Victor Vran

 PC
User Score
7.7

Generally favorable reviews- based on 132 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 84 out of 132
  2. Mixed: 38 out of 132
  3. Negative: 10 out of 132

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  1. PublicNuisance
    May 17, 2018
    6
    I started off really enjoying Victor Vran. The honeymoon slowly ended though and by halfway through the game I was starting to notice things I didn’t like and then by the end I was just hoping to finish the game and be done with it. Overall the game does many things really well and many things very poorly.

    The voice acting was a mixed bag just like rest. I instantly noticed the voice of    I started off really enjoying Victor Vran. The honeymoon slowly ended though and by halfway through the game I was starting to notice things I didn’t like and then by the end I was just hoping to finish the game and be done with it. Overall the game does many things really well and many things very poorly.

    The voice acting was a mixed bag just like rest. I instantly noticed the voice of Vran was done by the same man who voices Geralt on The Witcher: Doug Cockle. He does a great job here as well. The voice that is in Victor’s head for the journey is also well done and has some nice comic relief. Maria Teresa Creasey and Deborah Mock who voiced Queen Katerina and Irene both did a terrible job though. Just wooden work with no emotion.

    The difficulty curve was a broken mess. The game was either insanely difficult or insanely easy all the way through. There were times on casual difficulty where a few enemies were killing me within 3-5 seconds from full health where on normal difficulty many mini bosses were cut through like butter.

    The game also incorporated many game mechanics I despise. You beat a boss only to have them come back to life and have to be beaten again, enemies who can continue to spawn multiple enemies, bosses with regen health, oh this game has all of those and some have more than one of these crappy mechanics.

    The save system was also poorly done. So the game auto saves during a level but if you have to exit the level and come back due to work, school, etc then when you reload the game all of the enemies, including bosses, are alive again and back where they were. Basically don’t travel from the hub to an area without the free time to beat that whole area which I don’t enjoy.

    Now this may seem like I hated the game but I didn’t. The actual gameplay was enjoyable and there was a huge amount of customization you can do to Victor. The sheer variety of weapons, destiny cards and powers you can have can make for pretty much any kind of character build and play style you can think of. The story was well done as well and the main reason I kept playing the game.

    Overall the game was a mixed bag. Some parts were great and others were terrible with no middle ground. I find it tough to recommend which is sad because the core of the game is good and has a story worth playing through but it is riddled with so many things that I despise. Basically if the things I hate are things you love then you may not care.

    Another thing I will mention is that the game ran fantastic, 60FPS all the way through, and didn’t crash once. There were 9 different graphicical settings to play with and AA/AF. I wish there was more choices for AA than just FXAA or none but that’s a minor gripe. I finished the game in 13 hours 11 minutes on a combo of normal and casual difficulty.

    My system:
    AMD FX-9590 | 16GB DDR3-2133 | MSI RX 580 8GB Gaming X | Mesa 18.0.3 | Samsung 850 Evo 250GB | Solus 3 | Kernel 4.15.18-67.current

    My score: 6.5/10    … Expand
  2. AbeMC
    Jul 10, 2017
    7
    Victor Vran, a Witcher and Torchlight hybrid, is a top-down, monster-hunter hack’n slash. Blessed with fun combat, great ambiance and large level design, it is cursed with mediocre voice acting, been-there-done-that story and an overly generous loot system (hello, clogged inventory). Four-player coop and a detailed challenge system are welcome additions. Worth a purchase at 66% off orVictor Vran, a Witcher and Torchlight hybrid, is a top-down, monster-hunter hack’n slash. Blessed with fun combat, great ambiance and large level design, it is cursed with mediocre voice acting, been-there-done-that story and an overly generous loot system (hello, clogged inventory). Four-player coop and a detailed challenge system are welcome additions. Worth a purchase at 66% off or more.
    Total size on my hard-drive: 4.3 GB

    + Large level design. While there are a few smaller levels that house challenge bosses, most are large and spacious, with secrets hidden everywhere. One of the best features of Victor Vran.
    + Good level of challenge. New areas are difficult, and after leveling and becoming OP, activate different hexes (Hex of Pain reduces Victor Vran’s health over time, Hex of Time speeds enemies, and so on) for additional challenge and greater rewards.
    + Nice graphics. Won’t knock your socks off, but the level of detail (especially in the city levels) is excellent.
    + Smooth and stable. Not a single crash or hang in 24 hours of gameplay.
    + Good choice of weapons. Shotguns, lightning guns, swords, rapiers, scythes, hammers, spell books. Each type of weapon can be found with a large number of different specializations – which bring their own buffs and debuffs.
    + The card-based skills system. Victor can equip of number of cards for passive combat bonuses. There are over a dozen varieties, and again each can be had in a number specializations. One of my favorites was “The Moon” card, which, when equipped, grants an ice-explosion when Victor lands a critical hit. Another good one is the “Blademaster” card, which adds over-drive at a faster rate and grants health-regen on crit with swords. Each card is available in a number of levels as well; Levels 1 through 4 were most common, but I did loot a Level 8 card (yes, the bonuses were massive!). There is limited number of points available to equip cards, though, and each level counts as a point; equipping four Level 4 cards isn’t possible when the point limit is less than 16 (the point limit increases as Victor levels up), forcing a continual mix-and-match of available cards in search of the best build.
    + Nicely ambient soundtrack.
    + Four-player coop. Drop-in / drop-out works well. The large levels work well with four players.
    + You can trade items with a demon named Geban. 10/10 would trade with Geban again.

    +/- Demon powers. Their usefulness is limited because their use requires over-drive. It can take a while for the over-drive bar to fill in the early stages. Certain weapons and cards can boost the charge rate, making them more useful. Then there are other cards that provide bonuses only if the over-drive bar is full – rendering demon powers useless, because emptying the over-drive bar by using a demon power would deactivate the bonus.
    +/- Bosses are nicely placed and paced, but don’t require any special tactics to defeat.
    +/- Someone made a pact with a demon and now the kingdom has to pay when the demons come to collect on the debt. There. That’s the story.
    +/- Victor Vran is voiced by the same actor who provides the English-language voice of Geralt in the Witcher games (Doug Cockle). Victor is a near carbon-copy of Geralt. I’m not sure if Cockle was told to do this, or if this is the limit of his skills as a voice actor. Other voice actors are good, but not special.
    +/- Too much loot. There are several different ways to sort it, but even for a loot-based game, there is a ton of loot. There is no limit on inventory space, though, so the primary issue is managing it.
    +/- + Leveling gear. Most things can be leveled using Transmutation in the hub. The outcome is completely RNG, though (unlike in Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel where using Moonstone in the weapon grinder would guarantee an increase in rarity. Nothing like that here).

    - Some area challenges are impossible to complete unless massively over-leveled or playing online with other players. The online mode had about a dozen players active in it every time I started the game, so not an impossible task.
    - Some level challenges are mutually exclusive, meaning you are expected to re-play levels.
    - Some grinding for better gear required if soloing. No worse than in Borderlands, but expect it.
    - Armor is tied to outfits, which are only awarded via chests and level-up bonuses. That means the best plan is to kill the enemies fast and have a good stock of potions on hand. Worry about armor later. There are passive bonuses which can help.

    Overall, the looting, combat and level design are the most attractive features of Victor Vran, but unless grinding and completing challenges for loot is why you play games (not that there’s anything wrong with either!), you could get bored with it quickly. A good effort by developer Haemimont with franchise potential. Hopefully, future installments will showcase refinements of some great core systems.    … Expand
  3. Captain_Chaos
    Nov 2, 2017
    6
    A refreshing take on the ARPG genre with more emphasis on the action, letting you do things like wall jump and combo moves, and experimenting with different weapon and ability setups. Stylish east-european gothic setting similar to that of The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing, and Vran himself is voiced by the same guy who voices Geralt in the Witcher series.

    However, it suffers    A refreshing take on the ARPG genre with more emphasis on the action, letting you do things like wall jump and combo moves, and experimenting with different weapon and ability setups. Stylish east-european gothic setting similar to that of The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing, and Vran himself is voiced by the same guy who voices Geralt in the Witcher series.

    However, it suffers from a lot of problems in its execution and what seems like an unintentional slip of the experience into something much more similar to a traditional ARPG where you struggle to keep your health up and find good gear.    … Expand
  4. kckkryptonite
    Jul 29, 2015
    6
    Amusing for the first five or so hours, but quickly becomes a tedious exercise in repetition as the once fun weapons feel bland and the game lacking in variety as the sense of progression slows to a quick halt. The destiny card and demon power systems are done well, but transmutation felt underpowered and non-intuitive. A poor man's Van Helsing.
  5. shapesforms
    Jul 27, 2015
    5
    This game is meant to be played on a console or with a controller.The controls with mouse and keyboard are awkward. The pathing with mouse only is hilariously broken.

    I give this game a 8/10 with a controller but a 5/10 with keyboard/mouse
  6. Fuz
    Aug 12, 2015
    6
    What a nice surprise.
    Victor Vran is basically a Diablo clone, and a good one at that. The skill/weapon system is good and quite interesting as the is outfit system, the maps are fun, well designed and thankfully not too big, so you're not stuck in a giant map for too long, the actual gameplay is very enjoyable and the graphics are quite nice, clean and very readable (which is something    What a nice surprise.
    Victor Vran is basically a Diablo clone, and a good one at that. The skill/weapon system is good and quite interesting as the is outfit system, the maps are fun, well designed and thankfully not too big, so you're not stuck in a giant map for too long, the actual gameplay is very enjoyable and the graphics are quite nice, clean and very readable (which is something that often lacks in this sort of games). The map system is great and lets you skip useless and unwanted backtracking.

    A really good game, but it does have flaws:
    Worst issue, by far: The controls are clearly designed for a gamepad, and using a mouse and keyboard is quite often bugged and VERY unresponsive; there are issues with jumping directions, sometimes the character just stops and sometimes goes where isn't supposed to go, making you die or unnecessary lose health. The pathing with a mouse is quite bad. This is extremely frustrating especially in some long boss fights. Not fun when your character doesn't respond to your imput and instead of moving off the attack it jumps right in or keep attacking. Very annoying and it costs the game a few score points.
    Another flaw, yet minor, is the framerate that sometimes just go down to 20-30 fps without any reason, when it's usually on a stable 60fps. That shouldn't happen, the graphics, as nice as they are, aren't very complicated and taxing and the FPS shouldn't drop so low on a i7 and GTX970 build.
    Another issue is the crafting. It's quite bad and not thoroughly thought: you combine items, weapon and cards in an attempt to improve them. Too bad it's extremely confusing and forces you to clutter your inventory with tons of stuff, making very hard to discern what you should equip and what it's an improvement over your current gear. This is especially true for the cards and their various effects.
    It's also a bit of lacking in the variety of monsters.
    All in all, a very nice game.    … Expand
  7. Aeryx
    Aug 10, 2019
    6
    I came to this game fresh from The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing 1, 2 and 3. That was a great game. Victor Vran improves on some aspects of the RPG genre but fails at many things.

    For one the game has jumping in it. They could have made this feature much more useful, but in the end it's just mostly used to get to chests. It's not very effective at dodging enemies as your    I came to this game fresh from The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing 1, 2 and 3. That was a great game. Victor Vran improves on some aspects of the RPG genre but fails at many things.

    For one the game has jumping in it. They could have made this feature much more useful, but in the end it's just mostly used to get to chests. It's not very effective at dodging enemies as your character has a huge hitbox that seems to stay on the ground even if you jump.

    The game is very stable. It didn't crash in my almost 30 hours of gameplay. 60 fps from start to finish. Great work.

    The items in the game are interesting, but they are lazily executed. 1-2 magic effects is all that you get for magical and rare, respectively. For legendaries, it's just 3 magic effects. Very mediocre compared to most rpg games. Sadly, the game introduces artificial difficulty by making many enemies very grindy to kill and the final boss is a "gear check" boss, which means you need to have very good items, cards and levels to finish him off. He only has 4-5 attack types and very basic AI. Many bosses and areas of the game are like this.

    The checkpoint system without a proper save is disastrously bad. I wasted so much time killing enemies and bosses over and over again.

    The enemy types and weapon skins repeat all the time. Just vampires, wraiths and skeletons. Same bunch. For the weapons, there are no skills. Just the same basic attack and 2 skills for each weapon type. No ultimates and different tiers and not much room for creativity. That's it. Very lazy.

    The card system is very good. But since you need to grind to get cards, you can forget it unless you like wasting time killing the same bunch of enemies for them.

    The voice acting is low-effort. Only Geralt's voice stands out as good.

    The overkill meter to use magic is very frustrating as you can't use powers without charging it. Apparently, even using demon powers requires grinding in this game.

    1 hub area (or in this case, just a big room). That should tell you all you need to know about the lacking effort in this game.

    It's not full price, so I guess that is a good thing?

    Overall. this isn't a game I can recommend to hardcore ARPG or RPG fans. It's just a good game that had plenty of potential but failed to deliver. Lower your expectations when getting this or you will be easily disappointed.    … Expand
  8. NihiRagnarK
    Apr 10, 2016
    7
    It is a pretty good and innovative piece of Diablo-like ARPG (although the mechanics is not quite similar).

    You care less on the loots, RNG and builds on the beginning unlike the other games.

    Also, Co-op supports 4 players which is kind of fun when you have a bunch of friends to enjoy together.

    -
    However, eventually, you will still fall into the endless loop of farming and boring.
  9. DevMetacritic
    Mar 23, 2023
    7
    Played on steam deck. Average RPG elements and limited story with basic character customisation. Eat to pickup and play due to simple gameplay mechanics. Good game to play for 15-30 mins at a time but I not suited for long play through sessions as it lacks any story, RPG depths. I would classify this game as more rogue rpg.

Awards & Rankings

90
#90 Most Shared PC Game of 2015

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
75

Generally favorable reviews - based on 42 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 26 out of 42
  2. Mixed: 16 out of 42
  3. Negative: 0 out of 42
  1. RPG Fan
    Mar 6, 2018
    82
    For fans of the genre, VV is a must-play, as it has refreshing ideas that are implemented well. If not for what feels like padding, this game would appropriately find itself shoulder-to-shoulder with the titans of the genre.
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  2. PCWorld
    Jan 19, 2016
    70
    Victor Vran carves itself a healthy niche in the aRPG genre, making up for a silly story with excellent (and addictive) combat. "Click-and-watch-things-die" has never felt this good.
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  3. SpazioGames
    Oct 28, 2015
    80
    An original hack 'n' slash that goes for a different approach. It works, even if it's more limited than many of its predecessors. This game has a decently deep system and great fighting, and represents a great start for Haemimont Games.
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