Darksiders III

I beat the game, completed the DLCs, played it again on New Game Plus, and got all the achievements. Overall, I had a great time with Darksiders III, and I would personally give it an 8/10. The game does show its AA quality at times. There are moments where it clearly lacks polish. Enemies can get stuck, some glitches happen here and there, and certain scripted objects can behave strangely. For example, early in the game, the wrecking ball machine fell off the cliff, disappeared, then reappeared and fell off again. Things like that do stand out, but they did not ruin the game for me. With that out of the way, I think the combat is satisfying. It is repetitive, but mostly in a good way. I just wish it had more depth, more moves, and more combo potential. The foundation is good, and when the combat clicks, it feels really fun. I just wanted the game to push it further. The bosses were one of the highlights for me. I thought most of them were well designed, and they fit the style of the game really well. I also liked Fury’s character development more than I expected. She starts the game with a certain attitude, but by the end, you can see that her journey actually changes her. The voice acting was also great and helped make the characters feel more convincing. The art direction is really nice too, but I cannot say the same about every environment. I personally did not like areas like the Bonelands and The Scar that much. They felt boring to look at. To be clear, I think art direction and environments are two different things. The game has a strong visual identity overall, but some areas were just not that interesting visually. I found the level design and the way areas connect to each other generally well done. It gave the world a nice interconnected feeling. However, I still think it could have been better. More shortcuts between different areas would have made exploration feel smoother and more rewarding. The Hollow powers were interesting, but I wish they changed the gameplay more dramatically. They had potential, especially for puzzles, but I do not think the game fully used that potential. Most of the puzzles were not great in my opinion, and I found many of them boring. There is also a tornado section that felt genuinely awful. I also wish there was a way to replay boss fights after beating them, instead of needing to replay the whole game just to fight them again. In the end, I wanted more depth from Darksiders III, but the reason I got all the achievements is simple. I was having fun. The game reminded me of that older PS2 era style of games, where a game could be rough in some areas but still have a strong identity and be enjoyable to play. It is not perfect, and honestly, if someone gave it a 7/10, I would completely understand. I gave it an 8/10 because, for me, getting all the achievements says something. I have many games on Steam, and this is only the second game where I bothered to fully complete everything.