I am a long time BL fan, dozens upon dozens of playthroughs, and I have been longing for a BL2. This isn't Bloodlines, but that's okay, it's just unfortunate it has that baggage and sounds like many people won't look past it. I find myself having a lot of fun and totally forget that I supposed to be playing a "Bloodlines" game. I'm having fun being a badass elder vampire, popping out of peoples' shadows, munching on them, then telling their buddies to snap their own necks all together. The game is flawed (as was BL) and combat is janky at times, but it's still a lot of fun for me. Characters are pretty solid, with outliers in both directions, and the same goes for the voice acting. Until a second playthrough, I don't really know how much the choices truly affect the game, but I feel like at least the dialogue options give at least a bit of roleplay. If you don't care about Bloodlines, or are willing to accept it's just the name and judge the game on its own merits, it's quite an entertaining game even if flawed. Updated: After finishing the game and poking around more on a new playthrough, it really is quite linear and doesn't seem to really offer much in the way of replayability; unless you're really interested in trying out different clan passives since all the other abilities and perks are available to all clans eventually. The clan interactions are relatively minimal, mostly some flavor in dialogue, an occasional clan-based option, and a few reactions from NPCs. Seems as no matter what, certain people will die, and ultimately it's the same outcome albeit with a few different ending slides depending on some of the choices. At least at release and I haven't gone through and tried to 100% it so I may be missing some differences, but it's not going to be a lot.
Funny, many described the first BL in similar ways to my title. It's unfortunate really that this game is carrying the baggage of being the successor to BL. Because I find myself having a good time playing the game and completely forgetting it's "Bloodlines," it becomes just a vampire game and it actually does a really good job of letting you feel like an badass elder vampire. Combat can be a bit janky at times, but it is also immensely satisfying too. There are plenty of interesting characters, some moreso than others—the voice acting is similar, some is quite good while some is clearly lacking. It is fairly linear in terms of the main story, but there are some fun, some meh, side quests going on. I haven't done more than one playthrough so I can't really vouch for the true impact of choices on the the story; however, the dialogue system does allow for some good roleplay opportunity with reactivity from the NPCs, further playthroughs will show whether there really is any true effect. Overall, I think it's a fun game and a solid effort, especially given the story around it. If you just let it be a vampire game, forget "Bloodlines" I think it did a pretty fine job given everything, including impossible shoes to ever fill. On a sale I think it's definitely worth giving a shot. Not on sale, I think it's worth giving a shot if you want an entertaining elder vampire power fantasy, especially if you can let the whole "Bloodlines" baggage go.
Hella POGGERS, they really did a great job on fleshing out the turn-based systems and incorporating that Wasteland humor and brutality.
