Posted on: September 20, 2019

necrosis666

Games: 188 Reviews: 28

One of the very best hack & slash games

Let's face it, DIABLO 3 kinda was disappointing: recycling of the entire second act from Diablo 2, lackluster character building, monster recycling, hell, even boss recycling. It was just lazy. WARHAMMER: CHAOSBANE was also hugely disappointing and the two TORCHLIGHT games just had a too cartoonish graphical style for my taste. Apart from the original DIABLO, GRIM DAWN, VICTOR VRAN and PATH OF EXILE there are hardly any outstanding hack & slash games out there. Well, THE INCREDIBLE ADVENTURES OF VAN HELSING: FINAL CUT changes that! The setting is unique, I love the mixture of Transylvanian gothic horror paired with weird mechanical low sci-fi in the style of Frankenstein, next to GRIM DAWN's outstanding setting, this one nails it just as well. While Van Helsing is an OK protagonist, it's his sidekick Lady Katarina the friendly ghost who outshines him. The Final Cut gives a total of 6 playable classes, which just alter Van Helsing's armor and weaponry slightly, I found the standard "bounty hunter/monster hunter" class to be my favorite. Overall they don't add much to the game. The locations on the other hand look great, I love the graphics and the voice acting is quite good too. Personally this is my No. 3 Hack n Slash game after GRIM DAWN and the original DIABLO.

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Posted on: April 10, 2023

EriktheAwful

Verified owner

Games: 93 Reviews: 18

Beautiful, but Unbalanced

The game is beautiful and runs flawlessly, even under Linux with Wine. The setting seems like a cheesy excuse. It's Van Helsing's grandson teamed with a ghost. Whatever. Their dialog is decent and the pop culture references are entertaining. The combat balance is downright criminal. For most of the game you're either plowing through enemies with no regard or you get your butt handed to you by a couple specific enemies. It gets to be a slog when you get to "Old Town". You spend more time respawning and marching back to where you died than you do trying to negotiate combat. You're either invincible or a combination of enemies kills you in three seconds. This game would be much better if there were half as many enemies attacking you so you could at least see what's going on. Often the only reason you're dying is because you're swarmed by twenty enemies at once and you can't move. Mass attacks help, but only so much. Health potions are pretty worthless because they don't work instantly, but rather heal slowly, which you already do if you run away. The best strategy I've found so far is set Katrina to melee while you focus on ranged combat. Still, when you're facing four cannonball-shooting behemoths at once and they fire simultaneously, you might get to take one shot at them, then they all see you and if you haven't already started fleeing you get hit with all four cannonballs at once and die. Rinse and repeat. Some enemies are incredibly overpowered. The whatsitcalledbeast can spot you from offscreen, while you're already facing off a wave of enemies. Suddenly it charges, manages to run straight through all the enemies, and kills you with a single charge. That's garbage, and it happens repeatedly. I've spent as much time trying to run through "Old Town" as I've spent playing the rest of the game, and I'm ready to find another game. I can't go ten feet without running into another batch of enemies specifically engineered to kill me instantly. Disappointed.

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Posted on: May 26, 2023

ZakkVanish

Verified owner

Games: 104 Reviews: 7

Nice Action RPG...except for the fights

I want to focus on the main pro and main con: I am around 5 hours into the first game but I don't think that I'll continue. Grim Dawn was my last ARPG. In van Helsing I played the assassin class and was immediately surprised about how slow he moved. I thought that might only be a startting thing but the movements in combat remain so slow. I also waited to get a circular attack to get rid of the most annoying part of the game: The swarms!! It is an ARPG so fighting many enemies can be expected but this is too much. Walk three steps and a weird tornado of different enemies smashes into you. I clicked randomely like a crazy person without aiming at a certain enemy. Just clicked and hoped that I was clicking on an enemy. My fights basically were: Activate skill buff -> activate skill that would affect exactly one enemy -> continue with normal attack while skill cooled down for over twenty seconds -> get swarmed -> drink healing potion (followed by a cooldown for it) -> run away to avoid getting killed. If the enemies swarm you, you better don't get stuck in a corner otherwise you die. The best thing so far is Katarina your companion. I really enjoyed the dialogue between the protagonist and her. This combined with the many references to fables, music, movies or MMORPGs ("Party searching for a healer") makes up for a nice atmosphere many ARPGs are lacking. For € 4.50 give it a go if you are looking for another ARPG for you to play but if it is your first: There are better ones to try out first. I hope this review helps with your decision.

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Posted on: April 30, 2022

populism

Verified owner

Games: 351 Reviews: 4

Good Game

Long single player campaign, good graphics and atmosphere...finally beat it tonight. I recommend getting the enhanced mod from steam forum https://steamcommunity.com/app/400170/discussions/0/490125737479241823/ Look on page 96 for an alt DL link.

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Posted on: July 21, 2023

Norevax

Verified owner

Games: 187 Reviews: 17

Great.

Neat story, great mechanics, great gameplay. I had a lot of fun with Van Helsing and so on. There's like six entries in my game list for this, I've no idea why. It's worth giving a good go if you like isometrics and so on. I'd put up there with the original Diablo and D2R as one of the best of it's kind. Difficulty scaling is a bit weird here and there.

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