Darksiders II (Wii U) Review

In Darksiders II, players take the role of Death, one of the Four Horsemen of The Apocalypse, who is out to clear the name of his brother, War. Whilst War is charged with the crimes he committed in the first game, Death traverses various lands to prove his brother innocent and resurrect mankind. Along the way, Death is faced with various obstacles such as gargantuan beasts, foe-filled dungeons and mind boggling puzzles. In order to overcome these obstacles, the player must use Death's various skills and even their own brains!

Darksiders II is built upon a strong concept that borrows many of its elements from various different games. Players must make their way through many dungeons, which are filled with puzzles, reminiscent to that of the dungeons found in The Legend of Zelda games. Also scattered around these dungeons are various death traps, such as spikes, bottomless pits, and so on. In order to get past these beasties, Death must use his parlour skills, which include running across walls and grabbing various platforms and beams to reach higher places, much like the manoeuvring found in Prince of Persia and Assassin's Creed titles. Comparisons aside though, Darksiders II is a fantastic game in its own right.

Throughout his journey, Death is aided by two companions - his raven, Dust, and his horse, Despair. Players can call Dust by clicking the left analogue stick and the bird will then point Death in the right direction, indicated by a purple dot on the mini-map. Whilst in the more open areas, players can summon Despair by pressing both the L and R buttons on the GamePad, which makes getting to destinations a lot easier. Riding around on Despair works much like the horse riding found in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, with a charge meter that depletes every time the R button is pressed, initiating a short burst of speed. This meter will recharge over time, similar to the carrot meter found in the aforementioned game.

The combat found in Darksiders II is mostly hack and slash, with Death having two weapon types equipped at a time. His primary weapons are two scythes, with various different types being available. Secondary weapons include heavy weapons, such as maces, hammers and axes and quicker weapons such as gauntlets and claws. Each of these weapons has their own unique stats including damage, critical damage, critical chance and a range of elemental effects. Players can also lock on to enemies, in a similar fashion to Z-targeting, making enemies a lot easier to deal with.

Other stat-altering items include pieces of armour and relics, all of which are categorised by different colours, with white being the most common and purple being "legendary." There is also a dark orange used for special "possessed" weapons, which can be levelled-up by consuming various weapons and items that have been obtained by the player. When these level up, players can then select a specific stat to transfer from the item last consumed.

Along his journey, Death will obtain new skills and abilities that can be found in specific locations or purchased by using skill points obtained by levelling up. The most notable abilities found during the main story include Redemption, Death Grip and Interdiction. Redemption is Death's revolver and can be used to shoot a number of different things such as explosives and enemies. There are also two different aiming styles to use, depending on the situation the player is in. Free-aim can be activated by clicking the right analogue stick and allows players to choose where they want to aim, in a third-person shooter manner. There is also targeted aiming so players can quickly get rid of enemies that move around or are hard to reach, like flying enemies, for instance.

As Death completes quests for various different NPCs and disposes of enemies, he will gain XP and eventually level up. When this occurs, he will receive skill points that can then be used to purchase different abilities that he can later use in combat. Skills are laid out in the familiar tree format, with there being two different trees players can assign points to. The Harbinger tree focuses more on Death's physical strengths, whilst the Necromancer tree gives him some more interesting abilities such as summoning deadly ghouls and a murder of crows to unleash on his enemies. These abilities can then be further improved by assigning extra skill points to them or by purchasing skills further down the tree.

Using these skills in the heat of battle consumes Wrath, which is Darksiders II's form of manna. This means players cannot continuously use them and must build up Wrath energy by killing enemies or drinking Wrath potions in order to use these abilities again. Death also has a near-invincible form that can be unleashed after filling up the Reaper meter, which can take a frustratingly long time if you don't have any skills that can make this a quicker process. Skills can either be assigned to buttons or accessed via virtual buttons on the GamePad's 'live' menu, which contains a bunch of other useful functions, such as the ability to change armour and weapons without pausing the game and it can even be used to display a full-sized map on the GamePad's touch screen, which is very handy!

For players that aren't keen on these features, the GamePad's display can be turned off and rather than having virtual buttons to activate skills, players will be presented with a radial menu when they press down on the D-Pad. The entire game can even be played with just the Wii U Pro Controller or exclusively on the GamePad's screen. The in-game currency, Gilt, is found pretty much everywhere, from enemies' remains to contained in chests. This same formula applies to weaponry, armour and relics, which can be sold for more Gilt so that the player can buy new equipment from salesmen scattered around the world map.

Due to the scale of the universe contained in Darksiders II loading times can often take a little longer than desired, but never do they hinder the gameplay itself, which is great. Often when entering a new area, Death will stop in his tracks and players will be presented with a rotating circle in the bottom right hand corner of the screen to indicate that the game is loading up the next area. Loading can take any time from a few seconds up to a minute or so, depending on the size of the area ahead and how many enemies it contains.

Not only does Darksiders II have a huge world, it's actually fully fleshed out with various life forms. Be it NPCs who give out quests or the number of different monsters found out in the wilderness. These characters are all brought to life by a stellar cast of voice actors, from Michael Wincott who provides the voice of Death, to Troy Baker who gives life to numerous different characters. The main campaign takes around twenty hours to complete for players who just want to get through the game, but this time is extended to thirty-plus for those wanting to experience the game in its entirety. Also, included in this version of Darksiders II are Argul's Tomb, Death Rides, Deadly Despair and the legendary armour and weapon packs that were released as DLC for the other platforms. This content adds around five hours playtime onto the overall experience, so there's a lot to do outside the main game.