Vampyr

This game is NOT a rpg. it has a very strong story but this is so focus on boss battle that this is painful. Battle are messy interesting and you have to take a lot in order to go through.

Vampyr puts you in the shoes of Jonathan Reid, a doctor returning home from WW1's front lines to find London battling Spanish Influenza. He is suddenly attacked & brought into the world of vampires that lived alongside humanity. You are then set on the path to find out why you were made a Vampire & what's going on. This game doesn't flinch away from the horrors of a viral outbreak ravaging the land, so if the current situation as of writing (April 9th 2020) has got you down, this won't pick you up. On top of that it's got an atmosphere of typical depictions of London of the time with cobblestone everywhere, rustic buildings & industrial factories at the edge of town all shown through mostly foggy streets lit by candles, small fires & the moon itself. All the accents and designs are spot on due to majority of the cast & crew being western European, though the dialogue may not be the greatest. On Gameplay, the combat system is clearly taking from the From Software "Souls" combat, with more a focus on the faster elements of Bloodborne, but not as refined. It adds a stun system that is a meter slowly drained via the offhand weapon until you put them into a stun state where you can feed on your enemies. Outside of combat you freely roam a large set of 4 hubs & speak with the few people who roam or have no choice but to be out on the street. You get to learn about them & uncover their own personal mysteries in dialogue sequences that feel like a mystery game, you can even get locked out of questions, quest & rewards for answering wrong. And the game locks you in to any choice made via an aggressive auto-save system with no way to go back without modding. On the front of sounds & the music, It's is very string focused orchestra with pieces reminiscent of Wojciech Kilar's on Dracula though there are a few times Synths come in. Complimented by folly that sells impacts. It's over all a great game but not prefect, hopefully a sequel or prequel is made to fix it's issues.

Vampyr isn't perfect, but it’s still special. I love parts of it so much I've played it 4 times in about 1 ½ years. When I watched trailers of the game I was intrigued by the setting and atmosphere. What put me off was the design of the main character who looked like a hipster which didn't seem to fit in with the rest. Playing the game for the first time I quickly decided that it didn't bother me much. Especially with a character who's portrayed by his voice actor so darn well. Seriously: To me, Anthony Howell's performance here is one of the best in video game history. So that, combined with an intro sequence that still gives me chills every time I see and hear it, reeled me in right from the start. To cut this short: The story couldn't quite keep up with the great first impressions. Too many plotholes and too little time put into making the various (exposition) dialogues at least a little more interesting (and there ARE a lot of those). And that's a bummer, because to me, story and characters are the most crucial aspects in a video game. Usually. Two aspects of the game are so well done however that they outweigh my gripes with the story and make Vampyr so special to me: the atmosphere and the soundtrack. There are some games out there that can pull you in with their great surroundings, but I’ve never seen it done quite so well as in Vampyr. I love the art style that looks a bit like it was painted. It's a very nice and fitting touch. And while the streets of London are dark, gloomy and dirty, the lighting gives it such a beautiful look. Combined with weather effects like rain or fog it feels amazing. The music contributes to this as it’s hauntingly melancholic and just evokes many emotions in and of itself. The indoors are very pleasant to look at, as well. The combination of setpieces and lighting works to create a gloomy and yet cozy atmosphere. Even on my 4th playthrough I couldn’t get over how gorgeous the world looked and the music tracks sounded.

great graphics, great story and game play, can't think of anything to criticize. Others have criticized the combat mechanics and bugs: I did not encounter any bugs (played through the main quest and a number, though not all, side quests) and I had no issue with the combat mechanics (though I do like to play games on "easy" settings). Another point some have criticized was that in order to get a certain ending, (which some consider to be the "good" ending) you had to refrain from killing citizens and thus limit some XP and skills: I think this mechanic is great and makes absolute sense: The player can choose to be humane and "good" as a vampire or become cruel and all-powerful (and anything in between); I don't think any one ending is better or worse, they all make sense and are consequences of your actions as a player, which I find very rewarding.

This might be an unfair comparison, because I played this right after Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines, which is one of the best RPGs ever made, but I didn't find anything interesting about Vampyr. Vampyr isn't really an RPG in my opinion, the experience points are used in more of an upgrade system (like in Batman Arkham Asylum) than a levelling system (like in VtM Bloodlines or Baldur's Gate). You can't strategise or change your play style, by selecting your abilities. You are "punch, dodge, rinse, repeat" man, so get used to it. And you will beat up the same three guys in the same dark street for the whole game. There is no change of scenery, there aren't even different level enemies in different areas, it's just the same punch-up with the same guys at the end of each street. And you get negligible experience from it. What you do get experience from is finding out civilians' secrets. Tom caused an explosion years ago and feels guilty about it, Dick is in a gang but loves his son a lot, and Harry is secretly gay. And the game tells the stories about as interestingly as I just did. In VtM Bloodlines, Heather Poe and Paul's girlfriend were heartbreaking characters. In Vampyr, I couldn't even figure out why I cared about the main characters. The story doesn't seem to connect to the game play either. Nobody mentions the endless supplies of monsters 20 metres from them. I never quite knew why I was killing vampires and vampire hunters all day long, and then being praised in dialogue for not having killed anyone. Of course it's because I hadn't fed on any civilians, which is the easiest source of experience in the game, but affects the ending. But was I a force for good? There are zombie-like vampires killing everything in sight, so am I helping anyone other than myself by killing vampire hunters? Why do the civilised vampires attack me when I help them kill the hunters, but not each other? This is punch, dodge, rinse repeat, on the same enemies, in the same scene.