Review - VAMPYR - So, is it better than "Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines"?

Time to sharpen your teeth and drink your Bloody Mary, we're reviewing Vampyr, one of the most awaited releases of 2018!

Coming from the froglings behind the ultra-cringy teen-angst-ridden narrative adventure Life Is Strange, Vampyr has been compared since the beginning to the timeless open-world RPG Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines. 

Vampyr similarly lets you explore their secret underground world as one of them, joining their clans and sharing their existential questions, but very rarely is it as enjoyable.

Store	Platform	OVERALL RATING: 70%
Buy it on Amazon Buy on Steam	PC	+ THE POSITIVE - FINALLY a game about vampires! - Amazing atmospheric environments - Some interesting moral choices - A few fun skills, but...  - THE NEGATIVE - Not enough Vampire skills - Maybe TOO much text - The fast-paced combat is bloody average - Characters models AND animations could be better - You can't hide bodies - LOTS of locked doors - A bit unpolished and has a few bugs - Autosaves (ONLY ONE SAVE!!) - YOU CAN'T JUMP. SERIOUSLY.
Buy it on Amazon Buy on Playstation	PS4
Buy it on Amazon Buy on Microsoft	Xbox One

BITE ME!😜

  Basically, Vampyr is an Action-RPG where your personal choices(through dialogues, killing, or quests) bring consequences and shape the world around you.

Although it doesn't necessarily work well, but more on this later. 

  The action takes place around the end of WW1, in a dark, cold, gritty and dirty 1918 London. So cold that you even get... Frostbites. *applause*😂 (a bit like in Frostpunk)

Adam Jensen let his beard and nose grow.

  You play an ULTRA-GENERIC character named Jonathan Reid, a British army surgeon returning home from the frontlines to visit your dear sick mum.
(Occasionally, he was also playing Adam Jensen in the Deus Ex games.)

Unfortunately, you get bitten by a vampire in a white chapel allyway. 


 Left alone with your new unwanted condition, and a new addiction to blood orange juice, your main "quest" will be to find answers about what happened to you, and WHY. 

The ripoff from Deus Ex' Adam Jensen couldn't be more obvious.

  You'll be forced to roam the street of the once great London, now ripped by fast-spreading Spanish influenza(that explains the countless "KEEP OUT, DEAD INSIDE" posters you'll see everywhere), until you realize that you're constantly being watched by a mysterious entity lurking in the dark streets' shadows...

NOPE.

  You'll actually still be asked to work as a doctor sometimes, attending to sick people, but mostly you'll do "investigations" and various other crime-solving tasks.

  You'll meet in your hospital all sorts of crazies, from wannabe vampires who watched too much Twilight to nauseous necrophiliacs like French president Macron. 
And wait until you explore the rest of the city...
Welcome to British Psycho world!

We won't reveal more... he he 😜 

Anyway, time to hunt down the vampire who changed your life for worse. 😠

Note!

Although many people have been complaining about bad optimization on the console versions, we didn't run into any problems playing with the PC version.

"Come to England, they said. It's summer, they said..."

GAMEPLAY - DR. ACULA WON'T SINK ITS TEETH INTO YOU😋

 The whole map is divided into four districts, and each of them has a "Pillar", which is actually a KEY person, essential to the game's plot.

Some information about these "Pillars":

• The pillars of each district are: Dr. Swansea in Pembroke Hospital, Sean Hampton in the Docks, Dorothy Crane in Whitechapel, and Aloysius in West End.
• After some plot events, you'll eventually have to make a choice, as you'll have the opportunity to save, kill, or mesmerize the pillars. Whatever choice you make will have an effect on the health status of the district and the course of some events.
• Even if just one of the pillars dies, the health status of the district will be significantly reduced! (Yes, despite being essential, they can actually die!! So... It means... They're not "pillars of eternity"?? *DOUBLE APPLAUSE*😂) So, if you want to stay on the "good side", we suggest you to try to save everybody and make the right choices about their fate.
• Pillars have a very high level of "mesmerize" and offer a lot of XP when drained of blood. 

Pickup line for nurses: "There are 206 bones in your body. How would you like one more?"  Nurse: "aaaw I'd check your blood sugar, but you're sweet enough."   Here's one more: "my love for you is like diarrhea. I can't hold it in!"

  You'll find also numerous boring citizens wandering around the streets, but none of them are important and you'll generally only ask them information like "where can I find this place", or "where can I buy tampons for my mom", etc.
Speaking of tampons, it reminds me of this =>

  Anyway, it's definitely very different from Masquerade Bloodlines, in which the vast majority of NPCs can give you interesting quests. (especially with the unofficial patch)
Vampyr doesn't really entice you to explore, except to enjoy its great architecture, maybe.

TIP!

When you find a body, track the trail of blood stretching out from their feet!(if any)
It might lead you to something interesting...

"Hmmm hello? I'm working for the blood donation center, and... Oh sorry, I see that you've already given..."

  Finding out the "Hints" for each citizen is useless for the game's plot but does reward you a bit of XP if you decide to feast on them.

Here's one of the annoying game mechanics though: 
- To use your XP, you have to rest. But unfortunately, resting advances time which causes some citizens to contract diseases. 

  It'll only get worse exponentially if you ignore them, ending up in the whole district's health deteriorated.
It's not that hard, but tedious and boring to take care of this chore.
(Unexpected comparison, but it's strangely a bit similar to the infection spreading in Infectonator 3!) 

As beautifully captivating the environments may be, it becomes quite boring when you realize you can't enter most buildings.

  So, in order to cure these people, you have to run around the entire map, and get this:

THERE'S NO FAST TRAVEL

  Okay, the few districts you visit aren't too big, but they're still big enough to make this chore even more annoying. 

"So, what do we do with him?"   "We gotta chop him up..."

To make things even more annoying, the more citizens you bite, the more the district's health deteriorates. 
Which brings up another annoying rule: 
- Eating more than 2 Citizens in any district will prevent the district from ever being "healthy" again. 

  I wonder if the developers realized that we're SUPPOSED to eat citizens anyway, to avoid re-spawning enemies.
Yes, the fastest way to level up is to become a mass murderer. 

  Now, you can also choose the "peaceful" path, but it'll be grindy as hell and you'll have to keep running around the whole city most of the time, handing out medicine for a few XP points, not even mentioning that higher level enemies will kill you in just one hit...

TIP!

Like any good RPG, Vampyr rewards players who focus on only ONE type of build. So save your skill points and try to focus on only a few skills!

Note!

You CAN finish the game without killing any citizen!
But it'll be much harder, as you'll miss loads of XP. The game favors players who suck everybody dry, really. Here's a few tips:

• To compensate the game's harder difficulty, talk to everybody and complete as many side activities as you can: investigations, collecting clues, etc.
• Make sure that your crafting skill is top-notch and KEEP UPGRADING your weapons! In particular, you need to have access to enhancements that gives you blood points for dealing damage.
• Healing skill  + Blood potions!
• Defense skills: Blood Shield and Combat Bite
• Use long-range weapons
• Unlock the Claw special attack!!!

TIP!

Try to upgrade your conversational skills, as it'll unlock many dialogue options!

  Combat is like a seriously downgraded and dumbed-down Witcher, and is very "button mash-y". 
There's a serious lack of responsiveness, and some buttons don't even register, sometimes.

First enemies are a breeze, and the only difficulty spikes you'll encounter will be against some infuriatingly unfair bosses. Bottom line, the game's difficulty is unbalanced.

To attack, you have access to:
- Firearms (Ranged skill) - basically, just point and shoot. Unsatisfying and boring, but devastating towards the end of the game. Always save some ammo!
- Melee (Melee skill) - Although you can use directions for different attack variations, it largely doesn't matter and usually, you'll just keep attacking repeatedly until your opponent goes down.
- Hand to hand (Brawl skill) - Like melee but with your fists only.

Don't fuck with me! I have the power of god AND anime on my side!

And some defense skills:
- Block, which seems useless most of the time. BUT there's a defense stat which you can improve, which will allow your character to block automatically. We advise you to invest as early as possible in this stat!
- Stamina and Armor, which will decrease some of the damage you take.

TIP!

Invest in the Fortitude discipline (if available in your clan: Gangrel, Ravnos, Ventrue), it will reduce your incoming damage, on top of armor and stamina!

  A final word about the writing, which is just boring and "soulless".
The writer tried to approach many themes like family, trust, the class system, but never really delves deep enough in it to capture our attention.
Overall, the arrogant writing stays always on the surface of all of the topics it pretends to explore. 

GRAPHICS - OIL PAINTING HAS NEVER LOOKED BETTER😍

  

  While not being photo-realistic, the Dishonored-like oil-painted environments are still very atmospheric, and the AMAZING lighting plays a huge part in the successful immersion feeling. And wait to see it in motion!
We were very surprised when we learned it was made with Unity! 
(if you're interested, check the prices for Dishonored 2 on Amazon!) 

The game looks a bit like Thief(2014!), but with much better lighting.

"I'm not a doctor, but I play one on TV!"

  Characters, on the other hand, are just above average; their proportions seem wrong and their faces often look more like a cartoon, with dead-fish-eyes syndrome, which sometimes makes it hard to take the story seriously... 

Still, they blend in and don't seem out of place at all in this world.

  The map is a bit small, but NO districts are the same, as they all have a very unique and easily recognizable style, like the hospital district which looks like a scene from a WWI movie.

This would make a great Thief level!

   Too bad that the developers decided to go for a very bleak washed-out color scheme!
On the other hand, thanks to this constant dark theme, you can spot easily things you're looking for, like the searchlights attached to a broken bridge, etc.  
Although the game doesn't hold your hand that much, the intelligent design makes sure that you're never lost.

CRINGY OST🤢, GREAT ENVIRONMENTAL SOUNDS😲, AND PROFESSIONAL VOICES😎

  The soundtrack is very inconsistent, containing a few masterfully done eerie compositions which will give you shivers for the rest of your playtime("The Thirst"), and also some deeply uninspired depressing pieces suffering from the "one-note syndrome".😞🔫

  Worse, like 99,99% of "western RPGs" nowadays, the soundtrack suffers from very present yet unneeded crying cellos and agonizing double basses. ("New Home", "Questions", etc.)🤢
Who said that Transylvanian vampire music couldn't be fun?😅

  When will these two cringy instruments be banned from video games and movies? 
Only time will tell. (let's take action now on change.org!)
Let's pray, friends!🙏

  On the other hand, voice acting is top-notch, among the most professional we ever heard in a game. Never has the British accent sounded so pleasing to the ears!
There are a lots of different characters and ALL are fully voiced! 
Too bad lip-syncing seems weird most of the time.

Finally, the reverb effects when you're in a narrow street, for example, are just PERFECT and really make you feel like you're part of a true 3D environment, filled with very realistic sounds.

Still though, you've got to admit that Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines had infinitely superior atmospheric music =>

RATING BOX

	VERSION TESTED: 1.0 Publisher: Focus Home Interactive Developer: Dontnod Entertainment Release Date: 5 June, 2018 Genre: Open-world, RPG Single-player Difficulty: Easy with some  hard difficulty spikes  Store Platform Buy it on Amazon Buy on Steam   PC Buy it on Amazon Buy on Playstation   PS4 Buy it on Amazon Buy on Microsoft Xbox One
GRAPHICS: 95%
Simply amazing. It's a bit like Dishonored on steroids, using some hand-drawn oil-painted environments and fantastic level design, Vampyr is a marvel to look at. Lights are not only ultra-realistic, they're also cleverly positioned to make each scene unique and artistic.  The only negative point would be characters proportions and animations.
MUSIC: 51%
VERY uneven. Some atmospheric tracks are deliciously creepy and remind us of the greatest scary scenes of "Bloodlines"(the haunted house!), while others are ear-cringing(yes, cringing, not ringing) double bass musical atrocities. Just do what we did: TURN IT OFF. The game is much more immersive this way.
SOUNDS: 90%
Professional voice acting in a convincing 3D audio environment really helps to make you feel part of the story. The realistic environmental sounds are very well-done and give life to the city.
GAMEPLAY: 65%
Boring fighting system, boring mechanics, and some boring skills(and not enough of them). Also, unless what was announced by the developers, your decisions don't really have meaningful consequences.  Finally, the fact that you can have only ONE auto-save seriously lowers the replayability. (would you want to start over the whole thing just to experience a scene twice?)
OVERALL RATING: 70%
DO NOT expect a spiritual sequel to "Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines" or you'll be seriously disappointed. It doesn't nearly have the same level of lore/diversity.   Still, although Vampyr doesn't have enough "bite", it doesn't "suck" either. *applause* Served by a moody yet beautiful atmosphere, this action-RPG can be fun and interesting at times, and is well-executed in general.    Maybe wait for a few patches/DLCs? Also, don't forget to set the difficulty setting to maximum!

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