Code Vein - anime souls
yeah, I really have too much time on my hands due to covid... Anyway, next game in my queue was Code Vein. Simliarly to Surge 1, I have a lot to say here, since the game does a lot of things wrong, but a lot of them really, really well.
- story/aesthetic - normally I wouldn't talk about it first, but here it is the most obvious thing to notice: this game is anime as ****. Now, I've never watched any anime and I generally don't like the genre, so I was a bit sceptical, and unfortunately the game did not change my mind. The aesthetic is just so weird and over-the-top, with every female character (including monsters) sexualized to absurdity, yet nothing sexual is ever even mentioned. The story doesn't help too - it's very convoluted, with extremely long cutscenes that for me were just plain boring. You can skip those cutscenes, which I eventually started doing, but you still have to suffer through some very long load screens (more on that later). So yeah, I doubt that the story will be enjoyable to anyone but hardcore anime fans
- combat - here's the most important point in any soulslike and I have to say that it is really, really good. It is fast, fluid, with a lot of weight to it, but also offers tons of options. There are some similiarities to Nioh, in that there are a lot of systems, that you can, but don't have to learn. One weird thing is that most of those systems do not work on bosses, but I imagine that they were sacrificed for more balanced challenge. There are some minor issues, like backstabs being so OP that they make parries redundant, but overall a very good and deep combat systems. I still slightly prefer the one from Surge 2, but only because directonal parries there were so well done.
- level design - the game got a lot of grief from reviewers here, but I didn't hate it. Sure, levels are a bit repetative (saving money on those assets), but if you enjoy maze-like design you will feel at home here. That being said, those mazes are usually about going forward, with some branching paths, but the metroidvania-like design from DS or Surge is gone, there are some shortcuts but they are rare and unimpressive. The game is also almost 100% linear, with one meaningful path choice being very early and in the worst possible moment (the default path leads you to an insanely powerful boss). Overall, world/level design is servicable, but not impressive
- difficulty - a bit of a weird one, since the game is clearly designed to be played with a partner, either AI or online. Now, I hate coop, so I played the entire game solo (summoned help for 2 extremely hard bosses) and it turned out to be a good decision. The game was quite hard that way, but everything was doable and I really had to learn it well to progress. I imagine that playing it intended way would make it far too easy, especially since the game does not adjust difficulty at all if you summon.
- bosses - oh, yes, this is definitely where the game shines. Boss designs are fantastic and very imaginative, with proper challenge when played solo and very satisfying learning curves. Their difficulty is high, sometimes even very high, but nothing feels unfair. Impressively, there are almost no weak points in the roster. Overall, I haven't seen boss design this good since Dark Souls 3, and even that game had some weaker bosses
- technical performance - usually I don't mention this, since I really don't care about ocasional bugs, but here I have 2 issues. First, I had this really annoying bug throughout the entire game where the game would suddenly start ignoring inputs from my mouse (I play with kmb) and I had to quickly open/close inventory to fix it. Secondly, the load times - they are really, really long and load screens are everywhere, even though there are "load tunnels" that you go through between each level. Worst thing is the fact that you get a load screen after each cutscene, and they are sometimes chained together, so if you are bored by the story and want to skip them you can face 4-5 load screens in a row, which is ridiculous
Ok, those are my main thoughts on the game. I would also like to mentioned that the game is long, much longer than other soulslikes, it took me 48hrs to beat it with careful exploration, but nothing close to 100% completion. Speaking of completion, there game also has its own version of Chalice Dungeons from Bloodbore. They are not randomly generated, but they are a nice addition, especially since you can meet different version of bosses there. That being said, I couldn't be bother to do them all, especially since gaining access to them is very convoluted
Overall, I'd give the game 8/10 as a soulslike fan, but that it mostly due to fantastic bosses. If you're not a fan of the genre or don't care much about bosses, it's probably closer to 6/10 due to many annoying problems