While Code Vein attempts to capture some aspects of what made Dark Souls so successful, the game also changes up the long-established formula with these new points of focus. Between decisions made talking to your companion and other survivors, the outcome of Code Vein's story will be altered. These sidekicks feed into the narrative too, as a source of emotional character building and a main pillar of the story. Characters that travel alongside the player will be prepared to fight in combat, while also providing a limited-use revive spell. Unlike the main line of Souls games, which focus on a lone fighter, Code Vein gives players the chance to be accompanied by an AI companion. This allows players to build up characters around a certain play style, with rewards that aid the strengths of a chosen Blood Code. Gifts are special abilities based on your class (known as a Blood Codes), which in turn, grant both limited-use and passive abilities to your vampire. Tying into the vampire theme, Code Vein's gameplay revolves around blood as a resource – giving players access to their "Gifts" after securing the bodies of foes. Moving away from the medieval fantasy backdrop to a modern-day post-apocalyptic world, this new setting is leveraged to implement new mechanics. Granted, the story does get better eventually, growing some much-needed depth and complexity - but it’s not exactly Game of the Year material at the end of the day.Code Vein may be influenced by the Souls series but also distances itself with some noteworthy changes to core gameplay. The monsters won’t really stick with you, and neither will the scantily-clad characters or the generic writing. Thus, the setting just seems pretty 'been there, done that', and that goes for the rest of its elements as well. This gothic-apocalypse setting has been done before and infinitely better in Darks Souls and Bloodborne alone - nevermind other games like them. The problem here is that unlike the player character, none of these things stand out in the genre whatsoever. Code Vein is trying to sell everything straight its monsters, its atmosphere, its characters and even its story. The weirdest part of this game is how it takes itself so seriously. You are unique in being able to bring dead ‘Bloodspring plants’ to life and collect other vampires’ ‘blood codes’ (I’ll explain that in a bit) for yourself. You see, you are a vampire, and your blood is very different from every other vampire in this world. Waking up after the tutorial, you are paired with a mysterious, equally amnesiac partner and proceed to explore this brand new world. If this bit sounds generic and uninspired, then I’m sorry to say that the rest of the story is more of the same. Predictably, you go on to use these abilities to try to save the world. You’re also told that much like every other Japanese RPG ever (Don’t hurt me, I LIKE Japanese RPGs), you are the most important person in this game’s world and possess entirely unique abilities - and conveniently, amnesia. This is the most game-y of game tutorial sections, and it utterly breaks the golden rule of show, don’t tell. Your character awakens in a small floating square, and the game proceeds to painstakingly spell out every single aspect of Code Vein’s gameplay to you. Right after you’re done getting those eyebrows just the right shade of red, you’re thrown into one of the worst video game tutorials of 2019 yet. Holy moly, this customisation system is so extensive and generous it might as well be considered the first boss of the game - it took me nearly 40 minutes just to beat it. They’re not wrong, but this game arguably does some stuff better than the game it emulates, namely character customisation. Many simply refer to Code Vein as ‘Anime Dark Souls’ - a cutesy clone of the real thing. Still, it does have some good qualities: Customisation This game isn’t nearly as good as any of FromSoftware’s offerings, which is unfortunate as it clearly wants to be. When I say Souls-like, I mean that it’s INCREDIBLY similar to FromSoftware’s Souls games, which are often praised for their extreme difficulty, combat and boss fights. Code Vein is a Souls-like wrapped in Gothic vampirism and a whole lot of strange anime fluffiness.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |