Finally a GOOD vampire game :') I don't know about you but it feels like I've been waiting an age for this.
The artistic direction is great, as a Witcher 3 fan so many elements of this game feel nostalgic and familiar, yet new.The music is very reminiscent of the iconic Witcher 3 Slavic folk score, and the environments also look and feel great to explore.
I find the combat very fun. There are a lot of buttons to work with but I don't mind it. I'm enjoying the slow grind of reaching a point where I've become familiar with everything and combat flows organically. I find the blocking and parrying mechanics very snappy, responsive, and satisfying. The abilities and skill trees so far all feel / seem really cool and I've already set my sighs on a couple that I'm excited to unlock in the future.
The storytelling so far is also strikingly good. I played this game through family sharing with my partner and I was surprised how often, as he was watching me make dialogue decisions and cherry pick what quests to complete, he told me he'd had a completely different experience. It seems like the player's actions so far really matter, and that seems promising to me for an enjoyable second playthrough.
I think this ties in nicely with the limited time aspect of the game. The game runs on a 30 day cycle "Majora's Mask" style clock. While I haven't exactly made my mind up on how I feel about this, so far it has proven to be yet another element that really makes me consider my decisions as a player. Do I prioritize a quest or exploration? If I chose to quest, which quest do I expect to be the most worthwhile or have the best outcome for my run? While I am a completionist at heart and I'd love to be able to experience everything, I'm also intrigued by how unique my current playthrough will feel based on my decisions along the way. I also think that it's pretty cool for the developers to have introduced a unique feature to shape the story and gameplay and set it apart from other RPG's, especially from the Witcher which I and many other people are comparing it to.
In terms of performance, the game runs well for me (attached pc specs for reference). I have 60fps with frame gen in cutscenes, and an immovable stable 120fps during gameplay. I occasionally see some lighting flickering but this has been a minor occurrence so far.
Because I've been singing high praises up till now, it's only fair to address a couple of issues I ran into on launch:
- I had some issues with my controller where my character's movement was choppy and interrupted by random spurts of walking. A temporary community source fix for this is already out so this was a non-issue for me.
- My keyboard and mouse seemed to keep fighting each other for button inputs especially in menus. Even when I turned my wireless keyboard and mouse off, the game seemed to register mouse movement input. This was also fixed by changing some controller settings though I have to play some more to see if it's a permanent or temporary fix for me.
- I am sometimes struggling with the lock-on mechanic. I might simply need to warm up to it but it feels a bit difficult to switch between lock-on targets. I think this has to do with the way the lock on / button inputs / camera auto-movement interact with each other.
