Vampyr

This game is getting a lot of grief on GOG, however, I found it thoroughly enjoyable, challenging, and diverse in tasks. The bosses are hard and some took me a couple of hours to defeat - the action is a beast! So it was a nice change to be able to do some side quests after a rough boss battle and chitchat with towns folk rather than jump back into the action (as Bloodborne would have you do for instance). The city is grim and atmospheric and I found myself really missing that creepy dark city aura after finishing the game. I longed to go back and wander around.... Maybe I am just a sucker (no pun intended) for vampire lore but the game was a rewarding gem.

Overall, it's a good one. You can be a good guy or a bad guy. Lots of dynamic ways in which the people around you react to or are affected by your decisions. Being a good guy is basically hard mode. You'll never be able to fully upgrade your abilities, and combat is a challenge. Being bad, on the other hand, is easy and means you can upgrade just about everything completely. This gives it replayability value. Pretty good dialogue and an interesting story with a unique take on vampires. Now for my beefs. This game gives off an open-word vibe, but you are continually barred from going anywhere the game doesn't want you to go. Even when you've done enough story missions to roam the map, there are plenty of EXTREMELY ANNOYING one-way gates/doors that require you to traverse all the way around the map to the other side in order to unlock it. The cherry on top? No fast travel. Ever. Not even between safe zones. You spend about two thirds of your gameplay running to and from your objectives. Not to mention the map design is atrocious with dead-end allys and out-of-the-way paths. This, I suppose, is meant to accurately represent 1918 London. Lastly, you need to be very careful when gathering lore collectibles. Just one wrong decision completely hoses your effort to get 100% of them, as I very ungraciously found out. Otherwise, 100%-ing the rest of the game shouldn't be too difficult with two separate playthroughs. As of this review, the game is 4 years old and the developers are still charging $40 for it. I got it on sale, by some miracle. I recommend, if you're interested, that you do the same.

I enjoyed the game well enough for a time - it had nice atmosphere and seemed engaging enough on the story front. Unfortunately, about 10h in I happened across a game breaking bug in the main story, and the game uses a single overriding autosave with no manual saving allowed. I've searched online and it seems the bug (failure to loot a body in the "Rat in the Hospital" quest) has been around SINCE LANUCH and the only "solution" given was to restart the game from the beginning. I liked the game, but not enough to replay TEN HOURS OF IT. So overall - I can't recommend this game on the basis of me not being able to continue or finish it.

So, was I 100% satisfied with some of the smaller details like how certain mechanics work? Not exactly. It took some getting used to. However, one big factor that drives most of my reviews is: Did the game match the description page? This game did that and more. So I gave it 5 Stars. The atmosphere was spectacular and the graphics were great. The voice acting was wonderful as well. The story is absolutely fantastic. The biggest thing with this game is that you are forced to live with your decisions. There's no manual saving, killing somebody, then re-loading a pre-saved state. If you take someone out they're gone, and you're left with the consequences. (and there are always consequences!) However, as a Doctor AND a Vampyr... You are faced with the fact that most of your experience points for upgrading come from sucking the blood of those NPC's that you, as a doctor, want to help. If you drink no blood you are super weak and bosses will be super difficult late-game. If you go on a killing spree? You'll be super overpowered but the world around you will plunge into chaos. The ending will also reflect your choices in game, so be prepared! Such a wonderful, frustrating dilemma to be in. It makes you second guess everything you do. Ultimately, if you don't like games like this then leave it alone. It's not for you. But, it's designed to make you want to re-play and make different choices. What if this other person lived instead? Do what if I made this key character a Vampire, but took this other one's life? Lots of world-changing choices to be made. Also, so much in this game revolves around crafting and upgrading equipment, along with finding cures for various diseases for sick NPC's. Also, side quests are very interesting and usually involve you helping the NPC's out by uncovering secrets, talking to other people, finding keys, reading documents... Lots to do. I can't recommend this game enough!

For the most part I liked the main storyline and mystery of Vampyr. I enjoyed the references to "oldschool" vampires (like needing invitation to enter someone's home), protagonist's voice and setting (at least on conceptual level). Unfortunately the good parts are rather rare and far between. For the most part you will be doing rather uninteresting side quests and gathering information about mostly boring characters. Which are useful only if you want to ruin the "perfect" ending. Endings themself are "meh" at best as they hinge on forced and rather unnatural love story. Fighting system can bring some joy when you finally get a hang of the combat rythm and perform your dance flawlessly. Unfortunately it is rather repetitive and character progression system doesn't help with that. There is only a handful of skills, their upgrade cost increases exponentially while their effects are boosted in linear fasion. This means you will unlock all of your tools in first 15-20% of game time and will only slap insignificant upgrades onto them later. I'm sure there is a lot of criticism about the main mechanic of the game - drinking NPC's blood to get stronger (because you can't get only a bit, you have to KILL your donor). I'll say it's definitely bad idea but it's possible to just roll with it. It didn't really bother me that much. All in all Vampyr is a game that you can give a shot if you like classic vampires. I don't regret playing and was quite invested but I wouldn't recommend buying it at full price.