Where War is a tank in combat, his movements both heavy and direct, Death is an acrobat, nimbly dodging (to the point where he doesn’t have the option to block) between enemy strikes while delivering pain though his scythes or one of the many secondary weapons available. There were a few times when the artistry of his motions combined with timed traversal sections is a bit of a pain, but I found them easily overcome by just making sure that my motions were deliberate in their intent. Even the earlier ones, which are missing the item specific nature of some of the latter ones, are all beautifully designed, and getting around them with Death’s Prince of Persia-like agility is glorious. In contrast to the semi-empty world, Darksiders 2’s dungeons are a sight to behold. There is also very little to see outside of the main dungeons, with only a few points of interest for collectible hunters (NEWS ALERT: This game has a ton of collectibles). Despair’s run speed is only marginally faster than Death’s, and while the acting of summoning the horse out of the ground looks cool, the, sadly, preferred method is the game’s Fast Travel system. To make matters even a slight bit worse, travelling through the massive open world is not fun. He eventually does it, as the story must move forward, but it is a very telling sign that perhaps this type of questing is being over used when even the main character questions it. In a mid-game conversation with the Lord of Bones, in which said Lord orders Death to retrieve his three servants who have left his court, Death is very audibly annoyed that again he is being sent out of his way to retrieve something that has nothing to do with this ultimate goal. In fact, it was through Death’s voice that I became aware of this game’s reliance on the fetch quest. Death's voice, given it's own spectacular life by Michael Wincott ( “Why a spoon, cousin? Why not an axe?”), drips with a deserved arrogance, wielding both sarcasm and annoyance as deftly as his twin scythes. The goal in Darksiders 2 is not always as clear, though the journey to it is lit by characters just as entertaining as the first game. This simple structure really allowed the characters, in both voice acting and design, to shine, as War’s goal was always clear.
A single main quest, eventually split into the inevitable “bring me (insert number of requisite items here) things and I’ll get your where you need to go” quests which itself was split between a number of Zelda-esque dungeons, each gifting War with an item that was immediately useful in solving both that dungeon's particular puzzles and many going forward. One of the strengths of the first Darksiders was the simplicity of its narrative. Taking place within the hundred years that War remains in the void, Darksiders 2 isn’t so much a sequel as an alternate tale, played out over a few different and varied realms that make up an open, yet fairly empty, world. That was until War boned the whole shebang by summoning the Apocalypse early, ensuring the destruction of Humanity by way of an epic war between the Angels of the (Heaven or the ) and the Demons of Hell (The Second Kingdom, or more colloquially, Hell).ĭarksiders 2 opens with two items of import, a brief history of a race known as the Nephilim, of who the Horseman are the last four still living, and the events of Darksiders, explaining War’s crime and its aftermath, the destruction of humanity and the death of War, his soul banished to the void.ĭeath, knowing that his brother, being the most honorable of the Horseman, would never have caused the Apocalypse on his own, sets out to right the wrong by bringing the Third Kingdom (Humanity) back.
Vigil’s Death, rider of the pale horse Despair, is one of the Four Horseman, who, along with his brothers (War, protagonist of the first Darksiders, Strife and Fury) keep the balance as dictated by the Charred Council. Thankfully, Vigil Games went with the first image, coloring their well developed world with a Joe Madureira designed reaper. The image may even be of the horrible, black vomit that accompanies Ebola, the dreaded retching, blood oozing from your orifices as you pray for relief and receive nothing but more pain. Maybe death is a nice, pleasant sleep that is simply never awakened from, or even a riotous blaze of glory sung about in annuls of rock and roll. We picture the night-shrouded scythe-wielding skeleton appearing out of nothingness, hand outstretched to collect what’s owed. The word itself conjures immediate images in our psyche.
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