I've been avoiding this franchise for just about as long as it's existed.
Here's why:[olist]
I felt like the art was rather — “Saturday Morning cartoon”-ish. Which felt misplaced in what seemed like a serious game.
I've never cared much for religiously themed tropes or archetypes. So that was a big turnoff.
I had played the intro of this game many times, and I simply could not stop comparing it to Legendary. A game that is truly a sight to behold. And not for good reasons.
At its core, it's a Zelda-clone. And I don't like Zelda. I'm being serious.[/olist]
But I was wrong to not play this for those reasons.
Had I actually played this back in 2010 when it first released I'd be hard-pressed to have not become nearly enamored with it. I'm still not crazy about it now. It certainly tried its best to annoy me at times. But in hindsight, had I played this earlier, I very likely would've gotten a proverbial pedestal out for display.
War... war never changes.
You play as War! Of the four horseman of the apocalypse of course. To set the stage for the game, the Earth is destroyed! And you, War, get to take the blame. How quaint. However, the ”Charred Council” (no relation) strikes a deal with War as he is not one to take the fall for other's misgivings. The Council allows War to go out and find this “Destroyer”... on a leash. Followed closely by a character called “The Watcher” voiced by none other than Mark Hamill doing a most-certianly-not-a-Joker-voice. Quickly, you meet Samael who sets you on the task to retrieve [strike]pieces of the Tri-force[/strike] hearts of the Chosen. This is the main objective for the crux of the game. Then there are two shorter sections after. But it's “end game” sort of stuff. It is still a considerably long period, however. Each heart requires effectively an entire dungeon in a Zelda game to acquire.
Classically Structured.
Let me tell you what I mean by this:
- Gear acquired is used to complete dungeons for both puzzles and boss fight, then exploration later on. Lack of item acquisition causes “natural” gating of environment.
- Puzzles typically resolve by opening shortcut close to entrance of area. Such as a hole in the wall or block to get to higher area just out of reach.
- Zelda-specific structure:
- Life and Wrath stones collected raise associated meter after four are collected.
- Beholder Keys behave as small keys do within the dungeon. Gating progress.
- Trigger lock-on from Zelda is present.
- Boomerang/Glaive is used to grab fire and ignite bombs.
- Other game references/homages/inspiration:
- Combat certainly takes from the Devil May Cry school of design. Hold and pause combos conflated with air juggling with revolvers is the meat and potatoes of each fight.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2279511050
- Chests seemingly inspired from the God of War/Dante's Inferno era. Bashing them open and revealing colored orbs that refill Health/Wrath or souls used for currency. (They stay if you die.) Life and Wrath shards have a tinge of black smoke that encircle them. “Glory Kills” made popular by games like God of War are also used here.
- There is also some shooting sections, though one in particular seems heavily inspired by Panzer Dragoon. If not Rez.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2279511013
- [spoiler]There is also very literally a portal gun. And a few of the boss fights seem strait out of Shadow of the Colossus.[/spoiler]
It's not a perfect game.
Some areas are too small for how large the characters are. Not to traverse, but rather to fight properly. At one point I was fighting two larger enemies in a hallway with one side open to the abyss. I was getting my rear-end handed to me so I activated Chaos form — A sort of built up rage mode that turns you into a monster — subsequently we all tumbled off the cliff just from the increase in size.
There is a late game objective that involves a fair amount of back traveling. And it's required to actually finish the plot. It's not super tedious provided you've found the Serpent Holes used for fast travel but it's still sort of annoying. Especially at a time when it feels like the story should be ramping up to its conclusion.
Early on, there are large “Wardens”/”Tormented Gates” — they're big rock golems — these characters are cursed and you need to travel into the shadow realm to complete trials to get past them. They're effectively tutorials as you accomplish them by killing a certain number of enemies in a specific way within a time limit fought in an arena. They're very forced and weird.
THE GIST:
Having not played the non-Warmastered edition, I can only say that supposedly it's got better looking textures and lighting plus in theory it runs better i.e., 1080@60, as par for the course. Though, I ran it at 2560x1080 ultrawide just fine. I did have to adjust the FOV, however.
It's a great game, I should've played it sooner.
Zitat:
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