Darksiders
Over-designed characters fighting for...reasons. That's the best summation I can think of. I mean, angels vs demons during the apocalypse. Easy. But I don't understand why the angels attack War, for example. And I don't understand who this third party is; the Council or something. War himself is dull as hell as a character.
The story never really makes a lot of sense. It's all very 90's comic grimdark bullshit (and there's a digital comic that comes with the game, which just muddies things up even more, especially since it contradicts things in Darksiders 2). Mark Hamil as Vulgrim is quite entertaining though, as is a lot of the other voice acting. The dialogue is thoroughly B-movie, but a lot of the cast manage to deliver it in a very entertaining way. Wait until you meet Ulthane, who loves to call the angels "pigeons", he's a kick. Also, I do kind of like how the demons have upside down wings, it's a cool touch I don't think I've seen elsewhere.
The mythology is really hard to follow, especially because it doesn't bother to explain how it differs from all the mythologies it borrows from. Best I can gather, there are remnants from races that came before angels, demons, and humans. It's not clear to me how many different old races there were, but the Makers are among them, and the Council is another group. Anyway, the Council's interest is to preserve the Balance, which I think is a balance between good and evil, but I'm not entirely sure. (Makers are supposedly neutral in all this, I think.) In any case, the angels and the demons are kept in balance by the Council. The four horsemen are the last reaining Nephilim, who were created by Lilith (a demon, or at least she became a demon at some point). The other Nephilim got uppity, and threatened to undo the Balance, and so War, Death, Strife, and Fury fought against their own kind, and then were made agents of the Council, given special powers, but also kept ignorant of a lot of shit.
Not that any of that matters. War is a bland, angry, kill things first and figure it out later type.
Until I got the earliest part in the game past the introduction/tutorial. There's a jump early on in a parkade that no matter how many times I double jump, I can't make it. I'm probably doing something wrong.
You probably are going about things wrong, somehow. None of the platforming is especially precise, unless you're getting to areas you're not supposed to without a later power-up.
Your understanding of the game as a God of War knock-off is close, but you'll also see Zelda-style puzzles/dungeons, a limited capability portal-gun knock-off, and a few scattered bits and pieces stolen from other games as well. Nothing it does is the best in a genre, but it's competent, and very few games can say they've aped Zelda with this much success.