Vampyr - vampire action-RPG from Life Is Strange devs

[Valtiel]

Finished right now. 6.5 at best.
-Lame combat, made it unbearable if you decide to go pacifist (without feeding on citizens), I did that until the end and It was a real pain, first time I considered cheating in a long time, one of the boss was just unfair. The animation that teleport to land the strike is the worst. I guess you cannot have a good vampire rpg without broken combat (still wouldn't know which is worse between this and VtMB).
-I liked the city "management" side intertwining witht the exp progression, the powers were also ok. I don't know why after so much work to keep people alive, suddenly everybody dies in the end (at leat that's what happened to me after i embraced one of the few npcs).
-Reactivity was really disappointing, I expected more from a game with this limited scope, something like The Witcher 2 would have worked,or at least some end game big choice...Nothing, not even ending slides telling you the faith of the citizens, making it useless to care about them.
-The city was nicely made aesthetically, I liked how it opened more and more with progression but it's nothing great for variety or exploration.
-Cool soundtrack for sure.
-Writing meh, they just did the minimum to separate rich people from the poor and that's it basically, no memorable characters (some of the were just ok, I liked the two twins, but there's seems to be nothing about it, maybe I skipped some content, I think I've made 3/4 of the secondary quest). Many missed opportunities to make you decide something meaningful, for istance look at how the choice for the fate of the very rich man is treated: it basically shouts at you that he is a rich piece of shit hating on poor people, it would have been so easy to make the choice more meaningful by keeping him shut until the very end, that's very poor.
-Secondary quests...already forgotten all of them.
-In the end I say if only they tried to do something more ambitious the game could have been something to remember, they played it very safe so in the end I guess it will be forgotten quickly, shame that a potentially cool mechanic like keeping people alive at the cost of not progressing was not so developed, it's just a gimmick in between very boring fights that I tried to avoid every time (goddamn those doors that you cannot open until you clear the area).

Edit: apparently there are 4 endings, but anyway...

 

[TemplarGR]

This game should have been a "Life is Strange" type of adventure game. As an action-rpg it sucks big time. I liked the story and the presentation though.

 

[RepHope]

Finished it yesterday. Overall I liked it, would probably give it a 7.5 on the games “journalist” scale.
1. Combat is ass no way around it. After acquiring a club I played whack-a-mole for the entire game, rarely ever using my sidearm. The weapons lacked weight and the skills lacked power aside from the Ultimates which fucking destroyed the final boss.
2. I liked the story. I loved Reid, the contrast between his new vampire nature and his old doctor profession. He was a pretty cliche Gothic Vampire but fuck it I liked that. At least he was actually trying to save Londonistan instead of whining in his room like most bitch ass vampires these days. Otherwise the best characters were Elisabeth, Myridden (for being enjoyable bombastic), and the vampire hunter leader from Ireland. Worst character was Swansea who is an absolute retard. I made him a vampire simply to punish all the other dumbasses at Pembrook for annoying me. I kinda wish Mary had played a bigger role in the story, but I did like how she either kills your mum or not based on whether you have killed people. I got the best ending since I didn’t eat anyone. Reid and his vampfu fled “Great” Britain to live in Freedomland. I’m going to play again and kill everyone I can next time.
3. Music is fucking great. It’s some real top-notch stuff, very good job there.
4. I liked how they tried to make it so killing citizens was a hard choice. You need to learn about these people, what their secrets are in order to get the most exp. That’s a great mechanic, but they did weaken it by giving you some lol!evil people like Seymour. I doubt anyone gives a shit if he dies. I also liked how as a doctor you could actually go around curing people, either to keep district health up, or in order to get all the exp when you killed them.

Overall I think this franchise shows promise. It’s no V:TMB, but a sequel could build on the foundation here in order to really deliver an enjoyable vampire RPG. I think for the sequel, if it ever happens, they should give us more customization options however. I heard the game actually sold pretty decently so hopefully they do manage to make another game that improves on what was done here.

 

[ortucis]

I'll probably buy this game in a year or two, or whenever it's about 10 dorrar.

No way in fuck is this game worth what it's asking for right now.

 

[Zibniyat]

Several months ago I finished this game, and I entertained a notion of writing a review (or rather an attempt of it), but that's not gonna happen since sloth usually always gets the better of me when it comes to these things.

So I wanted to just share a couple of impressions about the game.

What occurred to me just recently, and with regards to portrayals of vampires in various art or entertainment media, and which the game suggested which might even be revolutionary in a way, is that vampires indeed are lazily portrayed as "evil" no matter what. Yet the game asks:

- is there not something terribly wrong and evil in itself to seek to purge all vampires out of the world, or consider them all bad, or bad all the time, when some long-lived vampires are living witnesses of sometimes thousands of years of (human and vampire) history, complete with their unique insights into the affairs long past?
- do we not irreversibly lose a substantial source of information, precious source if I may add, if we are to purge all such beings from the world?

Right now I really like how these questions were asked, and the implications of answers given, or answers yet to be given. Naturally, since vampires aren't real, this only relates to the world of entertainment and art, but if someone were to push these questions even further in games for instance, and try to give multiple complex answers, I think we'd have much to enjoy in terms of discourse in the realm of philosophy and even ethics ("do we eliminate that which is a threat even if it means eliminating a lot of history, complete with a lot of potentially useful lost knowledge?"). It just struck me as being unusually intelligent for a game to ask these kinds of questions, notwithstanding the fact that the game in question has a lot of flaws and can hardly be recommended generally speaking.

~~~

And as for those flaws, the most glaring issue for me was the implementation of experience points (XP) acquisition, as well as related level-up system.

It makes no sense for the "blood quality" of a citizen to be influenced by how much information we have about them, since in the game world blood quality is obviously related to the citizen importance and health, which is obvious if a player would go out of their way to obtain all info about everyone; and it is this blood quality which dictates how much XP the player gets upon feeding on a citizen; of course, the player gets XP for uncovering information about citizens too, sometimes a lot of XP, but usually much less than what they would get if they simply fed on a random unknown citizen. This becomes an even bigger problem once you get further into the game, where it becomes obvious that the game tries to be somewhat "scientific" about blood quality, so for instance a sick citizen will have a reduced blood quality compared to when they're healthy. It's just illogical to find out something about someone, without that information having any usefulness for the player, and yet the blood quality magically increases sometimes substantially, even though the game's attempt at "science" would dictate that no matter who it is - their blood quality should be independent of how much anyone knows about them.

For me personally it made no difference whatsoever, since from the start I chose to play without murdering (or converting) any citizen, so I was usually a good 10 levels below my opponents. Since I played on normal difficulty that wasn't crippling, and most of the fights were manageable, sometimes challenging especially if I was lacking additional level or two.

The level-up system is boring, the player is usually given a choice of upgrading several attributes and skills, but it almost all ends with a "+<certain percentage increase>", which is neither creative nor particularly satisfying. Even more so because such level-ups are actually linear, that is a certain level usually gives you, for example, a "+50% increase", whilst the next level gives you "+100%" increase, followed by "+150%" increase and so on. I don't remember the particulars, some attributes and skills give you more per level, but it is all linear; and of course no special perks, abilities etc. worth mentioning (I repeat worth mentioning, since some do exist but I don't even remember what they did).

~~~

What I liked about the game, however imperfect in its implementation it was, was the overall seriousness and adult tone and themes the game tried to portray. One such I already mentioned in the beginning. Still, the visuals of early 20th century London weren't as impressive as I had hoped for them to be, but they were tolerable; the overall linearity of it all, however, is hardly excusable.

~~~

At the moment of me playing the game, it was priced at around $50, which is a lot to ask considering what's in the package. Now, since I play games rather rarely, and this was like the only new game in this year that I played for 2 to 3 months up until a few months ago, and since money isn't that much of an issue, I think one doesn't stand to lose much if in similar situation to mine. Otherwise, I cannot recommend something this costly; perhaps if the price was around $20 then it would be a much better purchase, but I feel like even then it would be asking a bit too much. A pity, for there are some really intelligent ideas behind it all, and with some better implementation, more variance in levels and overall greater freedom of movement, different and more logical XP acquisition and level-up systems, tougher battles and similar, it would be a much better game.

That said, I did finish it, and I did like it. On a scale of 1 (not recommended to even bother to check it out) to 10 (Star Wars KOTOR II non-patched, trololo), I will give this game a solid 6 - good enough to warrant a purchase if money isn't a problem and if you're like me not finding anything interesting to play.

 

[cruel]

I finished playing this some time ago, and overall I think this game gets too much hate. Sure, it's very far away from GOTY contender, and has some obvious flaws, but overall I enjoyed 35h I spent with this game. Combat is not as bad as people say, atmosphere is fantastic, music is excellent. Main plot was decent, there were some surprises, and one thing I was not expecting - if you play without eating anyone, this game can be really challenging. The amount of trouble I had with the cemetary boss, while underleveled, was much higher than 3/4 of Dark Souls 2 bosses easily.

I was afraid of SJW aspects knowing the developer, but it wasn't so bad. Only one gay couple, and it was pretty hilarious to see a nicely dressed black woman shouting 'women right to vote!' in the middle of the empty street, in the middle of the night, with no people at all.

Overall the game deserves around 7/10. What could be obviously improved is enemy variety, more distinct environments, more intesting NPCs, a little bit better combat / more skills, plus maybe some sort of fast travel. What was nice is atmosphere / unique setting, music, difficulty (frequently you are afraid of even simple enemies, if you encounter a group of 3 and are not prepared properly). Applies only if you don't eat people, of course.

If somebody likes 3rd person RPG games and has nothing else to play, it's not a bad idea to pick this up with a discount (I think I saw it for $15 recently).

 

[Cael]

I finished playing this some time ago, and overall I think this game gets too much hate. Sure, it's very far away from GOTY contender, and has some obvious flaws, but overall I enjoyed 35h I spent with this game. Combat is not as bad as people say, atmosphere is fantastic, music is excellent. Main plot was decent, there were some surprises, and one thing I was not expecting - if you play without eating anyone, this game can be really challenging. The amount of trouble I had with the cemetary boss, while underleveled, was much higher than 3/4 of Dark Souls 2 bosses easily.

I was afraid of SJW aspects knowing the developer, but it wasn't so bad. Only one gay couple, and it was pretty hilarious to see a nicely dressed black woman shouting 'women right to vote!' in the middle of the empty street, in the middle of the night, with no people at all.

Overall the game deserves around 7/10. What could be obviously improved is enemy variety, more distinct environments, more intesting NPCs, a little bit better combat / more skills, plus maybe some sort of fast travel. What was nice is atmosphere / unique setting, music, difficulty (frequently you are afraid of even simple enemies, if you encounter a group of 3 and are not prepared properly). Applies only if you don't eat people, of course.

If somebody likes 3rd person RPG games and has nothing else to play, it's not a bad idea to pick this up with a discount (I think I saw it for $15 recently).

That black woman wouldn't have been called "lunch" by any chance, would she?

 

[cherry blossom]

I was afraid of SJW aspects knowing the developer, but it wasn't so bad. Only one gay couple

You don't say?

 

[Xeon]

I thought this guy treated the actor and VV as his children or something, no?

 

[Ismaul]

That black woman wouldn't have been called "lunch" by any chance, would she?

But, if you are what you eat, would you?

It's a dilemma really. Eat only the most monocled people, and you contribute to the decline of civilization and of the availability of your high-quality meals. Don't, and you bloodmix with degenerates.

 

[RepHope]

https://www.reddit.com/r/Vampyr/com...nancials/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app

Looks like the game was a success for Dontnod. I expect a sequel will be made, probably one of the two games they are working on.

 

[laclongquan]

Yet the game asks:

- is there not something terribly wrong and evil in itself to seek to purge all vampires out of the world, or consider them all bad, or bad all the time, when some long-lived vampires are living witnesses of sometimes thousands of years of (human and vampire) history, complete with their unique insights into the affairs long past?
- do we not irreversibly lose a substantial source of information, precious source if I may add, if we are to purge all such beings from the world?

Right now I really like how these questions were asked, and the implications of answers given, or answers yet to be given. Naturally, since vampires aren't real, this only relates to the world of entertainment and art, but if someone were to push these questions even further in games for instance, and try to give multiple complex answers, I think we'd have much to enjoy in terms of discourse in the realm of philosophy and even ethics ("do we eliminate that which is a threat even if it means eliminating a lot of history, complete with a lot of potentially useful lost knowledge?"). It just struck me as being unusually intelligent for a game to ask these kinds of questions, notwithstanding the fact that the game in question has a lot of flaws and can hardly be recommended generally speaking.

Let me answer those questions in human's term.

- Do we, as humans, like to be top of food chain? A resounding big YES here. This is survival as a race thing, so we strive to make that happen, conscious or unawared. If there's a sentient race that seek us as primary food source (ie on top of us in the food chain), it's human imperative to wipe them out, or at least keep them contained. So yeah, if vampire exist, they damn well better hide really careful.
++A side note here: if vampire can survive on other food source as well, then the issue will drop like a hot brick. Tigers, lions, sharks etc seek to eat us but not as a primary food source, see? But in every case, sentient predators will be dissected and researched to see if there's anything we can exploit out of this race. Lemme tell you about tiger's bone get produced into some kind of rare and powerful medicine. or shark's fin as a delicacy cuisine.

- Do we really need to care that much for such witness and keeper of knowledge, however important or holy? A real resounding NO is heard here from our long history. Jesus, hmm? He's gone to the cross. Plenty of religion founders in India didnt get to prosper that much, with maybe Buddha as exception (die in old age's bed, with his son being one of major spiritual successor and leader of the new religion). Lao Tze, founder of Daoism, die somewhere unknown. And that is our own religious leaders. What is to say alien witness and keepers of knowledge get any better treatment?

 

[aeroaeko]

If i'm absolutely DYING for a vampire fix thats not vtmb is this worth it?

 

[unfairlight]

Vampires are gay.
But yeah if you liked the SHIT that was VtMB, you'll probably like this too, because this is also middling-at-best.

 

[Zibniyat]

Let me answer those questions in human's term.

- Do we, as humans, like to be top of food chain? A resounding big YES here. This is survival as a race thing, so we strive to make that happen, conscious or unawared. If there's a sentient race that seek us as primary food source (ie on top of us in the food chain), it's human imperative to wipe them out, or at least keep them contained. So yeah, if vampire exist, they damn well better hide really careful.
++A side note here: if vampire can survive on other food source as well, then the issue will drop like a hot brick. Tigers, lions, sharks etc seek to eat us but not as a primary food source, see? But in every case, sentient predators will be dissected and researched to see if there's anything we can exploit out of this race. Lemme tell you about tiger's bone get produced into some kind of rare and powerful medicine. or shark's fin as a delicacy cuisine.

It is not necessary to completely obliterate the adversary, despite everything you said. In this game, vampires are very vulnerable to large scale operations against them, which is why they seek out to remain hidden and act from the shadows. Ironically, some vampires here are portrayed as even helping the countries they are in getting "on top of the food chain" in the world. Moreover, vampires here don't necessarily need human blood, they can sustain themselves - however grudgingly - using other sources.

When vampires are portrayed more realistically, as in this game where they are not some overpowered supernatural entities who can't be touched by mere mortals, then they become much more vulnerable and are not really a threat to every living being or humanity as a whole as the usual shallow media products like to portray them. In fact, one could say that a greater threat to Great Britain then was the expansionist Germany - and Germans as a people - than the vampires. In fact and in real life, considering how a lot of Germans thought it "OK" to annihilate some other races, like Jews, Romas and Slavs for instance, one would be tempted to think the same of Germans, and yet basic ethics teaches us that we should not exact judgement and punishment on an entirety of people even despite their own opinions about us.

Do we really need to care that much for such witness and keeper of knowledge, however important or holy? A real resounding NO is heard here from our long history.

Oh, but a "resounding NO" is merely a consequence of your flawed perception of things. We see now, although many of us were obliged to see it from the beginning, how distortion of history is used to promote lies and evil; apparently, "revision" of history is now in order, an example of which is labelling ancient artists as "racists" and proceeding to burn their contributions to the world; or inventing lies about the "terrible" crimes of one group of people - whites, for instance - in order to "justify" the persecution that is now happening. Distortion of history is used as both a tool and a weapon to promote "diversity and tolerance" of many things, many of which are bad in themselves and have a consequence of fuelling the fires of hatred and anger leading to unnecessary violence.

Knowledge is a sacred thing, and living vessels of it are the most valuable beings in existence.

Jesus, hmm? He's gone to the cross. Plenty of religion founders in India didnt get to prosper that much, with maybe Buddha as exception (die in old age's bed, with his son being one of major spiritual successor and leader of the new religion). Lao Tze, founder of Daoism, die somewhere unknown. And that is our own religious leaders. What is to say alien witness and keepers of knowledge get any better treatment?

Some of them died of natural causes, and some of them died as a result of unjust persecution. Emphasis on "unjust". Nobody should praise the deaths of those killed for the wrong and unjust reasons.

Vampires in this game, existing for millennia, somehow did not in fact taken over the world and converted everyone else to cattle; it is as if they always knew, exceptions amongst them notwithstanding, that even "normal humans" are a finite resource, and not one which they should seek to totally destroy if they wish to survive themselves. Many of them also do not lose their own sense of conscience and ethics, and can choose to live as vicariously as is possible in such a condition, not only not threatening any "normal human" but offering their aid in times of need too.

 

[Zakhad]

Yet the game asks:

- is there not something terribly wrong and evil in itself to seek to purge all vampires out of the world, or consider them all bad, or bad all the time, when some long-lived vampires are living witnesses of sometimes thousands of years of (human and vampire) history, complete with their unique insights into the affairs long past?
- do we not irreversibly lose a substantial source of information, precious source if I may add, if we are to purge all such beings from the world?

Right now I really like how these questions were asked, and the implications of answers given, or answers yet to be given. Naturally, since vampires aren't real, this only relates to the world of entertainment and art, but if someone were to push these questions even further in games for instance, and try to give multiple complex answers, I think we'd have much to enjoy in terms of discourse in the realm of philosophy and even ethics ("do we eliminate that which is a threat even if it means eliminating a lot of history, complete with a lot of potentially useful lost knowledge?"). It just struck me as being unusually intelligent for a game to ask these kinds of questions, notwithstanding the fact that the game in question has a lot of flaws and can hardly be recommended generally speaking.

Let me answer those questions in human's term.

- Do we, as humans, like to be top of food chain? A resounding big YES here. This is survival as a race thing, so we strive to make that happen, conscious or unawared. If there's a sentient race that seek us as primary food source (ie on top of us in the food chain), it's human imperative to wipe them out, or at least keep them contained. So yeah, if vampire exist, they damn well better hide really careful.
++A side note here: if vampire can survive on other food source as well, then the issue will drop like a hot brick. Tigers, lions, sharks etc seek to eat us but not as a primary food source, see? But in every case, sentient predators will be dissected and researched to see if there's anything we can exploit out of this race. Lemme tell you about tiger's bone get produced into some kind of rare and powerful medicine. or shark's fin as a delicacy cuisine.

- Do we really need to care that much for such witness and keeper of knowledge, however important or holy? A real resounding NO is heard here from our long history. Jesus, hmm? He's gone to the cross. Plenty of religion founders in India didnt get to prosper that much, with maybe Buddha as exception (die in old age's bed, with his son being one of major spiritual successor and leader of the new religion). Lao Tze, founder of Daoism, die somewhere unknown. And that is our own religious leaders. What is to say alien witness and keepers of knowledge get any better treatment?

This reminds of how you could use hidden vampires in Dwarf Fortress, if you discover them (haven't played in a while, not sure if this still works). They never die, they just get thirsty, so you seal them in a room with no exit, make them do the accounting, and then even if your fortress is ransacked it will still continue, you just wait for more immigrants... who settle in with no knowledge of why there's a sealed door in one section with warnings all over saying "beware: accountant".

That's where vampires would find a niche in the real world: as lawyers, accountants, etc., areas where a long memory can be priceless. Just like why in Terry Pratchett's world the top lawyer is a zombie. Undeath suits lawyering, and lawyering suits undeath. Every corporation would love a team of soliciters on retainer who never get old, and who know all the precedent cos they were there when it was made.

 

[laclongquan]

You are using too much of your personal concepts, Zibniyat , in judging how human race SHOULD work. Me, I am just pointing out the symptoms and the actions.

It is human's nature to defy what's above themselves in a clearly recognized manner. If vampires exist solely on human's blood, then they are above human in food chain. This is a clear concept, no argument required. And if vampires sit above human, vampires shall be killed.

When people think that God, Buddha, etc is above human... Well, there's a school of thought saying "Meet gods, kill gods, meet buddha, kill buddha". That German guy saying something simpler "God is dead". While a big portion of humans will bow, that's only for a time, not always.

 

[Cael]

That black woman wouldn't have been called "lunch" by any chance, would she?

But, if you are what you eat, would you?

It's a dilemma really. Eat only the most monocled people, and you contribute to the decline of civilization and of the availability of your high-quality meals. Don't, and you bloodmix with degenerates.

Take one for the team. Eat it!!!

 

[Zibniyat]

You are using too much of your personal concepts, Zibniyat , in judging how human race SHOULD work. Me, I am just pointing out the symptoms and the actions.

We are talking about fictional beings. As such, all our beliefs about how a "real world" with such beings would work are in fact mere conjectures. I also gave my reasoning for why vampires, should they be as this particular game portrays them, would not in fact be a threat worthy of extermination. Real-life history proves my position too, in that many nations have been conquered and enslaved, but not totally annihilated; of course, some nations were.

It is human's nature to defy what's above themselves in a clearly recognized manner. If vampires exist solely on human's blood, then they are above human in food chain. This is a clear concept, no argument required. And if vampires sit above human, vampires shall be killed.

I already said they don't exist solely on human blood. I also disagree with your position there, I admit it has validity, but I also acknowledge real-life history where many peoples were little more than slaves and they still did not plot to annihilate their masters.

When people think that God, Buddha, etc is above human... Well, there's a school of thought saying "Meet gods, kill gods, meet buddha, kill buddha". That German guy saying something simpler "God is dead". While a big portion of humans will bow, that's only for a time, not always.

That school of "thought" is, of course, rubbish.

 

[laclongquan]

It is human's nature to defy what's above themselves in a clearly recognized manner. If vampires exist solely on human's blood, then they are above human in food chain. This is a clear concept, no argument required. And if vampires sit above human, vampires shall be killed.

I already said they don't exist solely on human blood. I also disagree with your position there, I admit it has validity, but I also acknowledge real-life history where many peoples were little more than slaves and they still did not plot to annihilate their masters.

Hah. Hah.

Every slave-owner society got a huge standing army to put down slave revolts, which happen more than yearly. USA history estimate 250 slave revolts in its two centuries before its Civil War. Can you imagine it? Every year, you hear about slave revolt like an yearly storm, sometimes more than once, spread across two centuries.

More practical, you can go imagine some vampire saying to you "I am more superior than you, cattle. You only fit to live in order to serve your lifeblood for me to drink. Nothing of yours matter because I live longer than you, I know much more than you, I am more sacred than you, food."

Imagine it! Then think if you want to pull that sucker down and nail that with huge wooden stake.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

If i'm absolutely DYING for a vampire fix thats not vtmb is this worth it?

Really depends on the degree of dying. I too feel there's a complete and seemingly neverending drought of vampire games, but... I felt Vampyr was 100% not worth it after finishing it.

 

[Xeon]

IIRC the only thing I found disappointing in Vampyr is the secrets system, other than that everything was serviceable I think.

Spoiler

I thought it will have some more impact or something but it only affects quality blood, that's very useless for none violent run.

 

[Zibniyat]

More practical, you can go imagine some vampire saying to you "I am more superior than you, cattle. You only fit to live in order to serve your lifeblood for me to drink. Nothing of yours matter because I live longer than you, I know much more than you, I am more sacred than you, food."

Yes, I can imagine some dumb vampire saying that, just as I don't have to imagine some dumb SJW saying how he or she is "superior" to me due to his or her ideology. This game, however, did not portray vampires as such, or at the very least not all of them. It is as if vampires were given intelligence of their own to think things through.

Imagine it! Then think if you want to pull that sucker down and nail that with huge wooden stake.

There are people here that consider me a "subhuman" due to my religious affiliation. That does not mean I want them - and anyone related to them - destroyed. Subdued, perhaps, but not destroyed.

 

[Cael]

There are people here that consider me a "subhuman" due to my religious affiliation. That does not mean I want them - and anyone related to them - destroyed. Subdued, perhaps, but not destroyed.

Translation: I don't want to kill all of you. I want you to be my slaves for me to rape, torture and murder at will.

 

[Zibniyat]

By "subdued" I meant prevented to cause harm to me, ruled over them even, but with proper justice.

My vocabulator seems to be malfunctioning.