Darksiders III

Darksiders Genesis is a very well balanced and a fun co-op, isometric ARPGish hack n slash and I'm gonna be honest, it feels more Darksiders than Darksiders 3. No one asked for a souls-like combat back then but I can't say it didn't work. It worked nice but it didn't even feel like Darksiders... at least for me.
Gameplay is a lot like first Darksiders and isometric view works great, especially for Strife. I'd like to write about how co-op works but sadly, I haven't had anyone to play co-op nor I needed one since I prefer to play games like this solo and the best thing about Genesis was that it has no co-op achievements. Whole game can be done by playing solo, even on highest difficulty, you won't have any problems. You acquire new powers and gear as you progress through the game and you use them to destroy your enemies or solve puzzles along the way, just like the first Darksiders. Game has some amazing puzzles, by the way.
I don't want to talk about the story since everything I write will spoil something for you so I'll just say that it's a prequel with a good twist at the end. There aren't fully animated cutscenes sadly but they work fine. This isn't a budget title anyway. However, soundtracks are REALLY good! I certainly didn't expect them to be THIS good! I'd highly suggest buying the Digital Deluxe edition just for the soundtracks.
That's Darksiders Genesis for you. If you're looking for a well-balanced game to play, grab it. It's really fun and the dialogue between War & Strife gets really interesting. I almost regret playing this game solo... almost.

Darksiders Genesis is not Darksiders 4, it is a spin-off (confirmed by developers). Also is not a Diablo game, only thing in common is the camera view. Do not expect a Diablo-like experience!
Performance: Performance of the game is ok-ish for most part. I experienced some fps drops when the screen gets busy. I play at 4k on a RTX 2080Ti & i7 8700k.
Graphics: Graphics are ok, nothing special. Camera can be annoying sometimes.
Story and gameplay: Game is very fun and fluid to play, mainly played with a controller but I also tried with mouse/keyboard. The story is nothing special tbh and I don't want to spoil anything. The duo (War and Strife) are very funny/humorous and they really synergize well. There are plenty of skills, weapon powers and wrath powers to get and there is an interesting "type of skill tree" to make War and Strife more powerful called Creatures Cores, you need to collect creature cores and level them up, you get the cores from killing monsters or as rewards, really interesting mechanic and there is a lot of room for experimentation here. The game suffers from some bugs, nothing game breaking, worst bug I experienced was falling from the level when playing in the Arena and I was on wave 100. It feels like the game was rushed and not polished enough.
Multiplayer: I did not play this game in Coop, so I cannot comment on this part.
Conclusion: I really enjoyed playing Darksiders Genesis, I did everything there is to do in the game, is really fun.

If you're worried that this is a "DIABLO" clone , you're mistaken. It is a 100% Darksiders game with Hack N Slash Elements , Secrets , Weapons , Enchantments , Upgrades and Exploration just like in first two games , War plays very much like he did in the original game, and Strife is unique enough to be different from his brethren without losing his appeal as a Horseman (In other words he's like DEADPOOL). It is a perfect Darksiders game just with a different perspective. Go for it

Gameplay 5/5, Controls and camera 0/5

Darksiders Genesis may lack the polish and flair of its numbered brethren, but make no mistake: this is still a Darksiders game, and it’s one of the best. There’s a really strong balance of great combat, clever puzzles, rich exploration, and excellent progression mechanics that keep its momentum going strong through its entire 15-hour run time. I wouldn’t say I think this new style should be the new standard for the Darksiders series going forward.

a different view and gameplay to the darksiders franchise i've grown to love. devs made the right decision as this isometric view is the best to the 4th horsemen strife. as a range gunmen .. strife is difficult to be portrayed in a close up melee centric gameplay.
the art.. the environment.. the atmosphere. the gameplay is truly an enjoying experience. i'm more of a KBM (keyboard+mouse gamer) and i would say game is much easier with the mouse. however platforming is much more difficult with WASD.
on the contrary controller fares better with platforming and directional movement.. but targeting is no match for the mouse.
thoroughly enjoying the game. KBM takes some time to get used to. once mastered .. 10/10 game.

My Experience
Although I still have some collecting to do (trickster keys and abyssal armor pieces) and I'm thinking of going back through the game on another difficulty, I think I've played enough of Darksiders Genesis to competently review it.
It's excellent. Although I've never played a Darksiders game before this, I'm now tempted to see what the series is all about. I played as Strife and my co-op partner played as War. Playing as Strife feels a lot like playing a top-down shooter, but with a few added complexities. Although he has melee attacks, I almost never used them. However, after dealing a certain amount of damage to an enemy, a red dot will appear above its head. At this point, you can close the distance and do an "execution" move, which is an instant kill. This is not only effective, but there are multiple animations depending on the enemy.
In addition to normal bullets, Strife has six different "special" ammo types. Although I liked the beam shot in certain situations, the static shot is clearly the best of the offerings here. After hitting a certain number of enemies with his bullets, Strife enters a "hotstreak" mode for a period of time where he seems to shoot faster and deal more damage. In addition, it seems that you do not expend any of your special ammo while in the hotstreak mode.
In addition, Strife has a few wrath powers that require special energy to deploy, like Caltrops (mines, basically) and a Shadow Clone that deals additional damage for a time. On the normal difficulty I mostly ignored these, although I may become more invested in Wrath abilities upon finding the "World Ender" ability (a large, damaging blast that Strife fires from his pistols that I didn't locate on my first playthrough).
Lastly, Strife can activate an Anarchy Form, in which he is both invulnerable and extremely powerful. This form only lasts for a minute or so, and recharges to be used again as Strife progresses through the level and damages enemies. There is also a "synergy" ability that I was able to activate a few times with my partner, but this seemed somewhat inconsequential (at least on the normal difficulty).
One of the best aspects of the game are the "creature cores." Enemies in the game have a possibility of dropping a creature core upon death. Bosses and mini-bosses seem to always drop their creature core, and some special cores can be bought from in-game merchants. These cores have various abilities, and can be "slotted" into a passive skill tree in order to further enhance your character with static buffs and abilities that have a chance of triggering during combat. There are multiple core types, and the skill tree has multiple slots for each. You can put your minor and major cores in any corresponding minor or major slot, but they will become more powerful if you put them into the appropriate slot type. By killing more of a certain enemy and collecting more of its cores, you will eventually "level up" that creature core and enhance it's abilities.
Outside of the combat, which is fantastic, you'll have rather expansive levels to explore. You can hop on your horse (you are a horseman, after all), which gives you a wider view and allows you to move more quickly. Levels are riddled with little secrets, which will allow you to find additional currencies, power-ups, and creature cores. Certain secrets require special abilities to access, which you will gain as you progress through the story. Strife can make a portal to higher or distant locations using specially marked purple symbols, and gains the ability later in the game to steer a ball through an overlaid maze to power ancient contraptions (I'm sorry I can't explain that any better). I must admit I got a little tired of dealing with these little secrets, but it is necessary to pay attention to them in order to continue growing in power. Some of the platforming in the game is brutally difficult, and made more so if you use mouse and keyboard (I used a controller, but on one occasion I had to use the mouse and keyboard controls).
I liked the game's characters - War and Strife have this straight man/goofball dynamic which is consistently amusing, while Samael hilariously reminded me of Killface from Frisky Dingo. Vulgrim has this scheming Mr. Smithers thing going on, which makes you wonder just what that guy's up to.
The only issue I had while playing was a few occasions where my bullets would inexplicably begin hitting the ground in front of me rather than hitting the enemies that I was aiming at. It was almost as though there were a small hill in front of my character that was invisible to me. However, this issue only popped up on a couple of occasions and disappeared after we left the location of whatever enemies we had fought.
It's difficult for me to think of someone who wouldn't enjoy this. It's a little violent, so perhaps if you're not into violent games? I didn't end up enjoying Battle Chasers: Nightwar (the previous game from this development team), but it was clear that Airship Syndicate had a lot of talent. It's great to see their capabilities expressed here in Darksiders Genesis.