Vampyr

Started this on the hardest difficulty as the struggle between self preservation and saving innocent lives is what first interested me in game. That decision is worthless if the combat is too easy. Hope I don't regret this decision lol

Skerries wrote: »

I played it on normal and the difficulty ramped up later on in the game for me

Yeah, I’ve heard it gets quite challenging later on but then I also watched the IGN review which docked points for the game being too easy on Normal. The reviewer said he got through the entire game without biting anyone so this undermined the spare/embrace concept for him. This is why I don’t buy games at launch anymore - there's three difficulty modes now so it’s likely the score would be higher if he was reviewing the game today on hard difficulty.

Personally, it’s taking a lot of willpower not to feed on those that deserve it and I’m loving the combat. Maybe it’s because I’ve never played a Souls game before so stamina management is new and interesting to me. I've died a few times but have always learned from my mistakes. I like that it punishes pad mashing, that you have to dodge only when necessary rather than just spamming circle. The lock-on is decent too even when surrounded by multiple enemies, whereas in a lot of games it can cause camera issues (Final Fantasy XV :eek:). Some of the combat ideas like biting an enemy mid-fight in order to gain enough ‘blood’ to perform powerful moves is inspired. It’s a great twist on the old rage meter or overpower attack.

It’s surprising that there’s no dedicated stealth though. There is a skill that turns Reid invisible so you can avoid enemies while traversing if you’re not in the mood to fight, but it just seems strange for a game all about lurking in the shadows that you can’t really…lurk in the shadows.

The level balancing is also unconventional. It seems your power is based purely on the skills you acquire which makes me wonder why there are even levels in the first place, other than to lock skills behind them? The quests never tell you what level you should ideally be before taking it on and it seems you can find enemies that are twice your level in any mission which suggests it doesn’t matter. It’s perfectly doable to beat enemies twice my level though so maybe scaling takes enemy type heavily into consideration too. Therefore, a level 8 vampire like Dr Reid is as strong as a level 18 human?

Dying is never frustrating because it’s somewhat fair but the load times are waaaaaay too long for a game world this small. :eek: It’s got to a point where it’s not the fear of having to repeat the same fight again that troubles me but the loading I’d have to suffer through before being able to jump back in. It even loads when entering some buildings like a last gen game, and sometimes it pauses mid-sprint to load because it can’t keep up with pace of Reid's movement, which is just amateurish to be frank.

This unfortunately leads me to my only real gripe and it has to be said: This is the most poorly optimised game I’ve ever played. I’ve had 4 crashes, namely when looking in the citizens menu and I’m only on chapter 2. :mad: I don’t know what to do at this point as I’ve heard reinstalling doesn’t help and I don’t think any more patches are planned at this late stage. Quite shocking. I can only imagine the state it was in at launch. And what a bloody cheek it is not to have manual save slots when your game is this unpolished. Even BETHESDA (yeah, that mess of a studio) has the common sense to include a manual save feature in their broken games.

It’s making me nervous to open up the citizens menu which is a shame because it’s best part. I’m enjoying role-playing as doctor and detective, going around learning people’s secrets, finding cure recipes and collecting the resources to make the right medicines to heal the sick. Sometimes I just go around talking to citizens for ages rather than actually doing quests. It’s good stuff but unpleasant to be constantly worried that reviewing your relationships with NPCs can tank the application.

The elevator pitch of “killing is easier in the moment but causes long term repercussions” reminds me of Dishonoured. (Even the HUD presentation is very reminiscent of an Arkane studios game.) I’m playing Super Doctor for now but on my second playthrough it will be fun to see what a region in chaos looks like. I just hope the technical issues subside as I progress further. It would be a shame to abandon a great game due to poor technical performance.