Vigil: The Longest Night

 Switch
Vigil: The Longest Night Image
Metascore
75

Generally favorable reviews - based on 6 Critic Reviews What's this?

User Score
6.0

Mixed or average reviews- based on 27 Ratings

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  • Summary: Battle through the longest night as Leila a member of the Vigilant Order and uncover the truth behind the eternal darkness, Leila's mysterious sister, and the eldritch horrors that stalk her in a world that has forgotten daylight.

Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2 out of 6
  2. Mixed: 4 out of 6
  3. Negative: 0 out of 6
  1. NintendoWorldReport
    Dec 17, 2020
    85
    Vigil: The Longest Night absolutely holds its own, both in 2D adventure games, as well as in the glut of Souls-alikes that have emerged in recent years. It’s fast, fun and rewarding to players who manage to overcome the initial similarities to FROM Software’s series, and manages to carve its own unique take on the formula, with strong narrative and combat hooks to support it. If only those load times could let us get to the action sooner.
  2. Video Chums
    Oct 28, 2020
    80
    If you loved Salt and Sanctuary then Vigil: The Longest Night will certainly impress with its tight gameplay and captivating world.
  3. Meristation
    Oct 22, 2020
    70
    Salt and Sanctuary spiritual heir, Vigil: The Longest Night may be small and simple, but it's still a good experience with a fascinating universe, story and bestiary. Hopefully it will fix the loading times and errors soon.
  4. Nintendo Life
    Oct 26, 2020
    70
    Vigil: The Longest Night isn't the toughest Metroidvania you'll encounter on Switch – nor does it possess the most interesting plot – but it has plenty of secrets to uncover even after you've finished it; it's just a shame that Switch owners have to endure a host of technical problems, such as long load times and an inconsistent frame rate. These unfortunate issues aren't enough to totally sink the game, however; if you're in the market for more Metroidvania goodness and you like your games dark, grimy and gothic, then it's certainly worth a look.
  5. Universo Nintendo
    Dec 19, 2020
    70
    Vigil: The Longest Night has incredible art and a fantastic set. The common enemies and the scenarios are a bit repetitive, but the bosses make up for it in visuals, creativity and immersion, in addition to bringing great combat. Some gameplay and level design flaws can discourage exploration in search of unknown places of the map, but the thought-provoking story and well-crafted side quests make the game worthwhile in spite of everything.
  6. Starbit
    Nov 4, 2020
    70
    Vigil: The Longest Night is an interesting metroidvania-type with a gorgeous-looking visual world and some intense combat moments. It's also unfortunately affected by long loading times and some technical issues which could really use an update to correct. All in all, a good work but which needs some tweaking on its technical aspects in order to stand out among its peers in the Nintendo Switch catalogue.

User Reviews

Write a Review
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 6 out of 20
  2. Mixed: 6 out of 20
  3. Negative: 8 out of 20
  1. Loonlamb007
    May 21, 2023
    10
    I heard the game had a lot of trouble during release time... What a pity... I played the whole game about two years after release and I tellI heard the game had a lot of trouble during release time... What a pity... I played the whole game about two years after release and I tell you guys... If you loved Salt and Sanctuary you will love this one too. It is surely not that hard to beat but it does have some really good and troubling Boss fights, a almost perfect Metroidvania Map, really nice and usecful Items an weapons, smooth animations, a damn good atmosphere.. Well... It was just damn fun to play. For everyone who is stil looking for a decent Metroidvania give this one a shot now. I not even had one crash on switch, which is almost unbelievable. Love it. Hopefully there will be a Virgil 2 some day!… Expand
  2. doczellstoff
    Feb 18, 2021
    10
    I dont know why this game is getting so much hate. I have been having a blast playing it. if you like metroidvania games you will like thisI dont know why this game is getting so much hate. I have been having a blast playing it. if you like metroidvania games you will like this one. Always finding something new, atmosphere is on point, combat is fun and challenging. you can customize your character to you hearts content, even a no armor run can be fun. There is so much content here to be explored and you are always rewarded for being curious and taking your time. I am hard pressed to find anything negative to say about it. Therefore i am giving it this score.… Expand
  4. Coastal2009
    May 12, 2022
    9
    This game was so much fun. For fans of metroidvania and souls-like. I’m playing through salt and sacrifice now, and while that game is good,This game was so much fun. For fans of metroidvania and souls-like. I’m playing through salt and sacrifice now, and while that game is good, it made me long for the days I was playing this game for the first time.… Expand
  5. KimoiActual
    Oct 21, 2020
    5
    As much as I would love to praise this game for it’s Salt and Sanctuary feel and the overall setting, the technical issues are through theAs much as I would love to praise this game for it’s Salt and Sanctuary feel and the overall setting, the technical issues are through the roof for the Switch version of the game.
    - Extremely long load times
    - Spells becoming permanently unusable even upon game reset
    - Random crashes
    - Music cuts out either during an area transition or randomly
    - Mistranslations though I’m not particularly upset with it compared to the other issues

    I’m going to have to give it a low score until a patch is issued. Until then, I’m going to have to put this game on hold.    … Expand
  6. WWWW223
    Nov 6, 2020
    3
    Lots of bugs. It takes super long time to change weapons and the game might crash. Also, the loading is too slow. I cannot play the game underLots of bugs. It takes super long time to change weapons and the game might crash. Also, the loading is too slow. I cannot play the game under the language, Chinese(Simplified). It will skip all dialogues and CGs. It seems the game developers didn't finish this part.… Expand
  7. loltoke
    Jan 14, 2021
    2
    It pains me to write this because I love metroidvania games - I have played almost all of them across PC, Xbox and Switch over the past 15It pains me to write this because I love metroidvania games - I have played almost all of them across PC, Xbox and Switch over the past 15 years. There are definitely some positive aspects to this game. The combat can be fun, the story is decent, and the atmosphere is good. However, some major negatives severely hold it back and in some cases make it almost unplayable. As others have mentioned, the crashing is pretty horrendous. The game almost never crashes when you are just running along or fighting (although it did once crash IMMEDIATELY after I beat a difficult boss). But it's actually worse than that - the game tends to crash while you are trying to save it or enter a new area. This is problematic because save points can be very far apart, and the game does not autosave after you defeat a boss. Defeat Boss->enter new area->save is a very common sequence. I lost countless hours of progress and had to refight bosses several times because after defeating a boss and then either entering the next area or saving, the game just crashes.

    There are also poor design choices in the game that make it fairly unrewarding. It's not metroidvania in the classic sense that you need a new ability to enter a new area. In fact, most of the map is explorable immediately without new abilities - it's really just your character level that determines whether you will be able to fight the enemies in the new area. Several times I found that I had accidentally completed areas out of sequence without knowing.

    The armor and weapons are also poorly designed and unrewarding. I went through 80% of the game with the sword that i started with. I went through 100% of the game with the armor, boots, and gloves that I started with. I picked up other weapons and armor along the way but the stats were so minimally increased that my "forged"(upgraded) original items were consistently stronger than any new items I picked up. There was a cool set of "golden armor" and weapons in the shop but they were 80,000 gold EACH. At no point in the game did I ever possess more than 40,000 gold. How is a player supposed to ever afford those items?? I guess it doesn't matter since you can finish the game without ever even changing your armor or weapon lol.

    Finally, this game suffers from what about 50% of metroidvanias have suffered in the past 5 years - a VERY uneven and sudden ramping up of difficulty right at the end. The first 15% of the game was very tough as I leveled up my character. The middle 70% of the game was a breeze. All I had to do was keep doing my sword spin move, which also serves a dodge, to easily defeat about half of the bosses. Then, the last 15% or so of the game suddenly becomes crazy difficult. There are a couple of new normal enemies introduced that can kill you in two hits even if you are fully maxed out on your skills and abilities. The final two bosses have a couple of moves each that can kill you in one or two hits (the second to last boss is especially cheap because he has moves that can knock you in a hole for instadeath). I have to admit that I never *quite* killed the final boss, but I found out I had missed some kind of clothing from my sister waayyyyy earlier in the game that I could not go back and retrieve (another poor design choice), so I just watched the ending on youtube. All the different endings were barely different from each other and they all kind of sucked - like just an afterthought.

    In summary, this game could have spent a lot more time in development to at least get it to the point where it didn't constantly crash at critical moments, up the stats on some of the items to make it worthwhile to ever change your weapon or armor, and balance the difficulty better so the middle of the game isn't easy and the end isn't ridiculously cheaply hard for no reason. I'd place this in the bottom 20% of metroidvanias out of the 40 or so that I have played.    … Expand
  8. CHAUVICTOIRE
    Sep 15, 2021
    0
    Almost as broken as metacritic's mobile site.

    Controls lag, the menus lag, weapons suck, playing the game felt like the biggest chore. I'm    Almost as broken as metacritic's mobile site.

    Controls lag, the menus lag, weapons suck, playing the game felt like the biggest chore. I'm going to call nintendo for a refund.    … Expand

See all 20 User Reviews