This game is a mixed bag. I like the setting and some of the storytelling, but there are so many bad design decisions that the overall experience is undeniably bad. I'm not very surprised that even the most basic achievements are rated "rare", meaning that a low percentage of users achieved them: it means that most players abandon the game after a while.
Graphics are meh, and yet theyThis game is a mixed bag. I like the setting and some of the storytelling, but there are so many bad design decisions that the overall experience is undeniably bad. I'm not very surprised that even the most basic achievements are rated "rare", meaning that a low percentage of users achieved them: it means that most players abandon the game after a while.
Graphics are meh, and yet they manage to stutter rather often. On an XBox One X.
Most characters are not very interesting and certain dialogues feel badly written, even though you'll spend so much time talking to people. At a certain point, romance appears out of the blue, with the blandest love declaration ever. Almost embarrassing.
During dialogues, you often need to guess the "right" answer or miss an important hint on the character you are talking to, that would open up more dialogue options. This is not bad per se, it means that your choices matter and also go back to pen and paper RPGs, where you don't usually get 100% completion. Having fun does not mean getting every choice right, so I'm ok with this, but on the other hand, sometimes the choices presented to you are misleading, compared to what the character is actually going to say. All in all, getting the right answer is mostly guesswork, and this is irritating. Much more so when a wrong answer results in the irreversible destruction of a whole district. Oh, and sometimes you get character hints by chatting with other characters. Make sure you ask EVERYONE about where to find Mr. X, even after you learn the information, because one character on the map has one special hint about him.
The map is not huge but is labyrinthine, so that to go from point A to point B you'll often need to take huge detours. Also, gates placed at key positions and locked or open according to the current quest, force you to take even more detours. Since there is a lot of backtracking, this becomes infuriating after a while.
People get sick in the map, and progressively get worse if left unattended. Killed an NPC to evolve? Build up a huge reserve of medicine and go around the whole district to heal everyone again. Level 1 medicine requires a lowish amount of resources, but creating medicine for level 3 diseases implies slaying hundreds of ghouls or fanatics. Grind, grind, grind. At least NPCs don't get worse until you sleep in a bed.
Combat? Your character is the weakest creature in the game, bar none. Even the weakest enemies can jump/slide huge distances with their attacks and are better armored and much less stagger-prone than you are. Killing a normal enemy takes up at least five times the damage it takes to kill you. Heavies, who are pretty common, unite a near-total resistance to staggers, a huge health poool, very long range devastating attacks and sometimes weapons of mass destruction, like flame throwers or chemical blowers, with infinite ammo. Enemy vampires have no limit on blood attacks, unlike you, and can spam their special moves with no need to recharge their blood pool.
Your saving grace? A blinking, short-range evasion move, which is often not enough to avoid absurdly long range melee attacks. Also, you get often boxed in areas where the camera goes crazy. There is an obstacle that you cannot see and you die, because you can no longer escape the enemy.
You do have some nice vampire attacks, which you need to mix and match. An enemy that is resistant to melee attacks may be vulnerable to blood damage (no weaknesses exist: at best you deal full damage, as opposed to reduced damage - guess what? You have no resistance to anything). So, can you take up your blood spear to the maximum level and use it as your main weapon? NO. The game does not allow you to level up an ability beyond a certain point, depending on your level, so you are stick with underwhelming attacks. Many games do so, but the overall impression is that, instead of being a super powerful vampire, you are King Wimp, wimpest of the wimps. At some point, a vampire you have created by mistake becomes a boss, with attacks that are incredibly powerful compared to yours and a nearly infinite hit point reserve. Shouldn't the progeny be weaker than the creator? The game is still better than ones that are too easy, but it is needlessly frustrating and boring, when even weak enemies require a huge number of hits to be taken down.
TL;DR: grindy disease mechanics, unfair combat and super contrived city traversal make playing this game as much a chore as it is fun. Too bad because there is something nice, under all those errors.… Expand
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