Vampyr

1. Saric2017

   Jun 4, 2018

   10

   HISTORY
   Vampyr already starts with an intense and heavy prologue to already let the player involved with the story, even though this mayHISTORY
   Vampyr already starts with an intense and heavy prologue to already let the player involved with the story, even though this may leave him a little lost about how the game will be since the first hour of play is fairly linear. You take on the role of Dr. Jonathan Reid, a renowned physician who served in the war and has now been transformed and seeks answers and revenge from those who did this to you. The story is rather focused on the city of London, devastated by an epidemic.
   The Vampyr universe is greatly expanded in terms of mythologies and cultures, creating space for various types of organizations and groups in the game, such as secret vampire societies, shady sororities, hunter groups, and high-class vampire societies that govern the region, as well as other things that you discover throughout the game. The game is full of characters, each with its own characteristics and missions. Although Vampyr's promotional images that show cities full of people moving and interacting are a deceptive advertisement, you really feel inside a living and functional place.
   In the game you will need to know how to divide your bloodthirsty vampire side with your renowned doctor side, taking advantage to feed on these characters or helping them and improving the city. Your choices will affect the direction of the story of the game, as well as the direction of each city district and the destination of the characters that are there. As the game progresses (the main story takes 15 to 20 hours to be completed) the story is getting as intense as the prologue but leaving more room for choices rather than demotivating linearity.
   A big problem of the game is to force you to have a certain personality and affection for a certain character, something that I as a player did not understand where it came from and I could not relate because of the choices I made in the game. The DONTNOD Entertainment team had done something similar and forced on Life is Strange and it seems they made the same mistake.
   Gameplay
   As Vampyr it is an RPG of choices, open world and full of combat, I will divide this session into two parts: Choices and Combat.
   In terms of choices, the game has more effect on your actions than on dialog options. While it's amazing that you can just go on an NPC that would normally give you several missions, interact with the world around you and simply choose to kill him to quench your blood thirst (and gain a lot, but a lot XP with it), the dialogue options are almost always limiting and in the whole game only in 3 or 4 moments you will make big decisions because of these options. In some moments where you think you need to make a decision of extreme importance in the game, he chooses the destiny for you as well.
   Whenever you sleep, that is when you can evolve, the game shows the results of your actions in each district, showing if the district has become healthier or gone into chaos. Depending on the level of the district, certain NPCs will act differently and may improve the status of some and in worse cases, leading to the death of others.
   Already in combat, the game is sensational in every way. The combat is very similar to Witcher 2 and 3 (this is not going to be the last time I'll use Witcher for reference in this review), except that instead of being a hunter with equipment prepared to defeat a certain monster, you are the monster needing to watch out for hunters who know all their weaknesses. The game does not have a lot of variety of enemies (inferior vampires, hunters, monsters and vampires of high level), but knows to vary in the abilities that each one of them has as you get stronger in the game, which is great since, in a universe only of vampires, to escape of the pattern with enemies only to satisfy the will of the combat player, would be a negative point in the whole lore of the game.
   Hunters will only start with swords, torches and silver pistols, but as you progress through the game, the same hunters will start to carry crosses, garlic, higher precision rifles and even flamethrowers! The same goes for lower vampires, who will be stronger and have some new abilities. High level vampires find you only in some areas of the game and will start to use more skills similar to yours.
   Another thing the game has in common with Witcher 3 (not that this is Witcher 3's original or inspired by it), is the Witcher's sense. In the case of Vampyr, vampire sense. And it works the same way and is used by the game in the same way, you change your you change your vision to follow traces of blood or see enemies hidden by the map. Unlike the Witching sense, the vampire sense is not so charged to be used in so many missions and can be used more strategically by the player to avoid fighting or locating things hidden by the map.
   Concluding
   Vampyr is a very, very good game.… Expand

   • 31 of 79 users found this helpful
2. gorilyad

   Jul 28, 2022

   10

   I had this game by sale on Epic games store and loved it for the first hours, despite sometimes it was quite scary. I wish more games aboutI had this game by sale on Epic games store and loved it for the first hours, despite sometimes it was quite scary. I wish more games about vampires in this style, as all others are quite like ****… Expand

   • 0 of 0 users found this helpful
4. Chadder88

   May 31, 2022

   9

   Super Atmosphäre, richtig schön düster, Kampfsystem könnte besser sein. Story auch geil.

   • 0 of 0 users found this helpful
5. keens

   Jan 8, 2023

   7

   I really liked the atmosphere and setup. The visuals, voice acting and plot are quite good. The conversations with the NPCs are big part ofI really liked the atmosphere and setup. The visuals, voice acting and plot are quite good. The conversations with the NPCs are big part of the game and they done really well.
   Combat is ok, nothing special but fun enough, although can become repetitive.
   The game uses auto-save on every choice you do, which can be extremely frustrating, so I recommend to backup your saves (or use a mod) constantly.
   
   What I didn't like about this game is the zoomed FOV without any option to increase it. FPS drops are also common in certain areas, even with good GPU (rtx 3070).
   
   I played on hardcode + civilians kill run, it's quite a pain in the a$$. enemies felt unbalanced (sometimes 9-10 levels above), and can kill in 1-2 hits.… Expand

   • 0 of 0 users found this helpful
6. Hack

   Jul 11, 2018

   6

   This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Vampyr had a ton of potential that ultimately went to waste.
   
   First the good, the story is interesting and well told with fantastic voice acting, the location is old school London which is always a fan favourite so no complaints there. The NPCs feel alive and are very fleshed out, and if one of them should die or be killed you do notice an effect on the town, depending on how important they were.
   
   The downsides are numerous, with poor optimisation leading to lower than expected frame rates, severe hitching/stuttering and an overall feeling of choppiness, especially in certain key locations. The combat is very clunky, with the KB+M controls especially feeling awful. The enemy lock on system doesn't work correctly, and will constantly cycle through targets if you barely touch the mouse, there's no way to disable this behaviour so I finished the game without using the lock on feature, which wasn't ideal. The camera also has issues which made the combat feel even more cumbersome at times.
   
   A major issue is the XP system, you gain the bulk of your XP from feeding on civilians, if you choose not to feed you're incredibly weak, which makes the game frustratingly difficult, but if you do decide to feed well good luck at the end, because the last boss scales with how many people die during the game, and they become impossible to kill from my experience. I faced them at level 37, while they were 51 (their maximum), at this level deficit they were unkillable, the devs really need to tune this scaling as it's just not balanced right now, and can lead to you not being able to finish the game at all.
   
   Overall my lasting feeling is one of disappointment, I've been looking forward to Vampyr since it was announced but it just didn't live up to expectations.… Expand

   • 2 of 7 users found this helpful
7. Grismar

   Jan 14, 2022

   5

   I get why this could be a good game, but the controls are atrocious and the combat is merely hard because it's so frustratingly bad. There'sI get why this could be a good game, but the controls are atrocious and the combat is merely hard because it's so frustratingly bad. There's some other points of criticism, the game feels a bit unprofessional or overly clinical in places, but it's mainly the combat that has me quitting it in frustration even though I generally like hard games. The story and game world had me intrigued, but the controls and combat made me uninstall, the graphics and sound are just OK - not offensively bad, but also not a draw by themselves.… Expand

   • 0 of 0 users found this helpful
8. melon9106

   Nov 19, 2021

   0

   Unfortunately ubsoluteley a mediocre game. Bad fight system, uninteresting characters and story.

   • 0 of 1 users found this helpful

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