Vampire: The Masquerade - Coteries of New York

It's hard to ruin controls in Visual Novel - but they made it. For some reason plugging a gamepad causes numerous difficulties with input. Trying to solve it with accessibility options ruins it even further. Well... at least VtM aint dead yet! And that's why 2* instead of 1*.

It a fun, simple and honest visual novel, with a good art, fitting music and a pretty great ambiance, who sadly only deliver half the story it should have. All in all, it still an enjoyable ride with cool characters and I simply wish I could have passed more time with them, which its a proof of the quality it has. I don't regret the time and money I invest in it. Reading the other review and all I can see is that people were thinking that this is gonna be a full fledge narrative game from a big studio. Which it's definitely not. It is a simple visual novel, made by a little studio, and sold for 20$. And I dont know how people miss that since that was in most of the presentation and is in the first paragraph of its description. It means that most, but not all, of your choice won't have consequences. That say when it does, the game make you stick to your choice by auto-saving which accentuate the consequence of the decision you made. The art of the location is sometime foggy and other time lake a finishing touch. However, it is not a bad thing since it gives the story a strange mix of a suave but punk ambient that fit the dark feel the story is going for. On the story: The main story is a classic political vampire shenanigan that you see from a neonate perspective. So nothing new, but it does it well enough. The strength of this visual novel relies in the divers and well-written characters you meet during the story. All have distinctive personality with more than one facet. Most of them has their moment to shine or their own story arch that you can influence or at least participate in. Which bring us to the major problem. To make it simple, this feels more like a part one of three of an episodic visual novel. Half of the game is more about exposition of the setting. Then there a succession of rush scene about what seems to be the main story until a conclusion that feels more like it should be the beginning of the main problem your character will have to face.

im inn the beginning oand therefore a newbie.I only play at occasions so mapping is harder but i really enyoyed the story.2222s

- Played on Vers. 1.0 - Story: The setting is the vampire society of 2019-ish NYC, which you get introduced to while you progress in the story. You are a fledgling vampire thrown into cold water by unorthodox means. You struggle to survive and come to terms with your new existence, while trying to find out about your unusual circumstances. To this end you are able to interact with several characters, and your choices will affect how they react to you and how the story will progress. This will have potentially fatal consequences down the line. Your time is limited, so you can't enlist help of (or even meet) all of them. Gameplay: It's an indie visual novel, not an actual game. If VNs just aren't for you, this one won't be either. Unfortunately this is partly due to the current absence of standard quality-of-life tools like an auto-mode or skip-function. The game itself is heavily choice-based, where your decisions matter. Not only can situations take vastly different turns, the game also autosaves after every choice, so you as the player can't savescum. The story itself is fairly short with 4-5 hours, but the meat and bones of this game come from the replayability. At the start you choose from three clans with different skillsets to use during choices, as well as meet several vampires you can add to your coterie. Each vampire has an own substory which you can influence into at least two different conclusions. In order to check out the different clans and every possible companion story, you're looking at 3-4 playthroughs. About double when you're an absolute completionist. Graphics/Sound: Fitting but unremarkable music and sound, the art style fits and the images are slightly animated, but nothing to write home about. No voiced lines. This is where you really notice that it's an indie game. Nothing outright screams bad though. Bottom line: If you like V:TM or story heavy games and don't mind VNs, you're definitely getting your money's worth.

If you like visual novels, and like Vampire the Masquerade, you'll probably enjoy this. It's atmospheric, has good (albeit short) storylines and a good balance of choices versus text. If you want an open world RPG, move on - it aint for you. If you are familiar with the visual novel game play, this will be famiiar with some nice quality of life gameplay elements added in. Here's what I liked: - A VN with quality artwork that is not Anime-based - A VN that is not a highschool romance, "quirky" or a harem conquest - A dictionary feature that allows you to read more about the VtM terms and background - A stripped down blood hunger game mechanic - I could play through 2 of the 3 main storylines in one evening - NYC map was a nice touch, worked well - Day/night cycles gave the game a nice pace What I didn't: - Underdeveloped. Could have used more polish, better Q/A (I found at least 6 errors) - Character choices have limited game impact - No real multiple endings, which is a classic (and IMO essential) part of the VN genre - Story arcs that don't mature properly - No way to discover various story twists ahead of time through your gameplay choices - I could play through 2 of the 3 main storylines in one evening