Vampyr
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London, 1918. You are newly-turned Vampyr Dr. Jonathan Reid. As a doctor, you must find a cure to save the city’s flu-ravaged citizens. As a Vampyr, you are cursed to feed on those you vowed to heal. Will you embrace the monster within? Survive and fight against Vampyr hunters, undead skals, and other supernatural creatures. Use your unholy powers to manipulate and delve into the lives of those around you, to decide who will be your next victim. Struggle to live with your decisions… your actions will save or doom London. BE THE VAMPYR – Fight and manipulate with supernatural abilities FEED TO SURVIVE – Be the savior and the stalker SHAPE LONDON – A web of interconnected citizens reacts to your decisions
Steam User 57
there's a special kind of pleasure to completing all the quests and hints for a civilian that you do not like and then devouring them for the maximum XP they can provide you
Steam User 43
A daring nocturnal adventure in the Spanish Flu torn London. Has its flaws, but definitely recommended.
In the beginning, I felt that the game tries to be three games, a vampire game, obviously, a doctor game, surprisingly, and a very English game, refreshingly. OK, most of the time, you will roam on the grim industrial alleys of London, killing anyone, who dares to oppose, but for the first half of the story, you probably would cure the residents, who are still alive. And doing that in a very special, English gentlemanish way.
The story feels more ragtag, than complete. Pity. It has really good concepts and sadly, there are no heavyweight rivals in the vampire game category, so you got to deal with it. Got some subplots, some romance, sime errand boy chores dressed as side quests, but the romance is kind of forced, subplots are usually bland and chores are uninteresting, still, you would do most of them for the XP.
The characters are rather stock, not really deep. Main character has potential, but does not really evolve in character. The romantic interest is forced because no matter what you do, they would say they love each other at the end. (About 80% of the story they were in friendzone max, but I would say acquaintances rather. Suddenly, main character said he loves her. Felt pretty weird.)
Sadly, the game lacks a good antagonist and carefully made villains.
There is a vast number of named NPC-s, though only a handful are more than just potential food.
By the way food...
Unfortunately no vampire games that I tried nail the core concept that our poor predators need to feed occasionaly. I mean not just for healing after fights, but they need it all the time, because blood is food. Sorry, not just food they must consume after a while, it is also a heavy drug, like cocaine for them, so a vampire, working as a surgeon is kind of hell of a story conception.
In this point of view, Vampyr fails also, because no matter how much blood surrounds our dear Jonathan, how strictly you want to force him on a diet, there are no points in the story where you have to battle his hunger or lust. You can suck everyone dry if you want to or spare them, but not because of the said bloodlust.
On the other point of view, Vampyr still manages to center on the human dilemma. Since you can avoid an extremely huge amount of time, spent on XP grinding (side quests, healing, even combat) if you decide to speed up the process by killing some named folks, sooner or later you would not see people, named Jack, John, or Mary, but good food, mediocre food and junk food. You can moralise that you are not a monster if you kill the bully, the crook, or the serial killer, but after 10-15 hours, you simply won't do that. You check the character sheets like a menu and see, who is weak minded enough to become a meal and is it nutritious (XP rich) enough to make it worth your time.
My Jonathan started with the common hero archetype, good doctor, does not kill any citizen. After struggling with combat and thinking a little about that there are folks, whose life would worth the same amount of XP that killing 1.200 enemies... well, suddenly some patients died, some criminals got killed, etc.
Normally I would say, it is bad game mechanic, since if you want to be a good guy, you need to do every chore, every side quest, cure and combat for obnoxiously long, to get enough XP and with that enough power to defeat the bosses. But isn't the concept of vampire about this? Wanna be good? Suffer. Don't want to suffer? Be bad!
And that is where the fun begin. Eat some good mannered people, enjoy taking out the trash, the annoying, or even the innocent. Become an unstoppable Terminator in seconds and enjoy killing anything. Much more fun than the endless grind.
If you are not adamant that you want to discover what character build you want to make, or that you want a completely different one, I strongly suggest that check the guide section and stick to the Eviscerator build, made by a very decent fellow.
The visuals are okay-ish. Not that bad, but could have been nicer. Sometimes the places are lit so well that you think, Jonathan walk in broad daylight. Cutscenes are weird, people start wiggling, like they are drunk, and staring somewhere else for no reason, facial expressions are meh.
The music is good. It really catches the atmosphere. Voices are okay also. I am not sure if the accents are English, but it felt authentic for me.
Combat is odd. Dodging is paramount, sometimes the difference between slicing through hordes with ease and getting killed by only 3 common enemies is that you failed with your dodges. Since it is a vampire game, I preferred using vampire skills rather than weapons. (A decently upgraded Claw skill makes any main hand weapon, two-handed weapon, or firearm useless.)
Overall, the game is far from perfect, but worth your time and money nonetheless. Buy it on sale!
Steam User 42
I recommend the game but with reservations as I have mixed feelings on it. Going over it all below.
Vampyr throws us into 1918 London during the outbreak of the worst influenza epidemic ever and has us play as an experienced doctor, specialising in blood transfusions (yeah, a perfect job for someone to become a vampire), who gets turned into the creature of the night. With no clue of who his maker is and accidentally draining his dear sister dry in a moment of weakness, Dr Reid makes it his mission to get to the bottom of what happened to him and attempts to save London not only from an epidemic of the Spanish Flu but also from something more, something tied to the feral version of vampires, known as Skals.
The gameplay takes on a role of 3 different games. Firstly we have narrative RPG experience with a strong focus on story and getting to know characters we meet. Secondly we have something akin to a souls-like with a lot of action, tough fights and boss battles. And thirdly we have a sort of city management sim where we need to ensure the citizens in each of the 4 city districts are healthy so that district doesn't plunge into chaos. It's an ambitious approach to have all of these elements in the game, and separately they can be fun. But when put together, quite often it feels like they get in the way of each other.
For someone wanting more of a narrative experience and story, there is way too much combat in the game. And not just story fights, but every time you take a walk down the street and need to get from A to B, you have to fight either vampire hunters or feral vampires. It can get tiring and repetitive fast. For someone wanting more of a souls-like experience, the game has too much dialogue with NPCs and lengthy story cutscenes, which really breaks the flow. And for someone wanting that city management gameplay, there's too much of both dialogue and mindless fighting.
Combat system is generally great. Fighting feels satisfying. The impacts from hits and slashes are visceral, and the dodging mechanic is smooth and enjoyable. There are several special abilities to learn to use in combat. And there are weapons, combining both melee and ranged fighting. However, the system of locking onto enemies is a mess. When you lock onto an enemy, if another enemy gets within melee range of you, the lock-on target switches to them instead. So if you're in a crowd of enemies, your lock-on will keep jumping between all the enemies around you and you'll be struggling to land a proper hit on your intended target.
RPG mechanics and levelling up. We gain experience from defeating enemies and doing story quests, but we can only level up and improve our abilities when we go to sleep for the night... err day. This, however, is also tied to story and city management mechanics. When we go to bed and a day passes, city events can change. If someone was ill, their illness can get worse. If someone was in danger, they might end up dead by the next night. So the game kind of forces us to sleep and level up more sparingly, only once we've acquired enough XP. The problem is that if you accidentally came across a citizen in distress who needs to be saved THIS night and the enemies threatening them are too high level, then you're screwed.
There's also another way of obtaining XP, and that is to feed on citizens. If you feed on citizens, you gain a lot of XP, but this has repercussions on the region. The more citizens die, the more the region plunges into chaos, and some story events might occur. I actually liked this idea and how it was handled. If you murdered someone and fed on them, the next night someone related to them might go missing and could be in danger, which is quite realistic.
But on the other hand, if you want to go for the pacifist run and not murder innocent citizens for blood, you're going to struggle big time, as the enemies are always going to be at least 5-10 levels above you. Sure, you can defeat enemies which are 10 levels above you, but you have to be a downright masochist to keep attempting to fight an enemy whose health you'll be chipping away in tiny slivers when two lucky hits from them can end you instantly. So the souls-like aspect of the game is forcing you to be a murderous psychopath and just get quick and easy XP boosts by feeding on citizens, which breaks the story experience, like it did to me. The moment the game forced me to kill my first citizen was the moment my immersion was broken and I stopped caring about them. And although the game tells you that difficulty of the region increases when you kill citizens, the power you get from murdered citizens scales up much more. I only killed like 5-6 people in the entire game and already managed to reach the same level as most enemies I was meeting. If I was to go for a straight up mass murder, I would've become an unstoppable killing machine.
Another area where the souls-like aspect was a hindrance was when exploring and getting about. At first glance it may seem that the whole city is open for you to explore. But in reality most paths are blocked, locked and barricaded, and the game railroads you down one specific path to face certain enemies, and later you can open up shortcuts to previous areas - the kind of mode of exploration that souls-like games give you. So if you like souls-likes, you'll enjoy this, but then you'll be bored as hell when you reach areas when you have to talk with every single NPC in the area and ask them the exact same questions about their lives, relationships, and past. And talking to NPCs is important, because if you uncover info about them and do their side quests, you can obtain more XP from them once you decide to finally feed on them.
The story itself had its good moments and interesting characters. It's quite decent overall. Though I didn't like how it all began to boil down to just saving the world from an apocalypse cliche. And that's all I'll say so not to spoil it. For a game whose story feels mature in the first two-thirds, it sure takes a deep plunge into tired fantasy cliches towards late stages. And then there are some aspects which didn't make sense and felt illogical or could've been resolved simply by a short conversation. For one, why the hell did vampires become regular enemies you meet on the streets in the second half of the game? It's like, I'm on your side, prick. I'm saving you from vampire hunters and you attack me. There's zero story explanation for that. There's some romance in the story too, although don't know if it's just me, but I couldn't tell at which point they even began dating. One moment they're on friendly terms, 10 minutes later in another cutscene they're already on "my dear" terms.
Visuals are pretty great. Although since this is a story about vampires, 99% of the game happens at night time, and many streets look very much alike, so it can be tricky to navigate. Music was mostly ambient and not really memorable. Voice acting and sound effects are great though.
The game has only a single save, and this is another thing I want to criticise. Like, why? In this day and age, there's no excuse to force a single save onto players. What if a player wants to return to an older save and replay a part of the game? Your only choice is to start over from the beginning.
I had the game crash a couple of times with the so-called "fatal error". No idea what caused it, but gladly it only happened twice, and I didn't lose much progress. I did clip into obstacles one time also and was unable to free myself, which forced me to hard reset the game.
Overall, Vampyr is not by any means a bad game. It has a lot of good moments, but some design decisions feel out of place and questionable, or just don't mesh well together. There are better RPGs out there, but if you're really into vampire stories and don't mind a combat-heavy experience that starts to feel tedious towards the end, then get the game on a discount.
Steam User 41
Vampyr is a game that dared to explore the realms of vampirism and morality, and while it has its flaws, it still manages to captivate with its atmospheric setting, intriguing narrative, and moral decision-making mechanics.
One of the standout aspects of Vampyr is its atmospheric setting and visual design. The gloomy streets of 1918 London, plagued by the Spanish Flu epidemic, create a haunting backdrop for the game's dark tale. The attention to detail in the environments, from the decaying buildings to the dimly lit alleyways, helps to immerse in the grim world. However, the graphics can be somewhat underwhelming, with occasional glitches and rough character animations that detract from the overall experience.
The game presents a morally grey world where every character has a story to tell and secrets to uncover. Engaging in conversations and learning about the lives of the inhabitants of London adds depth and emotional investment to the experience. However, the pacing of the story can feel uneven at times, with certain sections dragging on and others feeling rushed.
The moral decision-making mechanics in Vampyr are a standout feature. You must balance their insatiable thirst for blood with the ethical implications of their choices. The game presents opportunities to feed on innocent individuals, which grants powerful abilities but also has consequences for the world around you. This mechanic adds a layer of complexity and tension, forcing to consider the repercussions of their actions. However, the impact of these choices on the overall narrative can sometimes feel limited, with a lack of meaningful consequences for certain decisions.
Combat in Vampyr is a mixed bag. The game offers a variety of weapons and vampiric abilities to dispatch enemies, but the combat mechanics themselves can feel clunky and unrefined. The hit detection and targeting can be imprecise, leading to frustrating moments during combat encounters. However, the game's leveling system, which allows to enhance their abilities and customize their playstyle, adds a sense of progression and personalization.
Despite its flaws, Vampyr boasts a memorable cast of characters. The voice acting is generally strong, with performances that breathe life into the diverse cast of Londoners. The well-written dialogues and the personal stories of the NPCs contribute to the richness of the world, making it feel alive and full of depth.
In conclusion, Vampyr is an ambitious game that delves into the dark depths of immortality and moral ambiguity. Its atmospheric setting, intriguing narrative, and moral decision-making mechanics make it a compelling experience. However, the game's technical shortcomings, uneven pacing, and clunky combat hold it back from reaching its full potential. Nevertheless, if you're a fan of atmospheric RPGs with a deep focus on narrative and moral choices, Vampyr is worth sinking your teeth into. Just be prepared to overlook its flaws and embrace the dark journey that awaits you in 1918 London.
Steam User 34
Spent the first half of the playthrough thinking, 'man I really wanna love this game but the combat is so bad'. Started over with claws and pretty much just specced them for the rest of the game. Things clicked, sparks (and gore) flew.
The worldbuilding is done with so much care and passion. Story-wise, it's brilliant. It's so simple yet so quintessential in the scope of the genre. I cried a bit.
Strongly convinced this is a flawed masterpiece. It doesn't always nail the whole cinematic/exploration/rpg thing, but when it does, it hits so hard. Stick with it.
Steam User 39
Recommended for idiotic reasons, hear me out:
Storyline is pretty so-so, interacting with NPCs can be absolutely tedious at times but the detective aspect of it can be kinda interesting.
I highly inspire those who usually want to save everybody to try and do a complete murder-hobo run because this has got to be one of funnest games I have ever played for that, its so entertaining. Honestly, just go nuts on your inner vampire-carnage and you still get a pretty ok story out of it, while having lots of hack and slash, hypnotising people and have the NPCs get angry with you in the funniest of ways.
Just go to town, its way better than being the hero.
Steam User 29
Great game wish they would make a second one