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When I think of this game, I think of one thing above all: wasted potential. In the first few hours of the game, Vampyr certainly knows how to delight players with its dense and dark atmosphere. I was quite interested in the fate of the protagonist and wanted to find out more about this world of vampires in early 20th century England. Unfortunately, my initial enthusiasm was dampened after just a few hours.

There are several reasons for this. The most important point of criticism for me is clearly the combat system. Combat in this game is neither well thought out, nor interesting or challenging, but at best unintentionally amusing and at worst simply frustrating due to the absolutely disastrous AI of the enemies. The developers have failed on several fronts here. Firstly, it doesn't make much sense in terms of internal coherence why humanoid enemies simply shrug off attacks with an axe (or a fucking two-handed scythe) as if it were nothing. Sure, for enemies with supernatural abilities this can make sense but with human enemies I find it very questionable when they flinch slightly after I've shot them in the face with a shotgun.
Furthermore, the game fails completely as soon as more than 1 opponent wants to take part in the combat. Here you are constantly attacked from behind, above, from the side or simply from the shadows and struck down without being able to react adequately. What I find "best", however, is how you can dodge enemy attacks and still get hit, as the hitboxes in this game are either too large or are not updated often enough.
It was very common for an opponent to attack me with a flamethrower or something, which I dodged and still got hit while standing far away from any fire that could have hit me. I also really "enjoyed" the various jump attacks from enemies. While the aggressive jumpers simply became invulnerable, I usually got the short end of the stick despite dodging them in time.

Overall, I also felt very underleveled in most of the fights, even though I completed every single side quest. How can that be? Well, some players would say that you can suck the townspeople dry to get experience points. But what happens if the player (as in my case) has decided to take a more pacifist approach, meaning not to make a single NPC the victim of my own bloodlust throughout the game? Well, the game is not prepared for this.
Although the game constantly tells you that you can decide for yourself if you want to sacrifice characters in the town for the sake of your own level advancement, it actively punishes you if you decide against it. So it happened to me that in later sections of the game I had a whole 10 levels less than my opponents and therefore bit the dust quite quickly. A good game would have found an elegant solution to this, so that if players choose not to sacrifice the NPCs, they have an alternative way of gaining experience. Here, however, the player's decision actively hinders the character's development. How such a system made it into the final version of the game is beyond me.

Unfortunately, the game is not convincing outside of the battles either. Things happen all the time in the game's plot that had me shaking my head constantly. I don't want to go into detail here for spoiler reasons, but it should be said that logical connections in the quests and storylines are sometimes difficult to recognize. This is also where the serious decisions that the player can make in the course of the story come into play. It is sometimes impossible to deduce the consequences of a decision from the UI commands alone. I don't mean that the long-term effects of some decisions are unpredictable (that could be considered a strength of the game), but that the direct consequences of the decision are not always clear. This reminded me of the worst dialogues from Fallout 4, where you could only give a rough type of answer and the character would say something completely inappropriate or undesirable, which is roughly how it feels here with the main character's decisions.

So what is left to say? Vampyr remains a disappointment on many levels. What the game does really well is to capture the dark and oppressive atmosphere of the early 20th century. The Spanish Flu and the consequences of the First World War are reflected very well in the design of the world, the characters and the plot. The music can also contribute to this, although it too quickly becomes very monotonous. Some of the dialogue with the inhabitants of the town is also very well written and impressively convey who these people are, what their backgrounds are, what they believe in, etc.
However, the absolutely lousy combat system and the plot full of holes make it really hard to like the game. I had been looking forward to a dark role-playing game with a vampire twist, of which we have unfortunately seen far too little (or none at all) since Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, and unfortunately all I got was a mediocrely written narrative game with a frustrating combat system and non-functional balancing, which is a shame.

I thought this game looked cool, and I'd heard good things about it, but I honestly went into this game more or less blind. Given how that could very much be setting myself up for failure, I enjoyed the hell outta this game. I played the game on a PS4 Slim, and I beat it without killing any NPC characters and it took me about 35-40 hours.

Vampyr follows the story of Doctor Johnathan Reid, a combat medic just returning to London from the French front in the final days of the first World War. He wakes up after being thrown in a mass grave with an unquenchable thirst for blood, and ends up feasting on the first human he sees, which is unfortunately his sister Mary. With barely any time to grieve for the sister he just unwittingly murdered, he is chased from the scene by vicious vampire hunters. This begins his quest to not only learn about who made him a vampire and why, but also how to bring relief to London from the horrible plague of the Spanish Flu. Vampyr really goes out of its way to take its own twist on the concept of a secret society of vampires, and I really enjoyed the world building and overall narrative. The guilt Dr. Reid feels for murdering his sister gives him a very good grounding point as a character, and is a very clever narrative conceit for why he isn't just some mass-murdering maniac now that he has such powers of unlife.

The main narrative/gameplay gimmick that sets Vampyr apart from something like Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines (other than the better performance and combat) is how you gain XP. While, like VtMB, you only really gain XP from doing quests (you do gain XP from combat in this, but barely any at all), the other main way to gain XP is by drinking blood from (and killing) NPC characters. As you go through the game, your "mesmerize" level goes up, and once it hits the level of a certain NPC, you can mesmerize them, take them into a shadowy corner, and drain them like a juice can for a BIG boost of extra XP.

You also get far more XP from them if you take time to talk to them and learn about them through dialogue choices, eavesdropping, and asking other characters about them. You can honestly spend a good few hours JUST talking to people once you hit a new area if you're so inclined, as there are plenty of people to talk to, and it's all voice acted quite well. You don't have to if you don't want to (you can just mash square to skip the dialogue if you so please), but the amount of XP you get for learning the extra facts about characters really starts to add up, as does the XP you get from their quests, so interacting with them on some level, while optional, is highly recommended even if you're just gonna eat 'em all eventually XD. The game's combat isn't the most difficult thing in the world, and you can make up for low levels by upgrading your weapons a bunch, but the combat is certainly involved enough that it can be veeery tempting to take out a few NPC's to get your levels up to a point where they perhaps should be. The game also has a Bloodborne-style auto-saving system, so you only have one save file and you cannot go back on any decisions you make.

And letting NPC's live for story reasons (like because you don't wanna kill anyone, like I did) isn't the only reason to let them live. Districts have an overall health rating that goes off of how many people in it are still alive as well as how well they are (characters can get sick and you can give them medicines you make to make them well again). The higher the rating, the lower prices are in that region's stores. However, should a district get below 50% health, that district is fallen to the plague. A fallen district loses ALL it's remaining NPC's (they go "missing"), so their quests effectively disappear if you haven't done them yet, and the district gets filled with lots of more dangerous enemies as well. A district can also fall if no one is killed but everyone gets too sick with serious illnesses. Illnesses develop every time you go to bed, and you need to go to bed to level up (think of it like leveling at a bonfire in Dark Souls), and an illness will slowly get worse over several days until it reaches level 3. If a lot of characters in a district have level 3 illnesses, the district can also fall, but it takes quite a while to get to this point, so you don't actually NEED to be constantly going back and forth, playing doctor and delivering medicine every time you go to sleep. You have time to wait until it gets bad-bad-bad if you really care that much.

The combat is like if Yakuza borrowed Bloodborne's combat (but not the difficulty) and aesthetic but swapped the Victorian Lovecraft for 1918 London Vampires. The combat is far more like Bloodborne in the sense that you have a primary melee weapon, an offhand weapon you can use for stabbing to collect blood (mana) or stun enemies that can also be a firearm, and a dodge move all connected to a stamina bar that you gotta let refill before doing tons of stuff again. The enemy variety is more like Yakuza in the sense that there aren't a ton of really crazy and outlandish bosses like Bloodborne has. A lot of the enemies you're fighting have fairly recognizable abilities and while they are usually quite a danger to you, there isn't a ton of enemy variety. More or less all of the sub-bosses are just very strong versions of existing enemies, but the big bosses thankfully do have more unique elements to them that make them stand out a bit more.

I played this game on a normal PS4, and it REALLY shows. The game is quite a bit like Bloodborne again (at least how it originally was) in that this game has some feckin' LONG load times. There aren't that many, thankfully, but when you're going into a new map (i.e. inside a building) or going back outside a building, the loading times can approach like 20 or 30 seconds. Also, if you're running from area to area without really stopping, the game will stop to load in the new area. The framerate also has some problems, especially when lots of NPC's are on screen, but it honestly never really affects the gameplay. I would normally totally expect a game like this to have the combat really suffer from the framerate, but the combat sections were always really well optimized for me and I never had any problems. It's more-so when you're running around crowded safe-NPC areas that it will jump and hiccup a bit, but even then it's never to a really annoying effect, just a noticeable one.

The presentation is good, but a bit affected by the hardware. This is definitely more of a "AA game" compared to a AAA game. Like, if this were a higher budget title, it'd probably have several outfits for Dr. Reid to wear, the character animations during dialogue would probably be a bit more extensive, there'd probably be more voice actors. That said, what's here is still very well done. It's far from something like Red Dead 2 as far as production value is concerned, but it's still a game that looks and sounds nice.

EDIT: Bogus reminded me of something very important: the difficulty modes! I played through the game on normal mode, but the game got patched a few months after its Summer launch to add in two new modes: story mode and hard mode. Hard mode REALLY emphasizes the sacrificing NPC's for XP mechanic. Enemies gave barely any XP before, and now they give even less as well as hit far harder, so you really need to carefully consider whom you're going to eat and when, because you're almost certainly going to need to. On the other hand, Story mode takes a very Nintendo approach of letting you basically turn off the combat (and make story fights super easy), letting you enjoy the story and decision making even if you don't like action games. I love it when games do stuff like this <3

Verdict: Highly Recommended. This is probably one of my favorite games I've played this year. It's almost certainly my favorite game I've played that released this year (granted I've played like, 5 of them including this XD ). The combat is super fun, the story is well told and engaging, the world is familiar but new. It's all around an excellent game, and it's left me super excited for the next project this team will take on ^w^

très très cool, ambiance tip top

The game crashed at a specific place every time early-ish in the game. I couldn't continue playing. It's a cool game though.

Ah... É um jogo que tu consegue matar teu tempo. Tu te diverte, mas não é aquele baita jogo. Joguei por bastante tempo até chegar em uma parte meio chata da história. Mas vale a pena tentar! O jogo tem uma proposta que nunca tinha visto.


This is game is so underrated, its very unique in terms of story and characters , gameplay was okay the detective work was nice and the citizen system is what i liked most

Me ha hecho pensar que necesitamos más dobles A. Más juegos más cortos, con peores gráficos, y donde los devs trabajen menos pero cobren más, como decía aquel meme. Vampyr no es excelente en nada, pero todo lo que quiere hacer, lo hace bastante bien. Es un action-RPG compacto que explota bien sus limites. Me ha sorprendido lo bien resuelto que está narrativamente, lo del “Doctor Vampiro durante la gripe española” me parece una premisa muy potente. Poder plantear tus paseos vouyeristas por Londres como un depredador esperando su próxima comida o como un médico preocupado es un conflicto interno bien planteado pero que también funciona como macro-sistema. Lo de los distritos, a falta de una vueltita más que no le vendría mal, es un giro de tuerca interesante al sistema moral que ya planteaba Dishonored en las calles de Dunwall, por ejemplo. La historia principal, como suele pasar en estos casos, no siempre va por ahí y tiene necesidades de hacer esto épico, pero aun así hay momentos muy bien planteados y es el primer juego de estos en un tiempo que me hace pararme unos segundos antes de tomar según qué decisiones.

En el gameplay me he quedado muy contento también. Hay clara inspiración en los souls y a ver, no es Bloodborne, pero han montado un sistema que no está nada mal. Hay posibilidades chulas en las builds y han conseguido un buen balance (y no era fácil con esta escala) entre indefensión y fantasía de poder. La partida normal a este juego si no eres un obseso del coleccionismo ni vas en plan asesino en serie te tiene constantemente algo underleveado y con la tentación de comer humanos para subir de nivel, lo cual enlaza brillantemente con la narrativa. Al mismo tiempo hay bastantes posibilidades de sinergias y combos. Yo he jugado con una build tipo tanque basada en el parry y en stunear que daba bastante gustito.

Lo que menos me ha gustado es un diseño de niveles que… meh. Me he atascado en situaciones un poco tontas. Sus niveles son algo farragosos de navegar ya sea en pequeños o grandes espacios. A la larga no es un problema porque te vas conociendo los entornos de memoria, pero sí crea alguna situación de frustración. Quizás es otra de las consecuencias de tener un juego que claramente encajaba mejor en la generación de PS3 que en la de PS4, pero como empezaba diciendo, estoy en un punto donde prefiero más una industria llena de juegos más pequeñitos y especializados que de gigantes que tengan contantemente la presión de reinventar la rueda.

Vampyr, interesting setting but not very interesting graphics hahaha, but regarding what actually matters for me in a game, the story was nice, it was my first time playing a vampire game and i enjoyed my time with it, especially the citizen mechanic the choices between being a good person or indulging in what is forbidden for a quicker rise in your vampiric powers. Im sum a great game

The premise of this game seemed compelling enough to pique my interest, but I just couldn't get into it.

Entendi porque esse jogo foi DADO de graça na Epic ahhaah. A atmosfera do jogo é bacana, mas nada mais além disso chama atenção. O combate é estranho, a movimentação também e algumas das orientações paras as missões são confusas.

Parece um jogo que tenta colocar tudo o que já foi colocado em outros jogos num mesmo. Eu queria ao menos conseguir ter zerado, mas o jogo simplesmente bugou uma parte de uma missão, e com o autosalvamente ficou impossível eu conseguir dar sequência da onde parei, que troço ridículo.
Ai eu teria que tentar começar denovo, ler todos os diálogos e ter todas as conversas, com risco do bug acontecer denovo.

É triste, mas não tive tempo nem de querer gostar e já tive de abandonar.

Bem, o que posso dizer? O jogo foi simplesmente um diamante que encontrei no meio de tantos jogos ruins. Eu nunca fui muito de gostar de vampiros, mas esse jogo me fez ter uma atração maior por essas criaturas.

Meu foco de "gostar" sempre vai ser a história na maioria dos jogos, e a desse, sinceramente, não decepciona. Resumindo de forma bem sucinta, você controla um médico que virou vampiro, e só a premissa já é muito interessante. Você tem que escolher quem vai matar, quem vai deixar vivo, cuidar para os distritos não colapsarem (entrarem em hostilidade), ao mesmo tempo que investiga sobre a gripe espanhola. Isso é muito legal!

Eu falei da história, mas a gameplay não decepciona, ok? Ela é bem simples, sem inovar em nada, mas serve para o estilo do jogo. Você tem uns upgrades meio tanto faz, tem umas armas variadas, e só. Não há muito o que se falar da gameplay, sinceramente, não sinto que faltou nada, mas também ficou sem nada muito legal.

Os gráficos são uma parte a se criticar, mesmo tendo algumas partes (no modo história) com cenas bonitas, em geral, é tudo preto... Amarelo por um poste de luz... Preto... Cinza... Marrom... Opa, um inimigo no meio... Ah, preto de novo... E isso se repete até o fim. Poderiam ter arriscado mais nos gráficos, mas se mantiveram no que "dá certo". Eu não sou uma pessoa que se importa com gráficos, mas estou enjoada desse estilo realista.

Pra finalizar, porque não sei fazer review, gostaria de escrever sobre a reta final. Não vai ter spoiler nem nada, é só uma coisinha. A reta final me broxou completamente, por quê? Simples, simplesmente ignoraram os humanos e começaram a focar mais nos vampiros. Parece que você segue a trama dos vampiros e no meio do caminho vai resolvendo os outros problemas, como se fosse tudo por acaso. É bem chato, porque o jogo começou muito legal e interessante, mas começaram a ir por um caminho muito sem graça. Eu não sei como eu faria essa reta final, era sim necessário essa parte dos vampiros, só que poderia ter estruturado melhor, eu acho.

Ah, uma última coisa que lembrei... o jogo foi muito mal otimizado para PS4. Não sei como está para as outras plataformas, mas para mim, meu Deus! O tempo todo travava, parava tudo pra carregar, eu tinha que sair e voltar, nossa, era muito chato. Que bom que eu não ligo muito e tento focar no que está legal, mas me estressei muito -_-... Enfim!

Pela história muito bacana, a mecânica de matar ou não dos distritos, os finais alternativos e diálogos diversos, e a surpresa que o jogo me deu, eu dou essas 4 estrelas, acho muito bem justo.

This was a decent effort on the part of Dontnod, who probably felt like they needed to make an effort to discern their output as not always being Life is Strange narrative type games. I liked this world a lot, enjoyed their attempt at a vampire game, and look forward to seeing all of the non-LiS games they'll make in the future (Jusant and Banishers, anyone?).

Loved it! It's been a while a game sucked me into it's world. I really liked that you have to work for the experience and it's tough to decide who to kill. It took me 58 hours to beat because I was exploring everything and just dicking around a lot. Can't wait to do a "Not Even Once" run and a purely evil run. I liked it so much a picked up a hard copy for PS4.

Difficulty Played: Medium

It's tempting to open this review by saying 'this game sucks' but it actually didn't so I won't.

Vampyr is Don't Nod's post-Life is Strange project that takes a decidedly different approach gameplay-wise while still keeping their trademark decisions-and-consequences narrative framework. Although I acknowledge that the limitations and norms that are consistent across vampire literature—no sunlight, burned by crosses, etc.—make them thematically interesting, I've never personally been a fan.

Despite that, though, I cannot deny that Vampyr is a well-told tale with some interesting takes on vampire mythos, complimented by truly stellar voice-acting work across the board (in particular from Anthony Howell as the lead).

Jonathan Reid has just woken up in the backstreets of London as a newly-born vampire with a fresh thirst for blood. As the Spanish Flu rips through the city and indeed the world at large, he must now grapple with his work as a doctor and his new life as a vampire to find a solution that benefits both of his worlds.

The narrative then takes the form of a detective mystery of sorts as you visit the boroughs of London and assist its various denizens in this crisis. Of course, along the way, you will be expected to make decisions and take actions that will decide the fate of both London and vampirekind. It's familiar territory for fans of Life is Strange and much like it, your choices have tangible, visible effects on the world around you that decide the outcome of both the main quest and side quests.

It's enthralling stuff, and the scope and size of the game feel reasonable along with it, although it could definitely do with a fast travel system. When you're cleaning up side quests or even travelling between boroughs in the back half of the game, it can become tedious running between them, especially when you keep running into enemies.

Speaking of which, combat is maybe the most controversial aspect of Vampyr's gameplay. Generally, the consensus surrounding Vampyr's combat is that it's a mixed bag, and I can see why that's the case. For the most part, I found it decent. It does its job well enough with some appropriate skills and a few different options for dealing with enemies; however, I'd say it's somewhat in abundance. It can be tiring to get caught by a cheap hit from an enemy that takes a few seconds to recover and react to and given that there's at least 3 enemies (with one strong enemy type) around literally every corner, the combat can seem as though it's overstaying its welcome the more you play Vampyr.

Some of the time, it's as though Vampyr's combat is there mostly to fill a quota or pad out playtime rather than an exciting detour from the core dialogue and investigation-focused gameplay. It's decent enough but it does serve to trip the game up when it's getting where it needs to go in the narrative.

Regardless, Vampyr is a good AA B-game adventure with a good narrative, a great soundtrack, excellent voice acting, and decent characters across the board. In the age of AAA games that take several years to produce, it'd be great to see other studios tackle smaller, focused titles with tangible passion behind it such as this one.

7/10

Originally played it on the PC and loved it so much I got a hard copy for PS4. Played it again, this time without embracing anyone to get the good ending and thoroughly enjoyed it again. Going to play it one more time to platinum it.

Is not be evil or be good. Is to oneshot or be oneshoted.

The story is actually very good. I think people were/are a little overreacting regarding how bugged the game truly is: sure, it could be better but I managed to play the whole game without too many glitches.

Something about playing this game during a pandemic made it hit a little different I think. I liked the concept that killing citizens would make the game easier, it really put a mechanic to attempting to keep your morals in-game. Another stand-out was the sound design, it really fit the tone of the game and set the vibe well. There were certain points in the story that didn't make sense or felt like they came out of nowhere. In particular, what I feel was meant to be one of the most important parts of the game, Jonathan and Elisabeth's relationship had no build-up and sort of came out of nowhere so I never got invested in the connection between the characters. Regardless, I enjoyed the game a lot more than I thought I would.

cool but I gave up because of the game's difficulty.

Was not a fan of the gameplay or the story, and I LOVE vampires.

Creo que este juego tiene una crisis de identidad. Quiere ser un juego narrativo con un sistema de moral más que interesante que se hace perder peso a sí mismo con unas mecánicas de ARPG terribles. Si uno perdona el combate tosco, aburrido y repetitivo, es un jueguito bien majo sobre lo terribles que son los ingleses y si merece la pena comérselos.


Wasted potential, everything comes to ABC endings

Diria que começa lento, gameplay um quanto curioso no começo, mas a historia desse jogo vai ter fazer acostumar com ela, e falando na historia, sem duvidas vai ter fazer ficar até o final. Jogue para apreciar

Uma obra de arte escondida na biblioteca da Dontnod.

Mais uma bela e ótima história contada por esta desenvolvedora que é a mestre no ofício, provando não ser o tipo de desenvolvedora de uma franquia só, pois esta trata também os de mais jogos com o mesmo carinho e mantêm tamanha competência.

Não estava esperando tanto deste jogo além de uma historinha de vampiros, o que fora suficiente para me atrair, pois gosto bastante dessas criaturas noturnas e demoníacas (desconheço criatura sobrenatural mais rica e interessante), porém vi que é muito mais.

Um jogo ambientado num cenário real, mais especificamente, em Londres durante a pandemia da gripe espanhola, com elementos fictícios que enriquecem de certo modo os fatos reais, como várias obras ambientadas em eventos históricos costumam fazer, e que as vezes fazem muito bem (é o caso de Vampyr).

Uma gameplay básica até, mas com uma árvore de habilidades bem legais, obviamente relacionadas a sangue, que deixam o combate mais divertido, além de outros ataques que você pode performar durante a batalha, como simplesmente morder os inimigos.

Este também possui um sistema de consequencias. Sendo um jogo da Dontnod, não é surpresa ver uma mensagem do tipo "Sua escolha trará consequências" após tomar uma decisão importante, e as decisões aqui, como os de mais jogos desta desenvolvedora, lhe deixam na dúvida, pois você está agindo numa cidade sob o caos de uma epidemia, e o que você escolher pode impactar, de forma boa ou ruim, no destino dos distritos.

Outro ponto fortíssimo de gameplay é como o jogo lhe permite descobrir sobre os personagens através de diálogos e arquivos, descobrindo o seu passado, quem tal personagem era, quem tal personagem é agora... Um ótimo jeito de enriquecer suas personalidades e tornar as missões secundárias mais interessantes.
Cada personagem com o seu background, contando como as situações da vida os atingiram, como a situação atual os atinge agora, como estão lidando com isso...
Todos os pontos envolvendo lore nesse jogo são ótimos.
E falando em personagens, é difícil não ficar encantado com a cordialidade do nosso protagonista, Dr. Reid, e também com o carisma de alguns outros personagens ao decorrer da história.

A trilha sonora é perfeitamente composta para combinar com esse tema gótico e vampiresco e a atmosfera misteriosa e intrigante, com ótimos diálogos e batalhas ao som de violinos no fundo.

Mais uma perfeição vinda da Dontnod, com uma ótima historia, ótimos personagens, bela ambientação, trilha sonora e o devido carinho que se deve ter com uma obra.

Um deleite para fãs de vampiros, e de História. Eu mesmo, que não sou um apreciador da disciplina, gostei de como certos pontos históricos foram adaptados.

Uma das melhores obras que consumi em 2023.