I feel the hate it's gotten is rather overblown? It's really far from being one of the worst games ever.

To be clear, I'm not saying it's some kind of amazing obscure hidden gem but it has some good moments. It's clearly a budget title and the game can be unforgiving to the point of frustration sometimes. It has constant interruptions with cutscenes/calls, some poor design choices, and some restrictive levels. The story is underwhelming, the characters are hollow, the writing isn't great, and the voice-acting while uneventful has some unintentionally but funny delivery that I'm welcoming of.

However the big flaw is that the game does a bad job of telling the player that you should basically NEVER fight, unless it's scripted and to be super vigilante because you'll die immediately. You have to sneak 80% of the game, most of the time keep distance from enemies, look for occasional hidden paths to get around, stick to the rooftops of buildings, and sometimes you'll have to go around the long way. If you are not an astute gamer, you'll have a rough time unless you do the optional tutorials.

When the game opens up and lets you move around and make your own decisions, it clicked. There were some in-game "jump scares" that were really effective, some more Metal Gear-esque sections of avoiding guards that are pretty suspenseful, and there are some forced shooting sections that end up feeling cathartic. Some really solid music tracks, nice level variety, some clever level design, and the ambience is really good. Surprisingly I can't believe that I enjoyed all the boss fights despite how janky the shooting and movement can feel.

The only unfortunate thing is that I wish I played the PS3 version. I tried the game on RPCS3 and imo the game is significantly more enjoyable to play just because they changed the climbing and traversing animations to be faster and more responsive. There's also some other subtle gameplay and UI tweaks that are nice improvements. I didn't play far on this version but there were also some noticeable AI placement and encounter changes which seemed better? They also added rag-dolls to deaths now. And they have a gallery mode too.

After beating it, it's clear the reviewers at the time didn't even remotely get far into the game or really misunderstood the games intent. I also think most people didn't play it properly either; to be fair this is ultimately the devs fault. The game does a poor job communicating its intent and didn't do anything to set up the game in their favor. Simply removing firearms except where its scripted would have done wonders. Calls telling the player to avoid fights, anything you find is on-site procurement (for whatever lore reason), implement a noise maker, distraction items, etc.

Despite that, I do think rating this game a 2 or 3/10 is pretty insane. It feels like these reviewers and I played two different games.

So I should start by saying that this is not a good game but it is a game I really enjoyed. Released in 2007, Vampire Rain got absolutely hammered by reviewers at the time, people hated this game. The difficulty is often brought up, the wooden characters, horrible weapons, the list goes on. I'd argue this is one of those games that's actually been misrepresented and I will try to explain why. Vampire Rain is a stealth/action horror game released by Japanese developers Actoon. Gameplay wise it is quite similar to MGS. You sneak your way around a fairly open and large map, trying to avoid enemies. You play as "American of Welsh decent" John Llyod, a member of the AIB, a special forces group, dealing with a infestation of nightwalkers in the city. The story and dialogue are campy B-movie style, but pretty fun. I actually found the story fairly engaging, and really enjoyed the setting in the rainy streets of LA. The excellent music also adds to the atmosphere and helps the game feel less low budget than it actually is, it's probably one of my favourite music scores on the console. The nightwalkers or vampires themselves are the main enemy you are facing. From a distance they look like normal people, but if they spot you they transform into monsters and charge directly at you. In this respect the game is definitely a stealth game. If an enemy spots you, you are basically dead. This is also probably down to the weakness of the weapons. The pistol does absolutely nothing and the SMG can kill 1 enemy if they are far away enough when they spot you. The real problem is that the game doesn't do a very good job of explaining this, and in my opinion this is what has lead people to label the game as too hard. The second level of the game, where you first encounter an enemy, is a great example of this. When you meet the nightwalker you need to hide around a corner, shoot the birds away, wait for the vampire to come and look around, then when it starts walking away make a dash down the road. This took me around 10 attempts to get right. If you make any kind of mistake you are dead. It's stuff like this early on in the game that really pose a problem for people just getting into the game and I have a feeling that a lot of people that complain about the game, didn't actually get very far. If you can get past these random hard sections Vampire Rain is a lot of fun. It's nice exploring the city, hiding from vampires and finding alternative routes to get past vamps. There are even some better weapons later on that make the game much easier, in some ways too easy in fact. There are some things about the game I dislike. It is very linear. Each level has one real route that you are meant to take and if you try deviating from it, well you will die. But I can't help feel like most reviews are a bit too harsh due to the frustrating nature of a small number of sections. I beat the game, enjoyed it and would play it again. It's not polished. It's not very well made or explained. Yet it is fun to play, and I found myself enjoying it more than a lot of "good" games. I'd grab this one for your collection and see if you can enjoy it with a bit of effort.