Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption

Redemption is the lesser talked-about first video game entry in the Vampire: The Masquerade franchise, the one that never garnered nearly as much attention as did Bloodlines. It's a different sort of game. If Bloodlines was similar to Deus Ex, I suppose that I'd most readily compare Redemption to Dragon Age. Yet, all of those games were popular enough, so why did Redemption not find that sort of success? I'd chalk it up to other, much more refined titles of a similar ilk coming about at around the same time. This is the story of Christof Romuald, (who at the beginning is) a Christian so Christian that he Christians Christianly, and his millennium-long journey to be with his beloved and pure Anezka, probably the most well-written "damsel-in-distress" I've ever seen. They're unabashedly corny in how their ideals are challenged and turned upside-down over the course of the game, but the game knows this, and it works. Personally, Christopher Reeve will always be my favorite Superman, and especially nowadays, I find it refreshing to have a protagonist who isn't some eternally incapable toothpick constantly being lectured by pop culture's permavictims about why everything he does is wrong. I genuinely believe that there is something to be learned from those whose most ardent dogmas are contrasted with the *real* world, and from how their beliefs endure or adapt. However, as oddly fitting as the writing and voice acting is, the overall story can end up feeling abrupt, like a daisy-chain of barely related events in which both integral and minor plot points are lost in a soup of subtext and optional literature items. There's a lot going on under the hood of the story that's easy to miss if one doesn't really pay attention to what the characters are saying or how they're speaking, which makes the parts of the story that actually were shoehorned-in and rushed that much more jarring in regards to the general flow of the game. This is a linear experience. Go from point A to point B, and sometimes, point B is at the deepest part of the next dungeon. Everything takes place within these large enough hub worlds, but no matter how big they are or what's going on in the story, there are only ever four places to go: the haven, the weapon shop, the magic shop, and the next quest objective. Each hub hosts three or four dungeons, and then I'm off to the next area. I think that the most consistent expected feature of these types of ARPGs, where I'm in charge of a somewhat sluggish group, is the ability to pause the action in a way that still lets the player study exactly what the hell is going on. Redemption doesn't do this. It's neither realistic nor absolutely necessary, but when a game forgoes that or similar layers of control, it's banking that much more heavily on the other aspects of control, and that's where Redemption drops the ball. I had paragraphs dedicated to this section, but I needed to shorten everything for the sake of this review. We can start from the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of an interface which takes up a quarter of the screen in a game where most interaction with the world is done through mouse clicks. Combined with the camera that's always tucked in uncomfortably close, misclicks are inevitable, and some fights will be lost due to them, even after gitting gud with the keybinds that put camera controls on the numpad instead of the arrow keys. Still, as frustrating as directly controlling one character can be, it's preferable to the quasi-suicidal AI that takes over for the rest of the player's party members, which wasn't uncommon for this era of gaming. They will waste items. They will take actions that leave them clearly vulnerable. They will be more of a headache than will the toughest enemies in the game. There are options to toggle some broad swaths of their automatic behaviors, but it seems to make little difference, and the best way to guide what they'll do is by being very specific in what equipment and abilities they have available. Yet, even then, when there are only good choices available to them, they'll somehow find the wrong one. The game thankfully balances these complications by making everyone, you, your allies, and your enemies subject to some of the worst pathfinding I've seen in any game. Characters will get stuck in endless walking loops, or mindlessly stray into areas that deal automatic damage, or end up strolling on an area that they shouldn't have been able to reach. On top of this, even more common than the paralysis inflicted by abilities is the paralysis due to level geometry and AI, and I use the "intelligence" part of that loosely. If my party members crowd around me, it takes me a while to get unstuck, because the AI doesn't know how to properly get them to move out of my way. If the walkable path between me and my melee-type enemy is too lengthy, but I am close enough for a ranged attack, then I can projectile attack him with impunity, because the AI doesn't know how to draw a path to me in more than one "click." (The final boss can be cheesed this way.) If a party member undergoes certain animations on uneven terrain, he or she can get stuck in the floor, requiring me to leave the area in order to get them "unstuck," because ♥♥♥♥ me I guess. Now, none of this makes the game flatly unplayable. I beat it, after all, but it feels like a lot of basic problems, not overarching design flaws. One of the big hurdles for most RPGs is having a tangible sense of progression while keeping things challenging. I want to feel like I'm developing my characters and getting stronger, but I don't want my enemies to turn into cakewalks. It's a fine line, but here, even after getting accustomed to all of the technical issues, the difficulty is all over the place. The first three dungeons are fair challenges that reflect well the resources available to the player from that early on. Then it hits me with the three hardest dungeons in the game, the latter two of which can't be exited until they're completed, and those have to be done back-to-back. However, the second half of the game is much easier, especially with highly-upgraded disciplines like Theft of Vitae, Prison of Ice, and Fire Storm. By the end, I'm walking around with tens of thousands of dollars, even after buying the best equipment I can find. I barely need to rely on consumables, because my abilities give me everything I need. I've stopped having to endure deaths altogether, because I can off most opponents in like 5 seconds. Even though there's a soft upper limit on how much I can flesh out my characters, due to the limited number of enemies and subsequent XP gains, getting over that hump of accidentally "building my characters the wrong way" like in most RPGs is certainly possible, and I don't need to step on the gas anymore once I'm past that peak. Some of the mechanics, certain clans and their disciplines, are trapped in the game's dead multiplayer mode, though to my understanding, the distribution of the disciplines and their general functions doesn't exactly well reflect the tabletop RPG off of which they were based. (Some call this game Diablo 2 with vampires.) In all, this screams of the unseen potential, to the point that there were third-party multiplayer servers active for years after the official servers died. I want a sequel, that sees perhaps more freedom to build an ideal party in the single-player mode. I want the Malk-exclusive skills, instead of two out of the four party slots being burdened with Brujah. I suppose that the question really worth asking here is whether it's a good game on its own merits. Yes, titles of a similar style, like Dragon Age, have proven that there are better ways to do what Redemption floundered. However, that's another inevitability. If I'd played this when it was new, it would've felt pretty innovative. Nowadays, I can't help but notice the hundred or so things that later games did better.

А непогано, хоча місцями перебір з боями та данжами. Є готична атмосфера, класні твісти, приємний фінал (і він тут не один), сувора історія кохання і сувора ж Анежка. Плюс ця гра створена в ті щасливі часи, коли розробники чхати хтіли на баланс, тому деякі вампірські здібності тут аж дуже епічні, як так розумію, настолку переносили, як є. З мінусів - дещо одноманітний геймплей, не завадило б додати сайд квестів та хоч якоїсь нелінійності, друга частина гри навмисне затягнута і слабша за першу.

I'm not sure if new players will like this game. I'm just glad that I enjoyed it back in the day and I still gladly come back to it every now and then. Although the graphics may be a bit dated, this game has what very few modern games do, sadly. Excellent story, great gameplay mechanics, and incredibly developed characters that get you invested. For the price you can pick it up these days, I think you can't really go wrong.

2026.3.2 终于打通了！之前在旧电脑上火把无法照亮地图所以没有进行下去，这次终于打通了。因为是老游戏所以剧情和游戏性上都有局限，但不妨碍玩起来体验很独特我玩的很开心，看克里斯托弗不经意咬文嚼字给我笑成啥了。而且我很久没有玩过如此纯爱的故事，邪恶如我都希望两主角能在一起

If ever there was a game that I desperately wish would get a straight across update to a brand new game engine. This is it. This game is/was one of the most engrossing games I have ever played. Magnificent story backed with incredible settings and an immaculate soundtrack. I played it at release. Sadly, in its current state,its just too rough to play through. Though I wish it could happen, I would terrified to see how certain groups would try to rewrite it for "modern audiences" and ruin it. If a carbon copy of dialogue and story could be taken and moved to a brand new game engine, while keeping all settings, groups, and story elements the same; it could be pure gold. A work of art for its time, and in desperate need to being rebuild for higher end systems.

Can grab Rat.

- "Historia inmersiva, ambientación oscura y su jugabilidad variada". Rabia de tener que aplicar los parches de la comunidad y la traducción al Español que existía para este juego. Vergonzoso.

This is such a classic. It is outdated, the textures and shapes so awfully bad, and the storyline is sometimes cringy but it's still fun. It's a third-person RPG based on the early Vampire the Masquerade game from the World Of Darkness franchise. You play as Christof, a templar (?) knight left behind in a convent to heal from wounds received in battle. There you meet sister Anezka, and while they fall in love they can't be together since she's a nun. Christof becomes a vampire, which leads Anezka to break her vows in order to seek a cure for Christof, and that puts her in danger - and Christof spends the rest of the game trying to save her from the evil clan Tzimice while navigating the shifting politics and alliances of other clans over the next hundreds of years. My one complaint is WHY IS EVERYTHING SO DARK. I CAN'T SEE ANYONE'S FACES IN THE CUTSCENES OR DIALOGUES????? PLEASE??? CAN WE PRETEND FIRELIGHT IS BRIGHTER SO THIS MAKES MORE SENSE. I like how it literally transposes the original RPG mechanics and unique abilities to the game, however, sadly most of these abilities aren't useful enough, or you can't optimize your character enough in order for them to be useful during the main story. So you end up using the same few abilities over and over because having 3-4 max level abilities is more useful and reliable than having a lots of min level. This feature might have been more useful when the game still had the multiplayer option, when a game master could adapt and fully customize player characters to fit their story. I can't say if the multiplayer mode can still be used in a network (it does have the option for using a lan service), if it does it might be fun to find players who are physically able to get together for a customized adventure since the locations are amazing and offer so many different opportunities for good stories. In any case, I still love it even if all that is left is the main single player story and I will keep replaying it as long as it is still compatible with any computer I get.

love old school rpg would tell anyone who dose as well to play it

Vampire: The Masquerade – Redemption, güçlü atmosferi ve karanlık hikâyesiyle öne çıkan, ancak oynanış ve teknik açıdan yaşını fazlasıyla hissettiren bir RPG. Orta Çağ’dan modern çağa uzanan anlatısı, vampir olmanın ahlaki bedeline odaklanarak sıradan fantezi kalıplarının dışına çıkıyor. Mekanikleri hantal olsa da, VtM evrenini sevenler için hâlâ anlamlı ve özgün bir deneyim.