CODE VEIN

---{ Graphics }---
☐ You forget what reality is
☐ Beautiful
☑ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ MS-DOS

---{ Gameplay }---
☐ Very good
☑ Good
☐ It's just gameplay
☐ Mehh
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Just don't

---{ Audio }---
☐ Eargasm
☐ Very good
☑ Good
☐ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ I'm now deaf

---{ PC Requirements }---
☐ Check if you can run paint
☐ Potato
☑ Decent
☐ Fast
☐ Rich boi
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer

---{ Game Size }---
☐ Floppy Disk
☐ Old Fashioned
☑ Workable
☐ Big
☐ Will eat 10% of your 1TB hard drive
☐ You will want an entire hard drive to hold it
☐ You will need to invest in a black hole to hold all the data

---{ Difficulty }---
☐ Just press 'W'
☐ Easy
☐ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☑ Significant brain usage
☐ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls

---{ Grind }---
☐ Nothing to grind
☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks
☑ Isn't necessary to progress
☐ Average grind level
☐ Too much grind
☐ You'll need a second life for grinding

---{ Story }---
☐ No Story
☐ Some lore
☐ Average
☑ Good
☐ Lovely
☐ It'll replace your life

---{ Game Time }---
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☐ Short
☑ Average
☐ Long
☐ To infinity and beyond

---{ Price }---
☐ It's free!
☐ Worth the price
☑ If it's on sale
☐ If u have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money

---{ Bugs }---
☐ Never heard of
☑ Minor bugs
☐ Can get annoying
☐ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs

---{ ? / 10 }---
☐ 1
☐ 2
☐ 3
☐ 4
☐ 5
☐ 6
☑ 7
☐ 8
☐ 9
☐ 10

If you like soulslike games, don't mind reviews and try it. This game has a great storyline, extraordinary design, very interesting and new classes that you can switch any time, and a lot of weapons and abilities.
For me, it was an easier version of Dark Souls, where you knew what your next move was and didn't have to walk around a ton to find out, which made it very enjoyable.
The combat system and bosses were mediocre, but had fun whole game. 8/10

---{ Graphics }---
☐ You forget what reality is
☑ Beautiful
☐ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ MS-DOS
---{ Gameplay }---
☐ Very good
☑ Good
☐ It's just gameplay
☐ Mehh
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Just don't
---{ Audio }---
☐ Eargasm
☑ Very good
☐ Good
☐ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ I'm now deaf
---{ Audience }---
☐ Kids
☑ Teens
☑ Adults
☐ Grandma
---{ PC Requirements }---
☐ Check if you can run paint
☑ Potato
☐ Decent
☐ Fast
☐ Rich boi
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer
---{ Game Size }---
☐ Floppy Disk
☐ Old Fashioned
☐ Workable
☑ Big
☐ Will eat 10% of your 1TB hard drive
☐ You will want an entire hard drive to hold it
☐ You will need to invest in a black hole to hold all the data
---{ Difficulty }---
☐ Just press 'W'
☐ Easy
☐ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☐ Significant brain usage
☑ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls
---{ Grind }---
☐ Nothing to grind
☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks
☑ Isn't necessary to progress
☐ Average grind level
☐ Too much grind
☐ You'll need a second life for grinding
---{ Story }---
☐ No Story
☐ Some lore
☐ Average
☐ Good
☑ Lovely
☐ It'll replace your life
---{ Game Time }---
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☐ Short
☐ Average
☑ Long
☐ To infinity and beyond
---{ Price }---
☐ It's free!
☐ Worth the price
☑ If it's on sale
☐ If u have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money
---{ Bugs }---
☑ Never heard of
☐ Minor bugs
☐ Can get annoying
☐ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs
---{ ? / 10 }---
☐ 1
☐ 2
☐ 3
☐ 4
☐ 5
☐ 6
☐ 7
☐ 8
☑ 9
☐ 10
---{ Author }---
☑

It is kinda sad to see, that the game has mixed recent reviews. Yeah it is not the Elden ring, but the game is still quite good.
Gameplay and combat is generally fun without any significant bugs. Bosses felt mostly unique and some are quite memorable. Story is not mind blowing but it is good enough to keep your interest.
The main weakness of the game are its levels. Different locations feel kinda unique, but within individual levels are used same assets again and again. So it starts to look bland and boring quickly.
Overall it is good game that does not deserve those recent reviews.

>dodge that doesn't work
>terrible gank fights
>boring level design
>downright terrible bossfights
welcome back dark souls 2

Glad I revisited this game after dropping it initially on release. If you're a fan of souls-like games then you will probably enjoy this one.

Plot: Did not interest me at all. Started skipping every cutscene at the midway point. Characters felt bland and generic.

Gameplay: Pretty much a hybrid of Dark souls and Nioh with an anime filter. I liked the blood code abilities and how you could use them with any class as long as they were mastered. There was decent weapon diversity with five different categories although each weapon in a class felt mostly like a reskin. It is recommended to use the AI partners in this game as this game will usually throw a group of mobs at you at one time. Bosses were good for the most part, especially the final few.

Technical: Game ran great at 60 fps at all times. I had two crashes which I concluded was because I was skipping blood memories too quickly. Graphics wise, the game looks mediocre but passable.

Overall, I would recommend Code Vein for gameplay focused players.

(Side note) If you want to 100% this game, there is an achievement that requires 10-20 hours of monotonous grinding if you're a solo player so be prepared for that.

I had heard this game described as 'Anime Dark Souls' or 'Waifu Souls', and now having finished a playthrough I would have to say that those sort of humorous descriptors turned out to be fairly apt.

Code Vein doesn't stray too far from the formula. You have your similarly named equivalents to bonfires, estus, and souls, weapon and armour upgrades, iframes, stat scaling, etc., and for the most part they act about as you would expect. You fight many large, fast, punishing bosses. There's a sort of persistent multiplayer that I did not touch and which seems to be rather dead. The game can be quite challenging at times. There's even some generic extra areas which call Bloodborne's chalice dungeons to mind.

The most striking difference from the SoulsBorne games is that rather than build your characters through delineating stats, levelling up is just a standard increase in your health, stamina, and damage. Your other stats, what weapons and armour you can equip, how much ichor (MP essentially) you have, and your equip load and speed are determined by what class you equip. Each class has a number of 'gifts', passive and active abilities which can give you stat upgrades and powerful special attacks. After meeting certain requirements, these can be transferred between classes. There is a lot of mixing and matching you can do to come up with a viable build, though I just ended up using classes that use heavy weapons for most of the game as their ability to stagger enemies is quite useful. I never felt the need to respec for a boss.

Another key addition to the formula is the ability to drag along an AI companion. Though they occasionally make boneheaded decisions, they can be quite useful and do make things easier. These companions are optional.

The SoulsBorne games are noted for their sparse storytelling, and that is another area where Code Vein differs. There is a more traditional narrative, with a number of cutscenes. The story is not great, and how it is told is, well... a bit too anime for my tastes. I like the character designs and aesthetics, but the shonen tropes just don't do it for me here. Things can get very cheesy and melodramatic. The game has a dreary and dismal setting as with similar titles, and long speeches about the power of friendship or jokes about a character's rumbling stomach fit in poorly. A lot of the story is told through sequences where you stroll slowly through a character's memories, generally always a series of overly emotional scenes while lilting, sentimental piano and strings play in the background. I couldn't take much of this. Thankfully you can skip these (although they are optional in the first place, unlocking them also unlocks new abilities for your classes).

A major downside of the game, in my opinion, is the level design. Most areas are just one big maze. The map is terrible and only unlocks, piece by piece, when you find mistle, this game's version of bonfires. Mostly you have to navigate by sight and by a record of your footsteps that show up on the map screen. This is made difficult by just how similar the winding halls of each area look to each other, and neither the footsteps nor the map help much when you get to areas with some verticality.

Would I recommend Code Vein? That depends. If you don't like the soulslikes, action-rpgs, manga/anime, you might want to look elsewhere. However, if you are into those things you could do worse than Code Vein. Though nowhere near as good as the games that inspired it, I did like it. It scratches that itch. It is not a masterpiece, but it is not terrible either. It's a 7/10 game for me. Solid. The 30 hours my playthrough took were mostly enjoyable. I wouldn't pay full price for it though.