Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption

I like to think of this game as 2 in 1. First half is set in Dark Ages, where I personally believe World of Darkness setting is at its most interesting, and the second half is set in contemporary late 90s which is also interesting but nowhere near as cool as vampires in plate armor. You start off this game as a human who then gets embraced after showing he's worth - which is destroying a Tzimisce vanguard consisting of tons of szlachta and a single young Tzimisce Vampire infesting a silver mine. Some may think that it's not "lore friendly", but we have to keep in mind that humans like Christof who dedicated their entire lives to combat, are on top of tht boosted by "faith" and have access to armor + holy water are more than a match against young inexperienced vampires. Sure if this was an experienced vamp Christof would get his ass handed to him, but lorewise it's a warsetting between Ventrue/Tremere alliance and Tzimisce, which means that both sides are gonna be embracing footsoldiers like crazy and they aren't exactly toptier combatants when they're this young - so it makes sense (sorta). Gameplay is archaic, but enjoyable. I grew up with mid to late 90s and early 2000s games so I felt at home. It's point and click mostly. The difficulty comes from managing party, its builds and its abilities/blood, which was sort of interesting. A wrong build will suck, while a correct one will make game stupidly easy. I played lorewise, so I maxed potence/celerity and physical stats and ignored everything else and Cristoff was destroying everything solo - especially after he got the magical 2h bloodstealing sword. You get access to many companions who will join and leave you through game, which I found to be a breath of fresh air. Situations and self-interests often clash which is why it makes no sense that companions should stick with you throughout entire games - it's a shame that industry moved away from this (though I understand why they did). Dungeons can drag on tho

This was my first Vampire The Masquerade game back in 2001 when I got my first PC. It has since been overshadowed by the somewhat unfortunate but legendary Bloodlines, and yetI still hold to the view that it is far superior to the sequel. Firstly, it combines two World Of Darkness settings, one set in the Medieval and another in the modern times. The story revolves around an English crusader who falls in love with a Bohemian nun while fighting against the pagans in Moravia. It takes the protagonist from Prague to Vienna and back, then across time to modern London and New York City just before the dawn of the new millennium. Secondly, the story and lore are the game's strongest point and it keeps bringing me back to it for over two decades. I just love it. The dialogues are amazing and the characters are as memorable as they get. It's flawless. The gameplay is a mouse-controlled 3D top-down RPG where you make a party of up to 4 players you can switch between. Unlike the sequel, it is not a non-linear FPS with a character you create but a linear RPG albeit with three possible endings, and pre-built characters who play an important role in the story. Characters have different "disciplines" or magic-like abilities powered by their vampirism, which you can enhance as you up your characters. The RPG elements are strong in it in general, and reflect the WOD tabletop RPG rules. A thing needs to be said about running the game on modern PCs. It runs very well without any extra work but you may want to adjust the resolution. Other than that it feels as good as it felt back twenty years ago. In general, the game is very atmospheric and has a beautiful love story at its core, while delving deep into the Vampire The Masquerade lore as you play, learning about different vampire clans and threats that haunt the nights. The story, the art and the graphics are mind boggling for that era. There is simply nothing like it to this day. A must have for any VTM \ WOD fan.

The start is a bit hard but the game gets more enjoyable further on. Great Game. Already owned it once...had to have it again.

This game is average. It has some strong story at parts, where at others the dialogue isn't as strong. It combines contemporary and medieval at the end which I enjoyed having both your traditional medieval with guns later on and more of a cyberpunk feel to the second half of the game. There isn't much exploration or choice for an rpg and it is mainly crawl through a dungeon, which I don't mind but I prefer better story telling, choices, and exploration of towns and NPC's, which this didn't have a ton of. It wasn't a bad game and had a decent story, just wasn't one of the best RPG's in my opinion.

So we can't talk about Redemption without talking a bit on Vampire the Masquerade (VtM). VtM is a pen and paper rpg, in which players play vampires who belong to various secret society who have fought and conspired against each other since time immemorial. Usually, by manipulating human society from the shadows. Set in the modern day, it focused on an upcoming vampire apocalypse called "Gehenna". In which ancient vampires called "Antediluvians" are going to rise and consume the world. It also really tries to be mature and serious, with varying degrees of success. With later editions definitely improving on this aspect. You play a crusader named Christof, who becomes involved in the affairs of vampires while trying to reunite with his beloved, in a journey that stretches from Dark Age's Prague to modern New York. Now, Redemption does an odd thing with this source material. On the one hand it uses specific terminology so much, it's frankly almost incomprehensible without some basic familiarity with the source material. On the other hand, it uses the terms without context anyway. So there's a point where this knowledge doesn't really explains things all that much. The gameplay is third person, point and click, hack and slash. And it is a little unwieldy. You control up to four characters, but in the heat of battle I usually depended on the AI rather then try and skip between them. The AI is fidgety, and has some odd quirks about what powers or items it likes to use. It has a very frustrating resource management behaviors about "blood". But enemies are even dumber, so it balances out. And there is an overwhelming number of powers to choose from, not all of them are well explained. It is overwhelming and confusing. VtM fans will get a kick out of it, or grow annoyed with the scatter-shot use of the material. Under the haphazard use of the setting, the plot and characters are very traditional. At its core, it's a confusing game that aged poorly. I like it though.