Posted on: April 20, 2024

zereshk
Verified ownerGames: 101 Reviews: 2
Another "Bloodlines" it is not
I had high hopes for this game, but only got a few hours into it. I knew going in that a lot of it would be hack&slay, which I don't care for, so I cheated up my physical stats and tried to play the game for the story. Well, first of all the cheating doesn't really make the fights less annoying since every random monster can block your path and you have to fight it anyway. And then they're not even one-hits since Christof, your protag, will miss. A lot. The useless companions will miss even more. And then they will die since they, for some reason, can't bite anyone and replenish their blood. And then you need to raise them. Again. So the cheats make the fights a little shorter, but they don't make a big difference. But the game isn't good apart from the fights either. I'm sorry, it's supposed to have good storytelling? I don't think so. The characters talk like in a bad romance novel and nothing makes any sense. The romance between Christof and Anezka is stereotypical and corny, she has no personality beyond "caring and loves him". The other characters live by simplistic black-and-white morality, which is curious for vampires. The sidequests are all fetchquests without creativity. Also, the environments are ugly. I know it's an old game, but come on. Neverwinter Nights came out just three years later and had a bustling city that felt alive. Thief 2 came out the same year and its medieval-inspired levels looked beautiful and intricate. This game's Prague looks sterile, the textures are made without any attention to detail and there are hardly any NPCs around. I got lost in the town a few times simply because everything looks exactly the same. It doesn't feel like a town when there are 5 NPCs in a quarter and you can't talk to any of them. In the Jewish quarter there was exactly 1 NPC outside. I can't comment on the "modern" part of the game since I decided life is too short to continue playing. In conclusion, skip this one and replay "Bloodlines" instead.
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