Vampire: The Masquerade - Coteries of New York

Yeah, I'd agree with the comments that this is a VN and not an RPG. But it's fine as a VN - it's engaging, with good art and music, but definitely linear. If you like Vamp, or even just urban fantasy, you'll enjoy yourself. Just don't expect RPG mechanics to influence how things play out.

It's a visual novel, and it plays like pretty much any other visual novel. There's only one, linear ending unless you count the bad ends. You have choices, but they're limited to who you befriend and how you solve problems, even if you don't the story goes on. But the setting is atmospheric, the music, images and animations fitting, the characters are all interesting, and the story is decent, if short. It's an artistic piece, not so much a game. Bought on sale and I'm fine with that.

...for me it captures my experience from playing the tabletop in the past really well. It's very important to only buy this with the right expectations, it is like a visual novel with a preset main story, in which you make small but significant decisions, it has still images with little animations and the art is very beautiful. The sound design makes a really nice athmosphere and it''s really well fit for a certain kind of people with a specific sense for athmosphere. I recommend playing this sitting at night in the dark and let the sound an artwork sink in, it really feels great for me. But keep in mind this is no action RPG or something like bloodlines whatsover, like I said it resembles a carefully written tabletop story trough which you are guided by a gamemaster just like my experience playing the tabletop years ago. I recommend it highly for people who like this style.

Before getting into my review, I believe a big reason for many of the bad reviews is that GOG has incorrectly classified this game as an RPG. It is not an RPG. It's a visual novel. Here's Gemini's explanation: "In games, a visual novel is a genre of interactive fiction that primarily focuses on storytelling through text, static or animated images, and sound. They are essentially digital, interactive books with visual and auditory elements." In other words, a visual novel is like reading a multimedia book where you have some choices as to what you say or how you respond to NPCs, and those choices have some effect on the story, but your decisions usually do not radically alter the storyline. So, having said that, my 4-star review is based on my experience playing other visual novels. Compared to its peers, this game stands head-and-shoulders above its competitors. The Great: - Beautiful, detailed hand drawn characters and locations - Immersive ambient sound, sound effects, and music - Memorable story with distinct NPCs having different personalities and agendas - Great adaptation of Vampire Masquerade world - Excellent writing including no grammar, punctuation or spelling errors - Perfect translation into English - Codex for terms and concepts unique to Vampire Masquerade - Save and Exit anytime. Not quite Save Anywhere but WAAAY better than infrequent checkpoints The Good: - Some control over how the storyline branches, but you can't significantly affect the main storyline - Three distinct characters you can play, each with their own backgrounds and personalities - The ending is good but not great The Not So Good: I deducted 1 star because of these - The impact your choices have on the storyline is minor - Essentially, the path you take to get to the end varies, but overall story and conclusion are the same The following game, Vampire Masquerade Shadows of New York is a 5-star visual novel.

When I saved my game at a choice and picked the obvious bad option to see what will happen, my character died and the game deleted my save file. This just exists to waste my time. Also the writing ranges from mediocre to cringeworthy. Not ideal for a game that's 100% about reading text.