Vampire: The Masquerade - Coteries of New York

This game has some high moments and a decent narrative, but there are a great many flaws that keep it from being an experience I wish to relive. Aside from numerous typos and bugs, at many times the story becomes uncomfortably hard to control, responding in inintended ways. The outcomes of player dialogue choices can be cryptic and bite players in the back. And the finale? Well, that just left a sour taste in my mouth by making it painfully clear that there is no choice in this game. This Choose-your-own-adventure doesn't even have the illusion of choice. This game needed another few months of story development and QA.

If they had developed the game more it would have gotten my endorsement as a WoD fan. Unfortunately, there are glaring glitches (It autoskipped me a night and next thing I know I'm having to make decisions on a scene I never did. i.e. Meeting Callihan), it appears the proof reader was under some time rush most likely and left bad mistakes in the text (Unforgivable in a text based game IMHO), and BUGS BUGS BUGS (You get opportunities to use Disciplines your clan doesn't have and dear lord once you're down on blood points it repeats the same narrative over and over in a glitchy way). Lastly the no way to save and go back idea ruins the game if it glitched or the choice prompt makes your character say or do something that wasn't clear from the choice blurb and then makes your character look like an idiot (i.e. Using potence on the reporter, "HELLO! I wanted to beat information out of him and THEN drink him dry!") Anyways, I hope they fix all the problems and if they put out another game wait long enough for it to be fully done and something to be super proud of.) Bloodlines 2 hopefully won't rush things either...

Unfortunately, VTM: Coteries of New York is underbaked, which is disappointing, because for VTM, visual novels sound like the perfect medium. There is a lot of dialogue, scheming, lovely artwork, interesting characters, and good ambient music. However, the game sprints to the third act, and there are typos and incomplete text - giving me the impression that the developers were not given enough time or possibly resources to finish this game. Whatever the reason, I was disappointed overall, because there is a good game here; it just wasn't finished properly. If there's another VTM visual novel in the future, I hope it's given the time and resources it deserves - instead of being slapped together and shoved out the door.

This game seems like it could have been great but it lacks content and choices that actually matter in any way, also the ending feels disappointing and rushed.

I got this for a slight discount on Steam, and I feel obligated to write a review wherever I can. For a "game" that's mostly text with very little in terms of graphics or dialog, it's a near complete waste. There's no real choices and no major story branches. It's just a bunch of options in a diamond that look like choices that merge towards the rushed, single ending. Despite the three clan choices, there's not much replay value. Instead of adding more content to the first game, what does the developer do? They make new one of course at the same price point with same limitations even though it's mostly text. At least the Tell Tale Games have an excuse because they have both awesome graphics and full voice over. This has nothing even close to that. Even at half off, it's still rip off. Please don't support efforts like this. Don't buy this game.