Code Vein - new action RPG from God Eater devs at Bandai Namco

[Cat Headed Eagle]

Code Vein is really a bootleg souls with an anime coat of paint. The storyline is stereotypical anime and so are the visuals. You have an obscene ammount of detail for character design, but it's all anime. Classes are unlocked as you go, and each one has a set of upgradeable skills. You can swap classes and abilities when you see fit. You can also go with an AI or human companion. That's about it. It's not really hard, and the boss combat is reduced to finding out the weakness and exploiting it, but it's okay in the end.
Nioh is a different kind of game and not entirely souls, though.

 

[Jinn]

I'd definitely agree Nioh is its own thing, but since we're kind of lumping them all into the conversation, I thought I'd include them when talking about fairly lackluster level design, with really nice moments here and there.

Forgot to add, for a total newcomer, Bleak Faith actually has some really great moments of exploration and interconnected level design.

 

[Strange Fellow]

These games really do need to improve their level design and exploration elements though. Only one that approaches DeS/DS in that category is probably Surge 2, followed very distantly by Nioh 1 and 2.

Did you play Hellpoint? In my opinion it's by far the best of the rest in this department. I'm aware I have a rather higher opinion of it than the Codex consensus, but in terms of level design and exploration it kicks the crap out of any souls-like game except Dark Souls 1 (to my shame I still haven't played Demons or Bloodborne). I'm replaying it at the moment to try out the DLC, and I'm continually impressed by how many secrets and hidden and looping paths there are to be found.

It's interesting that you say The Surge 2 is your favourite. I had mentally filed away that series after seeing the lukewarm reception to the first one, but I might have to give the second another look.

 

[Jinn]

Did you play Hellpoint? I

Have it installed and waiting to be played, actually. I've heard it has excellent level design, but plebs mistake lack of environmental assets as bad level design (when they're actually just superficial morons). Excited to play it.

It's interesting that you say The Surge 2 is your favourite. I had mentally filed away that series after seeing the lukewarm reception to the first one, but I might have to give the second another look.

I have a major love/hate with The Surge 2. Really liked the combat and level design, but hated the overall aesthetic and world-building. Cyber/industrial-dystopia done mostly wrong. The first one is a fun, fairly short ride that's worth it for $5, with the sequel being a rather big improvement on everything the first managed to do right.

 

[toro]

In case it wasn't obvious, toro doesn't actually play the games he often talks about, he just posts for negative attention.

I finished LotF but I cannot say the same about Code Weebo.

 

[Reinhardt]

In case it wasn't obvious, toro doesn't actually play the games he often talks about, he just posts for negative attention.

I finished LotF but I cannot say the same about Code Weebo.

i finished code vein and nioh 1-2 but dropped dark souls and never heard about that lotf shit.

 

[toro]

In case it wasn't obvious, toro doesn't actually play the games he often talks about, he just posts for negative attention.

I finished LotF but I cannot say the same about Code Weebo.

i finished code vein and nioh 1-2 but dropped dark souls and never heard about that lotf shit.

You never heard of LotF but you hate it with passion

 

[Reinhardt]

In case it wasn't obvious, toro doesn't actually play the games he often talks about, he just posts for negative attention.

I finished LotF but I cannot say the same about Code Weebo.

i finished code vein and nioh 1-2 but dropped dark souls and never heard about that lotf shit.

You never heard of LotF but you hate it with passion

nah

 

[Frank Capicoli]

LotF was one of the worst 'souls like' derivatives I had the displeasure of playing. Slow plodding movement with clunky combat. Got half way through and dropped it. Thankfully I didn't waste any money on it. Almost no way the reboot can be worse than the original.

Code Vein was largely forgettable but at least mediocre instead of just pure garbage.

 

[Lutte]

Also they have HP bloat, they tank hits like crazy

>"tell me how much of a soulsbaby you are without spelling it outright"

This is heavily leaning toward the soulsclone genre, but combat mechanics and character builds have a lot more depth than most, and any actual From game for that matter. Enemies don't have HP bloat, you have a shit build. This is a game that explicitly has a superior control scheme to allow you to do more than just basic attack, strong attack and dodge. Unlike souls games where you need to scroll through spell lists which makes casting a specific thing mid battle painful, you can associate a lot of buttons toward specific abilities here. If you use them wisely and combine buffs as you should, there is nothing in this game that has a "lot of hp". There is nothing in this game that truly one hits you either. If you want a tanky char you build around large two handed swords, their ability to block is as good as a Dark Souls 1 greatshield and they have a solid amount of hyper armor combined with wide sweep type special attacks that makes clearing large groups of enemies a breeze. If you build light, your char handles like a Bloodborne character on steroids.
Enemy elemental weaknesses matter too.
By the way.. you do realize you can parry, right? Parrying gives you invulnerability during the attack animation like soulsbornes and it does wonders on gank squads.


With that said, the quality of character building and active ability use is pretty much the only redeeming factor of this game. There is a strong lack of enemy variety and some levels outlast their welcome - I 100% agree fake anor londo is lame. It's the lamest of the game though, everything past that is either decent or at least bearable.

I stick by what I said in previous messages I left in this thread, this game feels like massive wasted potential. There is some good taste in game mechanics in there. But too much of the game screams "we needed to rush this out as fast as possible while there's still soulsclone hype out there". More time in the kitchen could have led to something truly interesting.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

The bootleg anor londo made me quit the game for a while. I haven't gone back to it. But solving the puzzles is the opposite of fun because the level is essentially a three-floor wolfenstein type level. Imagine samey textures, no way to tell which way you're going or whatever, no identifiable landmarks... and yet you have to be solving switch puzzles across three levels, and there's only stairs in some places that won't probably lead you to where you want to go. Yeah.

 

[toro]

Also they have HP bloat, they tank hits like crazy

>"tell me how much of a soulsbaby you are without spelling it outright"

This is heavily leaning toward the soulsclone genre, but combat mechanics and character builds have a lot more depth than most, and any actual From game for that matter. Enemies don't have HP bloat, you have a shit build. This is a game that explicitly has a superior control scheme to allow you to do more than just basic attack, strong attack and dodge. Unlike souls games where you need to scroll through spell lists which makes casting a specific thing mid battle painful, you can associate a lot of buttons toward specific abilities here. If you use them wisely and combine buffs as you should, there is nothing in this game that has a "lot of hp". There is nothing in this game that truly one hits you either. If you want a tanky char you build around large two handed swords, their ability to block is as good as a Dark Souls 1 greatshield and they have a solid amount of hyper armor combined with wide sweep type special attacks that makes clearing large groups of enemies a breeze. If you build light, your char handles like a Bloodborne character on steroids.
Enemy elemental weaknesses matter too.
By the way.. you do realize you can parry, right? Parrying gives you invulnerability during the attack animation like soulsbornes and it does wonders on gank squads.


With that said, the quality of character building and active ability use is pretty much the only redeeming factor of this game. There is a strong lack of enemy variety and some levels outlast their welcome - I 100% agree fake anor londo is lame. It's the lamest of the game though, everything past that is either decent or at least bearable.

I stick by what I said in previous messages I left in this thread, this game feels like massive wasted potential. There is some good taste in game mechanics in there. But too much of the game screams "we needed to rush this out as fast as possible while there's still soulsclone hype out there". More time in the kitchen could have led to something truly interesting.

 

[toro]

The bootleg anor londo made me quit the game for a while. I haven't gone back to it. But solving the puzzles is the opposite of fun because the level is essentially a three-floor wolfenstein type level. Imagine samey textures, no way to tell which way you're going or whatever, no identifiable landmarks... and yet you have to be solving switch puzzles across three levels, and there's only stairs in some places that won't probably lead you to where you want to go. Yeah.

I just finished the bootleg anor londo and I beat the first successor but ... I'm done with this game.

It's banal, shit and boring.

 

[Reinhardt]

It's banal, shit and boring.

so perfect souls gaem?

 

[Sarathiour]

Picked it recently, I'm at the, uh, "Cathedral of the sacred blood", and having trouble against the first boss, not because of the boss himself, but because there is quite a walk before him and and the game force you to at least fight 4 womyn knight beforehand, and I always miss some parry along the road. Started with companion, dropped them after the butterfly because it was a bit too easy, and I'm now thinking about picking them up again. Invasion are ludicrous, you're not going to beat this shit without a companion or an endgame build, I lost two hours defeating one in the third depth map solo, I ain't doing this shit again.

 

[gabel]

Code Vein is okay in a deep sale on PC if you download some lewd mods.
One of the mediocre souls-clones. The original Lords of the Fallen is worse, the first Surge is better.

 

[deuxhero]

Still has malware that renders it online only so meh.

 

[Sarathiour]

Got my first ending.

Invasion ended much more manageable once you unlocked enough ability, especially caster aoe, though I was extremely annoyed by having to lock someone before using them, else your character just pound the ground. It's still mostly done by running around a bunch and doing parry, and it does not help that the cathedral one are pure AIDS with multiple teleporting mob.

Pretty much all boss indeed have a "spin to win" attack, or more precisely multiple spin attack. Queen knight's reborn charge and spin is probably one of those that made rage the most.
Blade Bearer and Canonner are fucking easy, only took me two try, obviously the one saying that it's one of the most difficult boss os the soulike genre need to git gud , mido and skull king on the other hand took me a while.
It's because the entire damage resistance system is a joke, I actually suck at those kind of games.

I like the whole blood code mechanic, it make changing your whole build really easy, given that maxing out your equipment is rather trivial.

 

[Elttharion]

Now its time to farm the dlc for an OP build

 

[Sarathiour]

This look fairly replicable with the base game, with the exception of the electric polearm, I should already have all the other stuff.
Probably also only work because this boss got a -10 or -20% weakness to electric damage.

 

[Sarathiour]

I did well to backup my save before starting NG+, because if you like me get a power outage while the game is saving, your only file is completely corrupted and you lost all your progress.

 

[Pyrite Pachyderm]

I did well to backup my save before starting NG+, because if you like me get a power outage while the game is saving, your only file is completely corrupted and you lost all your progress.

Everyone should have a backup power supply for their computer and router.