to compare it against in terms of how well it executes that style. That being said, while probably my least favorite of the four styles presented so far due to the zoomed-out combat and exploration, it's more than playable and sometimes even challenging; the devs take advantage of the wide environment shots more than once for platforming segments, and it's as satisfying as ever to get all the collectables and max out the characters' stats and powers. The creature orb system is interesting, but I feel like around a quarter of the offered buffs are just not worth using, so really the only point of getting them all is the trophy/challenge. Also, as far as the elemental enhancements go, War with Vampiric and Strife with Electricity objectively reign supreme, good lord.
What deserves a paragraph of its own, though, is the...unpolished nature of the game. The previous three entries weren't perfect as far as polish went (the Unreal engine glitch being a prime example for all three), but this is on a different level. I'm talking the wrong character sprites being used for dialogue boxes, lines being played at the wrong time, a constant echo for lines spoken in the Void area that made dialogue all but unintelligible without subtitles, a bizarre lack of a player indicator on the area maps, an enemy I needed to beat in order to get past a barrier teleporting BEHIND said barrier and staying put just out of reach, forcing me to leave and come back before it would teleport again...multiple times, I "completed" challenges before I'd properly met the conditions for them, or even after the game had already told me I'd failed them. It boggles my mind that this is the version of the game I got when it came out 3 months AFTER the first release of the game. It's far from unplayable, but it doesn't spark confidence that this is what we're getting, and I'm really hoping the next entry doesn't come out for at least two more years so they can iron out this sort of crap.
Overall, Darksiders Genesis hits a middle ground between III and the original two entries for me: it feels more authentic to the spirit and aesthetic of the series than Fury's adventure did, but it's not quite at the level of their content either. Progress, but not enough. Would still recommend it nonetheless, because there's so much worse out there.
VideoGame Good, But Unpolished (On More Than One Front)
My view of Darksiders III, the first installment of the franchise released after THQ went under, was...mixed: I was glad to be brought back into the world I enjoyed so much and liked having an "easier" version of the Soulsborne experience to play, but the plot, (new) characters, designs, and dialogue didn't live up to the version of the setting I'd come to love as of Darksiders II. This latest entry remedies some of that and left a much better taste in my mouth, but there's still considerable room for improvement.
Let's hit the story first. I wasn't expecting Strife's game to be 1. a prequel or 2. a "shared" narrative with one of his siblings, but both aspects work pretty well in bringing Genesis close to the tone and style of Darksiders I and II. Set very shortly after the dawn of mankind and the fall of Eden at the hands of the Nephilim, Strife and his brother War are tasked by the Council to enter Hell and stop Lucifer from enacting a mysterious conspiracy that's likely to upset the Balance. It's pretty cool to get to explore Hell and, briefly, Eden rather than Earth all over again, and some of the dialogue references The Abomination Vault, which is a nice demonstration that the new people working on these games do care about what came before; as for the story itself, it has a pretty surprising conclusion and does feel appropriately larger-scope for two Horsemen of the Apocalypse to be embroiled in. Speaking of which, Strife is to me the most polarizing part of this game: I like that he's got a return to form for Darksiders protagonists in that he doesn't undergo character development so much as he gradually reveals facets of his character over the course of the game until we've got the full picture, but his dialogue just...doesn't make sense sometimes (it's at least 3000 years before the events of the first game, why are you mentioning seeing movies?) War, on the other hand, is just about what you'd expect after playing the first game with a bit of extra characterization thrown in that's related to what he experiences over the course of the story, and with Liam O'Brien back, he's a good time all around, so it's not all mixed bag. Though I was playing by myself the whole time due to not having PS+ for online play, it still felt like a road trip with two brothers, and that was fun. Oh yeah, and my boy Samael making his return in his most prominent role yet was excellent, even if most of his lines fell victim to an issue mentioned below.
Onto gameplay. Of the four Darksiders games released so far, Genesis has been the only one to revolve around a gameplay style/genre I haven't experienced before, that being Diablo-style dungeon crawling - as such, I don't really have anything to compare it against in terms of how well it executes that style. That being said, while probably my least favorite of the four styles presented so far due to the zoomed-out combat and exploration, it's more than playable and sometimes even challenging; the devs take advantage of the wide environment shots more than once for platforming segments, and it's as satisfying as ever to get all the collectables and max out the characters' stats and powers. The creature orb system is interesting, but I feel like around a quarter of the offered buffs are just not worth using, so really the only point of getting them all is the trophy/challenge. Also, as far as the elemental enhancements go, War with Vampiric and Strife with Electricity objectively reign supreme, good lord.
What deserves a paragraph of its own, though, is the...unpolished nature of the game. The previous three entries weren't perfect as far as polish went (the Unreal engine glitch being a prime example for all three), but this is on a different level. I'm talking the wrong character sprites being used for dialogue boxes, lines being played at the wrong time, a constant echo for lines spoken in the Void area that made dialogue all but unintelligible without subtitles, a bizarre lack of a player indicator on the area maps, an enemy I needed to beat in order to get past a barrier teleporting BEHIND said barrier and staying put just out of reach, forcing me to leave and come back before it would teleport again...multiple times, I "completed" challenges before I'd properly met the conditions for them, or even after the game had already told me I'd failed them. It boggles my mind that this is the version of the game I got when it came out 3 months AFTER the first release of the game. It's far from unplayable, but it doesn't spark confidence that this is what we're getting, and I'm really hoping the next entry doesn't come out for at least two more years so they can iron out this sort of crap.
Overall, Darksiders Genesis hits a middle ground between III and the original two entries for me: it feels more authentic to the spirit and aesthetic of the series than Fury's adventure did, but it's not quite at the level of their content either. Progress, but not enough. Would still recommend it nonetheless, because there's so much worse out there.