Darkspore was the final nail in the coffin to the Spore franchise. It felt like another Diablo with the Spore-glasses on. Ultimately, it was even shut down 5 years later and can not be accessed anymore.

Okay this sounds stupid but take diablo Item systems, spore monster Creator but alot more free, Moba controls and then DUMP A DUMP TRUCK OF EDGE and holy **** you have Darkspore. you had 3 playable monsters at all times you could freely switch between with 3 player co-op it was beat'em up action and it was soo SOO good. It was weird as hell and had its own story but dear sweet jesus If it could ever come back I'd love it. The leveling and grind got really bad towards the late game but man I still think of this game from time to time.

Ultimately Darkspore failed because of technical issues and EA abandoning it. First you can't even buy it anywhere now. Probably because EA doesn't want to support new keys and registration. For a while in 2013 and later you couldn't log on. And it's a persistently online game despite being able to play solo. Then there was a bug where you couldn't save changes to your heroes equipment. Basically there are tons of server bugs with this game and since it's pretty much abandonware there's very little chance of fixes and no estimate of when fixes will come. That said the game itself is actually pretty fun. I played it a ton at first, trying to grind out all the gear to get further in. The game introduces a ton of great concepts to action rpg genre. First you command a squad of three heroes at a time and switch between them. Each brings unique skills to the table and compliment each other in various ways. This allows a ton of squad customization which is really interesting and fun. Second is the gear. There's tons of it but unlike a lot of games where you simply stack one stat only darkspore is all about balancing your gear to get the most out of it because there are a lot of unique bonuses and caps on your stats. So maybe dropping one piece for another isn't ideal but if you make two swaps now you come out ahead. You're constantly tinkering with your heroes. Where the game falls flat on its face though is randomness, story and co-op execution. First there's like zero incentive to do co-op when you can do most everything solo and the matchmaking is poor. Then the story is just bad and shallow and get this- the game doesn't end. Ever. Even after the last level you can do increasingly more difficult levels for no apparent reason. It's a cool concept I guess? But it kind of makes you feel unfulfilled. Beat the last numbered level at first is pretty neat but then you realize there's infinity levels. I guess it's kind of like regular Spore in that regard cus that game never ends either. But it's not very satisfying to a gamer. Finally I mentioned the randomness. Since some enemies are nearly invulnerable to certain dmg types if you randomly get a bunch of those on a level you're screwed, it doesn't matter how strong your heroes are. The game isn't hard per say but every now and then you just get a horrid combination of enemies and lose a level because of it. It's sad cus the game could've been epic with a better community and more campaigns but now it's just a footnote in the history of maxis and EA.