Darksiders 2: Deathinitive Edition

Whenever you see the words “Definitive Edition” thrown around, you're more than likely going to see updated graphics, releases for the current generation of consoles, and maybe all of the game's DLC thrown in there for good measure. While Darksiders 2: Deathinitive Edition does do all of these things, it also does try to differentiate itself from other remastered or updated editions of games by attempting to improve the faults its original incarnation. This is admirable considering that one could easily brush this game off as another cash-in on an existing game in a franchise that is, as of now, dead in the water.

For those who didn't play Darksiders 2, the story is as follows: Death tries to save his brother War after he has been put on trial before the Council for possibly wiping out all of humanity as we know it. He tries to find a way to restore humanity by going to The Tree of Life, but things goes awry and he's transported to the world the Tree of Life is on, but not directly to the Tree. Now he must traverse a massive open world to save humanity and his brother. The writing in Darksiders 2, while similar to the writing in the first game, comes off as far more self-aware than the previous game, knowing fully well just what sort of game it is, and embraces it. It's still a very dumb story with a lot of poorly written teenage angst and the writers trying to appeal to that demographic, but it's not nearly as bad as the first game, which might as well have been writing bad poetry with black eyeliner on its box art. The original Darksiders took itself way too seriously, as if it'd be the next big franchise.

The sequel tries to establish more of a separate identity for itself, while sticking to its roots of throwing in every quirk or gimmick from other popular games into a pot, mixing it up to see if it tastes good. It does, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have a few odd tasting things in it that detract from the overall meal. If you've played a Zelda game, God of War or any Western RPG, then you'll easily figure out just how the game plays. Darksiders 2 borrows from all of those and gives you a hybrid, and with the Deathinitive edition you're given a lot more options thanks to the game's DLC. While playing it, it becomes quickly obvious what parts of the game were taken out to be made DLC. While not as jarring as the original edition, you will notice that there's slightly updated models or better looking weapons from the DLC pack compared to those in the core game.

Speaking of looks, the game was indeed updated for the newer consoles and it looks like a suitable upgrade for those who wanted this game on their Xbox One or PS4. Most of the environments are stunning to behold and all models look as if it has a brand new coat of paint on it, giving it a more next generation look. However, there are still odd polygonal issues that pop up on occasion and there are a lot of textures in the environments that, if you decide to examine them a little more closely, you realize they aren't as pretty as you thought and it was actually just a tree triangle with some updated textures. Sometimes the textures all look amazing and it's like they completely scaled everything up to HD and made everything beautiful, other times it looks like they just tried to make it beautiful and hoped that the players wouldn't notice how lazy things ended up looking even on the highest of graphical settings for the PC. The best looking places are the dungeons, and it's clear that the team spent most of their time painstakingly making everything in here look amazing and they succeeded, and since we spend a lot of our time in the dungeons it's nice they at least took their time and made everything in there look stunning. It would have been nicer if they took that sort of care with the rest of the world though.

Gameplay-wise, Death is able to pick up weapons dropped by enemies and can wield whatever he wants as a secondary weapon, as well as get gear to equip himself to improve his stats. This game adds more in the way of RPG elements than the first game, giving the players a slight sense of progression as they go throughout the game, looking relatively more intimidating as time goes on. It doesn't seem that these bonuses do nearly as much as they could have however, because at times it seems as if you are smacking an enemy around for hours with all of your best moves and they just won't die. They have no health bar so there's no indication if and how much damage you are doing to them, other than the blood that occasionally spurts out of their body, but even then it's more of a flavor of the week sort of thing rather than actual wounds. That said, it's not like you're going to die to the basic enemies in this game all that much, since the game is extraordinarily easy, but they just inflated the enemies health in order to make you feel as if you were in this epic battle rather than having the enemies AI do anything crafty or actually be a challenge. The only times you will have trouble in this game are the boss fights, which provide a welcome layer of difficulty to the game making in suitably epic to behold.

You actually have to use your brain for these, rather than just aimless combinations you have memorized at this point thanks to the various training features or the many mooks you've had to fight to get up to this point. These may be the only times you'll die in the game, other than to accidental platforming mishaps thanks to the camera that zooms around constantly due to Death's acrobatic nature. The game gives you a nice open world to explore, giving the world the aforementioned Zelda feel, while still attempting to try to differentiate itself as best as it can. It gives you collectables, some lore, and some nice sidequests you can do if you want to distract yourself from the main story for a while, giving you a change of pace when you're done dealing with the grunting and growling Death.

Overall, Darksiders 2: Deathinitive Edition works as a hybrid of multiple games, but if you've played the original Darksiders 2, playing this game won't be all that different. If you missed out on it, this might be a good thing to pick up if you can ignore the story, lack of difficulty and odd camera controls. If not, it might be best to let Death rest.

Angelina Bonilla, NoobFeed (@Twitter)