I finally finished Code Vein. What a wild ride. I have mixed feelings about it but I thought it was "good" overall. Some elements were excellent, other elements sucked, so I'm going to try and break it down briefly. No wonder this thing was delayed for years, the game is GIGANTIC, it felt Dark Souls 2 levels of gigantic, thought it would never end.

Summary

• Enemy Design: Excellent
• Environments and Art: Excellent
• Combat: Very Good
• RPG Elements: Excellent
• Story: Unbearable
• Difficulty: Awful, Unbalanced, too easy, difficulty spikes
• Level Design: Average
• Waifus: Excellent
• In brief: It's a solid anime waifu souls-like game, one of the better souls-like games I've played, it looks and plays beautifully but it's held back by poor difficulty/balancing and awful/boring anime cringe story. Worth grabbing for $30, even just to experience this really cool world and environments and bash some alien vampire things. Good game but won't be in my top 5 for the year.

Detailed Analysis

Code Vein is an anime souls-like style game. The main beats of the story are really cool and creative: it's set after some apocalyptic event, the earth is in ruins and populated by these vampire creatures; kinda like hollows and undead. The setting is great, but the story itself kinda falls apart. Too many characters, too much drama nonsense. I lost interest in the narrative pretty quickly and found myself skipping through the hours upon hours of cutscenes and flashbacks and dialogue. The story felt way too complicated and boring.. something that might have worked better in a book series. This is a game, not a movie, but half the time you're expected to drop the controller for an hour and listen to these characters ramble on about their childhood or whatever.

Gameplay was fantastic. I loved the feel of it, the skills and weapons. The way the RPG mechanics were implemented was really impressive. You can change your class/stats at any time, on the fly, so if you're bored with your dex build, you can just equip a different "blood code" and immediately switch to heavy weapons, ranged, magic, etc. Combat felt smooth. Nice to not feel locked into a certain play style. I even found myself enjoying the AI companion; the AI was surprisingly smart, you can chat to them and they can revive you, I thought it worked well.

My biggest points go to the art and design and environments of the world. Really creative, inspired and a delight for the senses. So much enemy variety, hundreds of enemy mobs, not just all "buff dudes in armour" like every other shitty souls-like game (Nioh, Surge, LotF, etc). Enemies were weird and creative with a range of attack patterns, fun to fight, really impressive. Likewise the environments provided a lot of variety; everything from ruined cities, snow/ice mountains, deserts, caves, surreal dried-up coral ocean place, strange underground chalice dungeon alien crypts, spooky castles, Anime Anor Londo, the works. Lots of detail, beautiful to explore and find the secrets. Some of the level design sucked, some of these levels were giant irritating mazes. At least they give you a map. But the provision of a map usually points toward shitty level design.

My biggest gripe, apart from the story, is the difficulty. For the most part, the game was way too easy for my taste. Most bosses I killed on first attempt without much effort. But then there were peculiar difficulty spikes, particular some of the late-game bosses. This game could do with some balancing or a hard mode.

Ultimately I quite enjoyed it, but it's not for everyone, and I wouldn't want to pay much more than $30 for it. It's better than Surge/LotF imo, and probably about equal to Nioh? I quite like the goofy weeby anime stuff, but if you're not into that you'll probably hate this. Often this game made me think of Nier (2010 PS3) or Tarkovsky's film STALKER. They definitely took a lot of inspiration from Bloodborne and Dark Souls (particular Anor Londo) for their environments. Sometimes the bosses and the combat felt so good and I'm like "wow this game is a masterpiece" but other times I was cringing and ready to hit uninstall. Ultimately I liked it, but it's not for everyone. Not sure if I'll go back to my save file and mop up all the optional dungeons/bosses.

This game is certainly a Souls-like, but a more direct comparison would be Nioh. CV keeps a lot of the changes that Nioh made to the formula, notably: more action-oriented combat, a more surface-level and character-driven narrative, and the structure of a linear series of maze-like maps. It does not, however, keep the randomized loot and extremely complex equipment system--I will leave it to the reader to decide if this is for the better. One thing is for sure though, it doesn't have quite the replay value of Nioh, if that's the sort of thing you're looking for.

I really enjoyed a lot of my time with CV, specifically, the beginning and the end. The game starts great, even from the title screen: big, dramatic gothic vibes plus post apocalypse plus techno-magic. If you want cyber-goth vampires (I know I do), this is the game for you.

The end, if you'll excuse me for skipping ahead, is great for different reasons. The plot was perfectly easy to follow, but as tends to happen with these kinds of stories, I lost my emotional connection to it before the halfway point, so a lot of the major escalation towards the end was lost on me. What I found instead was a deep familiarity and comfort with the game's core systems: gifts, blood codes, and blood veil and weapon forging. Because you can swap out your blood code (something like a job or class) freely and forging materials are pretty easy to come by, there's a lot of fun to be had just messing with different builds. If you're into theory-crafting, there's something for you here as well.

The reason this is a 3-star review rather than 4 is the mid-game lull. The story had lost its luster to me but the systems had not yet begun to shine. I'd say I spent a good 5-10 hours in this slog, and while I'm glad I did, it's not something I can overlook when giving a holistic opinion on this game.

Nonetheless, if you liked Dark Souls and especially Nioh, if you like anime games, if you like trying out new builds, and most of all, if you like character creators, give CV a try. Did I mention you can change your character's appearance and outfit for free at any time?

Code Vein is another game amidst the genre of “Souls-like” titles that seemingly pop out of nowhere at times and tend to be fairly mediocre or exceptionally janky. Although Code Vein has been a pretty hyped up game for quite a while now, gaining even more notoriority after its massive delay. It’s published by Bandai Namco and takes heavy inspiration from not only the Souls-like genre, but also God Eater (though mostly in setting and style). So where does Code Vein fall amongst its countless other souls-like brethern? Does it capture the souls experience that so many blindly look for? Or is it another janky rip off? Personally, I don't think it’s the first one as I believe it’s impossible to recreate the experience that so many are looking for. The minute one starts to look for it, you start ignoring what separates this game from the many others in its genre, instead judging it based on comparisons to the dark souls series. Janky? Yes, though not so much that I'd write off completely. At the end, Code Vein is NOT the dark souls experience people seem to be looking for and I wouldn’t come into this game expecting that.

First, the definitive good stuff about Code Vein. The character creator is quite frankly bonkers. I’m sure many are aware of this already, but when you’re actually creating a character, it’s excessively overwhelming. And I’m not talking about the 100+ variations of eyebrows or its enormous selection of colors and patterns. If you REALLY want to go the extra mile, the accessories provide near Soul Calibur customization levels of freedom. You can place them wherever, angle them however, adjust its size to whatever, which allows for tons of things you could do with your character. Unfortunately, this is probably Code Vein’s highest point.

The core combat is exactly what you expect it is, though I’d place it more in line with Bloodborne’s combat. It’s a little janky but it’s fast and certainly much faster than Dark Soul’s combat iteration. Each weapon variation has its own moveset with some differing within its own weapon type, though not drastically.The armors are simple, with which each one having distinctive stats indicating whether this should be used in conjunction with STR, DEX, or “Magic”. The amount of weapons and armor are fairly limited, though I wouldn’t peg that as a bad thing entirely, as Code Vein’s meat lies in it’s unique “Blood Code” system. These blood codes that you equip are basically your character build. Each provides different types of stats with different types of abilities and passives, with the added option to max their proficiency which will allow you to equip them with other blood codes. There’s quite alot of mix and match you can do with all this and seems pretty overwhelming at first, though this is only if you really want to take the extra step to experiment. I’m personally not a huge fan of this, as this is something that seems more fitting for a character action game or, surprise, a God Eater game. The simplicity of souls combat makes these abilities almost unnecessary and a bit excessive. As many of these abilities can make encounters absurdly easy and can allow you to nuke bosses as well. You can just as easily go through the game never touching these abilities save for passives which provide nice boons. Throw in your AI partner and there’s very little challenge that the game offers, though you have the option of going solo as well. The bosses solo are honestly quite fun and where the game feels at it's most challenging, as opposed to beating them down with your AI partner. Combat aside, Code Vein’s biggest gameplay weakness lies in its level design. It’s not open world in that you can go to nearly any area at any point in the game, with limitations being key items or your characters strength. It is instead very linear with set places you have to go through one by one. Many of these “levels” feel like they were copied and pasted as well, as they largely consist of hallways or tight corridors with some occasional open rooms and not much to explore. Exploring will consist of coming at crossroads and exploring one to a dead end or realizing that the paths eventually connect. Some of these levels feel very inconsistent in length as well. One in particular takes a HUGE chunk of the game, whereas another will end before you know it.

The story is… not good. But it’s not… bad either. The fact that there’s a pretty lengthy story attached to this kind of game is impressive in of itself. Lore is provided through memories of characters you encounter throughout the game which will let you learn tons about said character or the world and how it got to its current state. Even then, the story and everything related to it is extremely tropey and very anime, if a bit hefty in writing. There’s nothing particularly interesting to mention about it really. I definitely wouldn’t come into the game with high expectations for story. I’d go so far as to say that some of the cutscenes really hampers the pacing of the game. You’re likely to end up watching 30+ minutes of cutscenes and memories at a time before actually playing the game, though thankfully this is all skippable save for two or three crucial cutscenes.

Ultimately, on a personal level, I enjoyed Code Vein despite its jankiness and linear level design, though this is hugely due to the fact that I REALLY like the genre. I’ve played nearly every 3D Souls-like game because I like the gameplay loop. Code Vein gives me just that, a gameplay loop that I can get behind with. Heck, I'm really tempted to give it 4 stars but 3 seems more appropriate. I really wouldn’t recommend this to anyone who doesn’t share a similar mindset to mine, especially since the story doesn’t exactly carry the game either. If you like the gameplay loop these types of games offer, then this will probably be a good experience. Or rather, this is pretty much like any other souls-like experience you’ve probably had with not dark souls games but… anime. So if that's your thing then you probably won’t be steered wrong with this game. If you’re unsure, I’d highly recommend waiting for a sale, as 60 dollars is a very steep price to pay.

what i liked:

• well narrated and staged plot with tons of dialogues and cutscenes. unlike souls, code vein has a lot to offer in its presentation. decide for yourself, if you enjoy the story or not.

• the vestiges were great in terms of character development and world building. atmospheric, small story sets with one the best soundtracks in the game.

• combat in code vein has a decent amount of depth with several special abilities to use simultaneously and a light combo system. its quite fun to play, despite having some flaws.

• the blood code system was an unique and accessible concept, although it was kinda obscure to get into. it felt almost impossible for me to rate the viability without internet resources, which ended in using like a maximum of 3 or 4 blode codes at most.

• loved the post-apocalyptic artstyle and overall art direction of the game.

• the japanese dub was excellent.

what felt debatable to me:

~ boss variety is decent, sadly that's it. most of the bosses do have some serious issues in terms of balancing and basic encounter design. pattern are hard or almost impossible to read, cheap one shot mechanics, unpredictable attacks, absurd damage output, to name a few issues - disappointing overall which ended in brute forcing through the boss fights instead of learning an encounter.

~ they've decided to sacrifice freedom in terms of character building for accessibility, so you are able to do level up ups, but there are no skill points or anything to make your own build. doing a level up is a simple flat stat increase.

~ lackluster level design. some are better, some are worse, none are excellent. they've got the basic feeling of connectivity going, but it isn't working as well as in from games.

~ combat isn't particularly bad, but may feel clunky at times.

~ enemy damage is obscenely high - even random enemies along the way will dish out severe hits and lacking clear visual indicators for their attacks. i'm used to tough games and finished plenty of them back to back before playing code vein, but this one seems totally off in terms of balancing and enemy design. at the end of the day it feels like they had to pump up the numbers to provide a challenge since the enemies pattern are kinda plain and uninspired.

~ not a huge fan of the graphics. it isn't particularly bad, but there are some major flaws which make the game look kinda lifeless. the textures aren't great with mostly terrible shadows and lightning. colors aren't consistent, hurting the games overall atmosphere and immersion.

~ weapon and armor variety isn't nearly as big as in souls and the balance isn't that great either. it's too easy to obtain the best weapon quite early in the game.

what i disliked:

• side quests are plain and the side npcs even more so. there is a lack of side quests as well it might seem, but most of these will show up if you've already finished the area, which forces you into more or less pointless backtracking.

• lack of enemy variety and designs.

• invasions are bad and uninspired, spawning a massive flood of area enemies. wasn't a big fan of the npc invasions in souls either, but this is even worse.

• facial expression are stiff and lifeless, which results in weird cutscenes and dialogues.

• awful fashion overall, even for an anime game.

• anime tropes and fan-service all over the place

6.5/10