The Blood of Dawnwalker

10

Can't stop playing! Great game!

Good game. Hope they make a sequel

[SOME SPOILERS FOR EARLY GAME STUFF] honestly wasn't for me. wanted to enjoy the game (went in with basically no knowledge or having watched basically any of the promotional materials. I was introduced to the game by a youtube short of the big bad talking to your character in the burning village towards the beginning and thought it seemed cool. But overall? didn't care for it. thought it was boring, repetitive and felt meaningless. the combat was boring and repetitive, several areas are just: walk into area, fight 8 of the same 2 enemies, kill them walk into the next room and fight another 7 of those same guys from before and then repeat 2 or 3 more times. this coupled with the fact that accidentally getting to close to an enemy either A: actually locks you into an arena or B: basically locks you into an arena where your character can run away but only after running against an invisible wall repeatedly until it finally let me out(maybe a bug but it happened a few times out in the wilderness so it sure feels intentional) the autolock being always on (with a more aggressive lock on being toggleable though honestly I have no clue why you would want to use it) is frustrating and annoying to deal with. I wish at least that the game would swap targets when a second person attacks me instead of swinging at them once on a parry and then swapping back to the first person. the thing that really pushed me into disliking the game was going through the Anca questline/romance and her rejecting you after the romance scene. now I know this won't be a big deal for a lot of people but I'm a sucker for romance and I very much enjoy romance arcs in my games when they're present. but honestly this one just being nonexistent left a very sour taste in my mouth. so sour in fact that I decided to just look up the endings of the game and dear god do none of them sound enticing. it feels like a lot of the decisions don't really matter that much based on the options. the characters also feel kind of wooden for a lot of their interactions and honestly I can't tell if it's an issue with the voice actors themselves or an issue with the writing. so much of the dialogue feels really stiff and like they're just two people practicing lines for a local theater production for the first time. the loot system is also (aside from the one legendary and two epics that I came across) a lot of the same like 3 items repeatedly with slightly different stats. the corruption system feels like it should be more interesting than it actually is as well. as you drink blood (from people understandably but also from animals for some reason?) it increases your corruption which allows you to upgrade your vampire abilities. this, in theory, creates an interesting situation where you have to choose between consuming more blood in order to get stronger so you can take on the big bad, forcing you to balance your humanity with your new partial vampire existence. unfortunately the corruption system doesn't seem to actually corrupt you in any way, it's just an arbitrary second barrier to leveling up your vampire abilities. the time system also often feels really annoying and tedious. everything(except actually walking around) burns segments of your time. want to explore a dungeon? sure makes sense for that to take a varying number of time segments depending on the dungeon. but putting a statue in a destroyed shrine? leveling your skills(each one taking a segment by the way)? just annoying to deal with. those things taking time make me want to avoid doing actual content in the game because if I want to level up my character I have to sacrifice the potential ability to actually interact with the content. or on the opposite end if I want to explore as much of the content as possible I have to forgo leveling up and instead be stuck with worse stats and abilities. that's dumb. personally didn't care for the game. if none of these things bother you about a game, give it a go. hope you enjoy it more than I did. 3/10 couldn't finish.

The Blood of Dawnwalker is a triumphant dark fantasy RPG that proves developer Rebel Wolves is a massive new talent to watch. Founded by industry veterans behind The Witcher 3, the studio's debut title marries exceptional narrative design with an intensely addictive gameplay loop. It is a masterpiece of atmospheric storytelling and strategic time management that deserves a place in every RPG fan's library.

I would recommend this!! I am a completionist in the games that I play, thus open worlds tend to be the bane of my existence because it's like eating soup it just never ends. However, despite this game being both open world and timed*, I really enjoyed it - I felt like this was a true RPG where I could actually feel the stakes of my choice and roleplay - I was able to save the family WAY before the 30 days were up (I think I had 9 days left) - did I finished EVERY quest, no - did I complete a good chunk of quests that gave me a lot of lore and understanding of the world, absolutely. I feel like the 30 day count down helps you feel immersed in the story and give you a stake that 'hey your family has been abducted, saving them sooner rather than later would behoove you'. To be honest I have felt this excited about a game (and prospective game series!!) since Dragon Age and Mass Effect. Do I think there are something things that could have been a little better, yes - do I feel put off by those things where I wouldn't play the game again or give a recommendation - no. Some of the things I wish were better- SPOILERS AHEAD [spoiler] 1) I wish some of the NPC's were fleshed out a little bit more, and we had some more lore or interactions with - e.g. Saint Mihai, Isbrand, or Xanthe - especially with the idea of inviting defeated Vrakhiri, I wish it could have developed more into like additional lore bits since with some of them like Isbrand or Xanthe - they are OLD vrakhiri - you're telling me they got nothing but peanut gallery comments to offer? 2) I feel like the romances were kinda weird and unfulfilling, I love a good romance integration, but with how they played out and how it was set up, I could have done without them to be honest. I hope with more traction and support to this franchise they might be able to spend some more time on this aspect of the game? 3) It could have been how I had played the game - but I was a little disappointed with the Witchcraft mechanics of the game - especially with the 'speak with dead' function, when they first did the intro to it with Anca I was SO excited - it gave me a similar macabre vibe to an isometric game called Thaumaturge and I felt like there could have been so many opportunities to build upon those skills, but it just felt like it was random and I could only use it every now and then - and while I collected and learned the manuals for witchcraft (cool mechanic with the scream thing - really gets into that cosmic horror type situation) I didn't feel like I wanted to spend my skill points on it - I wasn't wowed or excited by it. 4) Which brings me to the skill tree - I honestly didn't really enjoy the skill trees to be honest, I didn't feel like there was a wow factor there - I felt like I was predominantly in the sword skill tree just for survivability and getting more stamina and get access to improved blocking, parrying, counter attacks, etc. 5) With some of the dialogue - I felt like there were times were there was significant variance in deliver that made me be like, Woah Coen - we need a snickers bar or something, you were chill now you're not chill, and we are back to being chill. I think the voice actors were great, I don't know if the dialogue trees did their work justice. [/spoiler] Again, despite all this - I would still play the game again, and would invite folks to check the game out.

Finished The Blood of Dawnwalker. Overall, I really liked the idea behind the game and its world. The exploration is fun, the characters kept me interested, and the story was good enough to keep me playing without getting bored. Those things honestly made me overlook a lot of the annoying stuff. The negatives: 1- The combat gets repetitive and boring, especially during group fights. Some enemies feel like they take a million hits to kill, even when you're high level and using strong weapons. The pigs and wolves were easily the most annoying, Plus, once a fight starts, you can't escape it. 2- The camera is awful. One of the worst cameras I've experienced in a game, especially during combat. It gave me the same kind of frustration I've had with some FromSoftware games. 3- The whole time-limit idea sounded better than it actually worked. At first, I was skipping things I wanted to explore because I thought I was going to run out of time. But by the end, I realized the time limit barely mattered. I still had around 10 days left. So, is it worth buying at full price? No. Not because it's a bad game. It actually has a lot going for it: a great concept, an interesting world, good characters, and an enjoyable story. But it feels like the game needed more time and polish. I'd recommend picking it up on sale.