Big One said:
Okay what made Darksiders engrossing exactly?
Everything it does, TP does a lot better. I've heard people complain TP is too linear before, yet praise Darksiders even though it's fucking map is pretty much made up of straight lines. I've heard people complain about how the puzzles in TP were too easy, yet in Darksiders there's isn't much of them and they have about the same depth as the puzzles from the God of War series. I've also heard people complain about how tedious the tear quest in TP is, yet in Darksiders you spend nearly 1/3 of the game in a similar quest only you're forced to hack and slash in challenges that are simply tedious rather than challenging.
Oh and I've heard people say TP was too easy even though Darksiders has a lack of challenge when it comes to enemy variety (there's either flying enemies, or non-flying enemies in the game) with a difficulty setting that simply pads out health rather than actually making the game harder.
Yes, please Zelda be more like Darksiders
It was mostly pacing issues.
TP felt to me like a collection of everything a Zelda game
should have. Strictly speaking, it was incredibly competent at puzzle/dungeon design and in an objective manner might be better than any game in the series so far on these aspects.
But at the same time, I felt a huge dissonance between these qualities and the overall pacing of the game and visual design (except for Midna). I found it terribly disjointed and actually had a hard time caring about it. To further illustrate my point, I'd even say WW is objectively inferior on a lot of points (particularly its number of dungeons and the insufferable hub) but I found it so much more charming and felt so much more involved in it, I ignored these aspects while I played it.
As for Darksiders, I like Madureira but over the top grim and gritty stuff usually makes me cringe. And despite that, despite the game being derivative of 10 other games, it hit all the right notes for me while I played it, and it reminded me a lot more of games like the Soul Reaver series than Zelda. I really got into the combat system, I really liked the overworld, the character/weapon development system and the way the story moved forward. It was somewhere at a junction between Zelda, SR and GoW for me and it
worked, while TP never did for me.
And that's why arguing opinions can quickly be a terrible idea: beyond any quantitative measurement, at the end of the day, it's about how you felt about the time spent in front of the game, and no one can or should tell you you're wrong.
