Root thread

(SPOILER WARNING: THE PLOT OF THE GAME)

NecroVisioN
NecroVisioN is set in 1916 during World War 1. It begins on 14-12-1916 (that’s almost a month after Lost Company) on the banks of the River Somme (where the last stages of Lost Company took place) NE of Verdun, in France, at 5.35’. The area is still full of the poisonous gas from the oil canisters that were dropped there. The player takes the role of Simon Bukner, a young American soldier recently recruited into the 4th Battalion of the British Army. In addition to German soldiers, Simon soon finds himself fighting supernatural forces, including vampires, demons, and zombies found in locations varying from the battlefields of World War 1 to secret laboratories and caverns. The main setting is the Battle of the Somme (No Man’s Land), during which a rumor of a mysterious infection has appeared, which causes all people to turn into zombie-like state. Later, the game takes the player into two new settings: the underground realm of Vampires, and the demonic realm of the Underworld.

The game begins with the protagonist Simon Bukner being awakened by a British soldier within a bunker, but Simon comments that someone in his dream told him not to wake up today. It is apparently time for a counterattack against German lines. After a rallying speech by the commanding officer, Simon is to follow his squad of soldiers towards the assault point. But as soon as they arrive, they are ambushed by heavy German machine gun fire and mustard gas. Many of the soldiers die and Simon is seen running aimlessly, searching for cover from both bullets and gas. Soon, Simon collapses.

When Simon reawakens, he is in another bunker with several corpses and a surviving British soldier (named Patrick). The soldier claims he has barricaded the bunker from the inside to prevent anything from coming in. That includes members of Simon's squad escaping the gas! Simon is visibly upset and angry at the soldier's cowardice. The soldier continues rambling, due to battlefield stress, about having German passwords and other intel, including some on patrol routes. Thus he plans to evade and escape the trenches with the information he has. Simon then threatens him and soon, a fight ensues. Simon kills him and takes his rifle. Simon is disturbed by the fact that he had to kill a friendly soldier. By blowing up the barricade, Simon fights his way through the trenches and meets several soldiers who Simon initially believes are in a bad mental state (shell shock) because of the horrors they have seen. However, soon the zombies, the otherworldly hounds, and other netherworld creatures begin to manifest.

Nearing a trench, a monstrous looking face manifests itself and starts rambling about a savior, and that Simon can be that savior. This is one of the last vampires, a mystic race that stood against demons. (It’s the same one that Jonas saw in Lost Company. Apparently it had given powers to Jonas, so that he would help them defeat the demons, but Jonas claimed the Golem’s artifact, and the powers given to him, for his own purposes. That’s why the spirit refers to Jonas as “the traitor” and wants Simon to defeat that traitor first, and help in their battle against the demons afterwards.) After this encounter, Simon often hears voices, which was also mentioned by other soldiers in many letters Jonas was finding in Lost Company. (Apparently the vampires wanted someone strong among men, to help them break into the Underworld and defeat the demons, and when they eventually found this man to be Jonas, in the first game, he had betrayed them, so they kept searching anew, and now they found another nominee, Simon).

Simon begins to wonder what is going on here and suspects that there is something much more sinister happening at the trenches. At some point he is captured by soldiers saying that they work for Jonas Zimmerman and that they alone will defeat the forces of darkness. However, they too are killed by some kind of monster and he manages to continue his way. Along the way, Simon begins to unravel and discover bits and pieces of information about what is going on. Apparently a connection has been established between the surface of the Earth and another dimension (the Underworld), where all these monsters are coming from. This leads him to Jonas Zimmerman, the person behind the monstrosity that has been going on. Eventually, the player travels through trenches, old ruins (where he first encounters Zimmerman, but he is tricked, as the latter introduces himself as someone else) and finally the stronghold where Zimmerman was last located. At the basement lab of the stronghold, the player discovers a mechanical walking tank created by the Vampires. Using it, Simon proceeds to a showdown with Zimmerman who commandeers a Scorpion-shaped walking tank, which is much bigger than Simon's walking tank.

(continued at the next post)

While Zimmerman is close to death, he stabs Simon with the claws of his ShadowHand. So Simon enters the same state as Zimmerman was (suspended between life and death), because Simon is chosen by the Vampire kind as the new owner of the ShadowHand (as the new Necromancer and Shadow Warrior) with Menthor inside - the spirit of an old Vampiric champion, bound within the glove (though the name “Menthor” is never mentioned in the game). This glove was the source of Zimmerman's power over the undead, and now it is to be used against the demons deep underground. Menthor will act as the companion of the player, guides him all the way, and provides instructions about the spell system in the game. The goal of the game from now on (Chapter 6 onwards) on is to conquer the great demon - Mephisto. Simon descends deep into the steampunk-styled underground Vampire realm, which has been corrupted by demons. A female voice (Eilan) told Simon that he had to freely accept this, but this was not so much of a choice, as the voice told him that the Vampire race was the only thing protecting mankind from the demons for centuries, but their race is weakening, so they needed someone strong among men, to wear the glove and help them. If the vampires would be destroyed, then mankind would follow (by the demons). The vampires are those which were named as Kobolds by people in the first game.

At one point the glove tells Simon that when the Earth was younger, all the old races were living aboveground, until some of the races went underground and those who stayed aboveground became humans. So it is more imperative that we humans should help the vampires (since it is implied that we had common ancestors).

The glove (ShadowHand) also tells Simon that he’ll have to find an imprisoned dragon, who will take him into the Underworld, but he’ll have to defeat him first and stab him in the heart with Amakh’s Dagger the female spirit (Eilan) gave him. But when he finds the dragon later (at the end of Ch. 8), there is no battle, and in the cutscene between Chapters 8 & 9 the dragon tells Simon that he will let Simon ride him, though not out of gratitude for releasing him, but because Simon bested him (while there wasn’t a fight between them!) and then Simon is seen that he had already stabbed the dragon with the dagger (without the player fighting him!).

After a long journey fighting many of the vampire race, who had taken Mephisto’s side, Simon finds and frees that ancient dragon, named Naga (in end of Chapter 8, described above), who tells him that he is the oldest of the dragon kind (he later says that demons had killed all of his race millennia ago, and now they have returned to do the same to all other races), but demons had locked him there just recently. Simon then mounts him and rides him (in Chapters 9 & 10) and makes his way to the Underworld itself. Before reaching the Underworld, he battles Mephisto's second-in-command, Azazel (who rides a three-headed Cerberus), in the end of Ch. 10. Before he dies, he tells you that you won’t be able to leave the Underworld, once you have entered it.

The Underworld starts at Ch. 11. While in there, Simon meets the Mole Wizard, whom you first encounter (and defeat) at the end of Ch. 1, then you see him from afar in Ch. 6, and you encounter (and defeat) him again at the end of Ch. 7 for the last time. However in Ch. 11 you see him imprisoned in a cell in the Underworld. He tells Simon that he was controlled by demons in order to fight you. When you free him, he helps you reach Mephisto’s residence to defeat him, but after he spends his last life energy to help you, he then disappears.

[Note: The game begins (start of Ch. 1) on 14-12-1916 at NE of Verdun, in France, at 5.35’. By the start of Ch. 10 the date is referring to be 16-12-1916, 13 miles beneath the Somme, at 15.01’. In Chapters 11 & 12 it is referred “1916, location unknown, time unknown”]

At the start of Ch. 12 you are told that there were two seals entrusted to the races of the Earth (one to humans and one to vampires) to keep the seals protected, and the Armageddon will begin if both seals reach the Underworld. So Simon feels betrayed, as both seals are now here, brought by him (in all the game before, we are never told anything about any seals!). In Ch. 12 Simon encounters Mephisto himself, and clashes with him in final battle. The game has three endings, which are chosen based on the difficulty level:

EASY: Simon wakes up in the Somme trenches directly when the Great War ends on 11-11-1918. He is taken back to Allied lines by a German soldier, where medics tell him he contracted shell shock resulting in him being unable to remember the last two years of war. They also discover strange multiple scars on his arms and metal plates on his skin, which origins they cannot explain.

NORMAL: Since Simon is unable to escape from the Underworld, Mephisto proposes a deal: Simon to give him the seals and in return Simon is to become General of the Army of the Underworld. Simon agrees, as he sees it as a promotion to become General from private, but, remembering that Mephisto is called “Lord of lies”, he makes him promise to postpone Armageddon for 100 years and then he throws the seals through a portal, for them to be dropped back to Earth! So the human and vampire races are given 100 years of peace before Mephisto’s next attempted invasion on Earth (but also Simon will be fighting against the two races). He then wonders if humanity and the vampires will be ready for the next demonic invasion or the humans will be busy fighting amongst themselves (as is the case now).

HARD: Mephisto dies and Simon has saved both races (humans and vampires). However his endless killings and thirst for blood, made him the new King of the Underworld.

END