VtM:B has terrific writing, atmosphere, and worldbuilding. The rest ranges from acceptable (character mechanics) to borderline terrible (moment to moment gameplay).
I find it puzzling that you mention level design and C&C. The hubs are nice enough (and very immersive, with believable locations) but the combat areas are basically corridors, a few exceptions aside. They get downright bad after Hollywood, everybody hates the sewers. As to C&C there really is none, it’s completely on rails up to the point where you get to pick your ending.
Agreed - I found "atmosphere" to be the real MVP here. Above everything else, that's why you remember the game so vividly. Other cool but forgettable games have cute writing or memorable characters, but Bloodlines is a clear contender for the most atmospheric game ever made. From the minute you get to the title screen you are treated to just the PERFECT menu theme along with a visual aesthetic that combines so well you can't even seperate the two anymore - you see that menu screen, you think of that music, and vice versa. It's cohesive, in other words, and informs you immediately about the game's mood. Then you enter the world and get the distinct impression that every visual designer had to write the project's vision on a blackboard 500 times before they could start working. There's just no other explanation of how everything fits so well together and seems to be designed by a single mind around a single, great idea. The most ubiquitous description of WoD found in all source material is that of it being our world, just bathed in deeper contrasts of dark colors, more gothic visuals and more intangible but deeper felt emotions - violence is more violent but expensed with less restraint, pain is more painful, if there's a skyscraper there's a gargoyle and if there's dancing there's drugs etc. This simple manifest seems to have governed the visual design completely, and Troika kind of interpreted it in an almost cartoony manner. The world is gritty and depressing, sure, but it almost has the tone of a comic book with deep and vivid colours, characters who aren't afraid to joke while relaying their otherwise serious banter, have overstated facial expressions and whose expressiveness is exaggerated (incidentally why I never got the people who claim the source engine "expressions" of the characters look dated, I think they fit the game very well). As far as the colours go, it's not just contrast, either: most of the colours of the game "bleed" (no pun intended) and the visual design of colour being washed out with water is constantly repeating, which was perhaps an obvious thematic choice but it's made genius by just how present it is in every part of the game.
Then on top of everything drawing you in visually, the soundtrack is just perfect - a clear example of how context matters. Like, listen to Lecher Bitch more than 3 times on Spotify and you get sick of it if you didn't in the first 8 seconds, or listen to Cain by Tiamat and feel like you're listening to some edgy teenager's idea of depth, but listen to that shit in the context of the experiences and atmosphere of Bloodlines and it is somehow imbued with a quality many of these songs just do not possess on their own (though some do). The actual score designed specifically for the game is extremely good as well, such as the horror theme playing in Grout's basement, which I still use today whenever I need to evoke the emotion of uncertain, ambiguous horror in a P&P game. The songs have been chosen and the score designed by the same tenets as the visual design - so you get the depressing cries or angry outbursts of drug-addled clubbers combined with sounds that are simultaneously vibrant and colourful (I'm not a music expert and as such do not possess the proper terminology to describe what I mean, but to get what I'm saying listen to the theme in VV's club or, again, the main theme. You have a slow pace combined with drawn out of chords, twisted sounds, clearly present base etc. Especially the drawn out chords makes the music "bleed" with the colours, again evoking that style of fluidity and, as cliche as it is, a melodramatic longing which is key to the edge and let's be honest about it: emo, that makes vampire fun). Then you have the repeated praise of what is perhaps still the best voice acting of any video game (though ironically some of the worst too - Mitsoda's own, for instance). Again, much of it borders on being cartoonish which totally works because it fits with the exaggeration of expression and contrast of colours that binds the game's worldbuilding together. To this it adds great writing that fits with the style - a snarky cynicism that rarely goes to Deadpool levels which means it ends up being more grounded ("The Golden Temple in Chinatown - it's a pisspoor copy of a real place") and the fact that the politics of the world are fleshed out in some way or another in almost every single conversation makes it seem like you're playing a game with high stakes even if the C&C is minimal, and quests or plot development that often focus on one of the greatest themes of WoD: how agency is a mirage, information is always incomplete and the larger structure of society and power is the true decider (even if some endings sort of spoils these themes, the Anarch ending being the worst offender even if that was my favorite when I was younger).
Why is the snuff quest so horrifying (at least before it turns into a slog of boring mechancis)? Because every part of Bloodlines’ audiovisual design and writing has informed you about its world to a point where your imagination can easily fill in the blanks of what is NOT disclosed to you at the beginning of this plot thread. The fact that the world has been so well-established means that the simple act of introducing a snuff film to it means your mind begins to run wild with horrifying ideas - "oh my fucking God - given how bleak and shitty this world has been up to now, how warped can it make snuff?" or even the very banal: "Which of these unfeeling monsters am I pursuing right now, and what am I gonna find while pursuing it?" Any answer you are likely to come up with while pondering these questions is sure to be uncomfortable. But one of the best scenes to underline how atmospheric Bloodlines is, in my opinion, is the initial meeting with Gary. This character is everything that is great about Bloodlines. Haunting, yet somehow strangely appealing and even weirdly friendly, almost cozy. The dinner is a horrorific scene, sure, but Gary’s tongue-in-cheek nostalgia makes it seem almost cute and endearing. Gary himself is Sharply written with PERFECT voice acting - but also kind of cartoonish when looked at holistically. Sarcastic and cynical, but not to the point where he negates meaning in a careless manner or becomes edgy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfT7Bj0Zk7w
You sum all of this up - as well as all the other little things that add to this design such as the environmental storytelling, the overabundance of clever or interesting details, or the constant, ever-present ambiguity of everything (Pisha being a true highlight here - almost every detail the game divulges about her just deeps the wider questions you have about her) - you get a product that evokes true immersion, loathe as I am to use the word. Not by some fake and superficial attempt at 360 degree simulation but by taking immense care to sell you on its world in every little detail. In fact, Bloodlines kind of shames a lot of the modern sandbox games by showing how foolish their attempts at achieving immersion through emulating the real world is - you don't get sold on a fiction by it copying the real world, that just draws attention to the areas where the world clearly doesn't act as it should (like how GTA has reached the pinnacle of superficial realism but its completely wacky mechanics and player freedom totally undermines its attempts at emulation, which is why they had the terrible idea of punishing you for having fun in the 4th). You get sold on a world by it adhering to its own, internal logic, its inner consistency, if its themes are otherwise appealing. How well it mirrors the real world doesn't matter at all - how well all the pieces fit into a convincing whole within its own fictional contract with you, the audience, is all that matters. That’s why Bloodlines can present you with supernatural abominations and clear nonsense without ever losing your trust in its “realness.”
In other words, Bloodlines is like an ode to the importance of aesthetics. A critical memo to those (including me at some points in my life) who would claim that "substance" (i.e. game mechanics, themes of the story or whatever) is the only worthy pursuit.
I realized I just gushed for half a page but in reality, I guess from a Codexian point of view the above could be viewed as criticism. Because besides well-written characters and superb atmosphere, two things that the Codex usually don't emphasize as that important, Bloodlines hasn't really got much going for it. But by Christ those elements are so extremely well-crafted I forgive all these faults and still enjoyed my seventh playthrough immensely, even if the 6 years between that and my last playthrough had given me plenty of time to wipe the nostalgia from my glasses.
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