There's a group of armed men in the room. Do you obey your superior and sneak past them, or do you kill them all mercilessly? If you do fight them, do you use your bare hands? A melee weapon? Or maybe you use your vampiric powers to trivialize it all? A human woman requires a critical blood transfusion; do you let her drink your blood at the cost of her serving you forever, or do you let her die? Do you obey the woman who acts rational yet rude, or the more unhinged one who has a romantic interest in you? Do you purchase blood packs to keep your thirst satiated, or do you calmly seduce a member of the populace and subtly drink their blood. Perhaps you do it by foce, but you might be caught by another human. Bloodlines is a semi-linear but mostly non-linear game in which you have many situations like this, choices everywhere with everything you do; even your vampiric race and powers available are a choice, except one: after bringing home a date, everything goes wrong: they suck your blood dry, and turn you into one of THEM. You're brought against your will into a tribunal, nearly executed, but as a last minute decision, spared by your new kin of the night. From there you must work as a fledgling vampire, and while the first jobs seem easy and unrelated, a dark plot brews below the surface. Vampire politics are a deadly game, and you're one of the center-pieces. You get to travel through various cities as you progress the story, and can do side-quests before progressing through the main game's missions. You can buy or procure weapons of all kinds, from ancient swords to powerful armaments like assault rifles and shotguns; meanwhile you level up your own skills and physical traits and vampiric powers. You must always be careful though; for if your nature is exposed, law enforcement agents, vampire hunters, and eventually, your own kin, will hunt you, if only to keep the Masquerade intact. But will you be able to maintain some humanity, or become a beast?
First and foremost, this is important to understand: this game is not for everyone. If you're a hardcore JRPG fan and want a new RPG in your roster to kill time with, you might consider buying this. If you hate monotonous battles that go on and on for the most part, this may NOT be the game for you. Down to business then; this is a game that plays on character customization with an evolving story. You start the game with a main character by the name of Leonhardt, who goes against the wishes of his king to save a young elven girl. The result of this is rebelling against his fellow soldiers only to be fatally wounded by a mysterious general known as the black knight. In his dying breath however, he meets a mysterious woman by the name Dyshana, who agrees to save him if he forms a pact that would force him and his descendants to make the ultimate sacrifice to save the world. As you play the game you play not only Leonhardt and his comrades in battle, but also his children; all male. Each of them has their own personality and hardships, but ultimately desire to save the world. At the end of each generation, there are available bride candidates for the main character to choose from, based on how much affection they have for him at the end of the generation. These pass on not only appearance changes to the next main character, but also stats and available weapons they can use. Combat is a bit more complex, and the head of the heated discussion of whether people like it or not. It's semi-SRPG but not really; it focuses less on individual attacks and more on combination attacks for big damage. Some enemies can resist some attacks rather heavily, and thus make them more frustrating to kill. Others can wipe your party in seconds if you move wrong. Dialogue choices and morality choices in the main story often make little sense; but there are guides available to help you get each ending. If you can get past the grinding, it's a fairly decent game, but maybe not for all.
