The transition to a top-down view worked better than I thought it would, but at a cost of the platforming being much more difficult. The game was definitely more combat-heavy, whereas I would've preferred more of a combination of combat with puzzles and dungeon exploration like the first 2 in the series. Luckily, the combat was really well-done. Playing as Strife made the game a top-down twin-stick shooter with different ammo types, and it was fun kiting enemies. Playing as War felt more or less exactly like Darksiders 1, which I'd say is a good thing. Creature cores were interesting at first, but is kind of bare bones; I didn't really feel the need to experiment because it didn't seem like play-style would change much. All I ended up caring about was seeing my power numbers go up.

The scope and scale of this game is a thing to behold. The focus on hyper-realistic animations made this game so freaking slow-paced that I became bored in Act 2. That and the lack of direction of Act 2 made me drop it. Also, I don't need an entire horse management simulator baked into my open world adventure game. I just don't give a shit about my digital horse. Also also, I built my PC at the same time as I dropped this, which probably actually explains why I bailed rather than pushing through Act 2. Maybe I'll give this one another try some day in the future when I don't have a shiny new toy to play with.

Ok, so this is one that I really liked up until I had absolutely nowhere to go, and felt like I was just wasting my time playing it. I think this was the game that made me realize that I like the idea of expansive metroidvanias more than I like actually playing them. It all comes down to the sense of progression, and for me, when that progression halts (or worse, is lacking entirely), I end up dropping the game. The map system in this game sucks ass. I have this marked as abandoned, but you never know, I may pick this one up again some day.