Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines: 2 - I want to believe, but...

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I was promised bloodsuckers, not girlcock suckers.
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Also, do you guys recommend giving Redemption a try?
 
"George" is right there as well. Can even have the option to alter it a bit to be more feminine if playing a female vamp. So many options that aren't fucking Phyre, my god.
 
Pentex said:
>Half the VTMB2 player base succumbed to The Beckoning (to play a better game)
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But can it reach Suicide Squad Kills The Justice League numbers? Only time will tell (but chances are high)
White_N said:
Also, do you guys recommend giving Redemption a try?
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Redemption is one of "those" games. It will show its age and not all of it works but the writing isnt treating you like an idiot.

Its a far more character driven story so it doesnt focus as much on the greater WoD like Bloodlines did and it does try to lean a lot on the romantic tragedy aspect of many vampire stories. Some may call it corny but a simple story of man turned monster, a pure innocent woman and a forbidden love feels refreshing in today's environment as I legit do not think you could get away with a story that "old school" today if you catch my drift *. The other characters along the journey are quite good as well.

I do suggest looking up some hints on the gameplay however, maybe a mod to improve gameplay if there is one because it is rather non intuitive most of the time and its counting on you having the manual as they dont bother teaching most things to you in game.

*Well, at least that doesnt devolve into smutt like a lot of erotic female literature. You can absolutely tell when a story of this kind is being written by a man or a woman and whats their stances on "True Love"
 
In better news, I'm actually enjoying the recent Alone in the Dark game. Might not end up being a 10/10, but it shows respect and thoughtfulness so far. I think rebooting a cursed franchise at 60 dollars was just the wrong move.
 
My biggest complaint with the game is how few canned animations there are for gory kills. There's like three or four and only two sets for stealth kills. I have to mix it up with the blood powers to not get bored. It's definitely not a game I would recommend playing for an extended period of time.

That said, I am surprised how Im cool with the plot and boss fights so far. It's nowhere near the original in quality but it is a halfway decent visual novel/ telltale story. Not much In choices or replayability though.
 
White_N said:
Also, do you guys recommend giving Redemption a try?
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It's an old aRPG so prepare for a lot of combat, linear story (which ending you get depends on your humanity, not on choices you make during the story) and potential technical issues you'll need to fix before playing. If you can deal with those things, yes, I recommend it and I enjoyed it a lot when it came out.
To the abyss with thee!
 
Well, playing as Tremere was good.
Haven is thetric but different. Blood magic is fun as fuck.
  • Blood Purge: Nice AoE damage which stuns enemies for a while.
  • Blood Shield: Much better than Fortitude.
  • Blood Theft: If kills, restores the double of blood spent.
  • Blood Strike: Still practical to steal some blood but not with anyone.
Papa Strauss is truly a good character. Somewhat mysterious but if you don't reveal his secrets, treats you like his son/daughter giving you a haven and making you a new apprendice.
 
Lou Graham may be a manipulative, traitorous bitch; but she's based on wiping the Anarchs out.
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Finished the game, and god damn those Fabian sections were almost enough to make me quit. It's a walking sim section that interrupts the story to drip feed a thin-as-fuck mystery that you probably figure out by the second section. Well, two mysteries. There's a killer on the loose in the 20's and the 2020's that have the same method but different victims. First killer is just the Prince and her childe killing all her enemies, the copy cat killer is... Maybe Fabien? Maybe Safia? This mystery that's taken up the bulk of the story, and they just kind of shrug it off because the copy cat killer solely exists as a red herring to extend the walking sections.

As you already expected, the RPG elements are fucking scraps in this game. You will go along with this rail road and you will be forced to play Phyre as the loving dumbass the plot needs them to be. Any attempt at deviation will basically eb straight up ignored by the characters.

You can be a massive prick who makes it clear they do not like a character, yet the game will still act like you're friends and you're concerned or saddened when they get hurt. A villain tries to threaten that they'll go after some random soy boy vampire (who somehow sired the only bad ass vampire in this game) you helped out earlier, and Phyre's like "No! Not Max, he's so innocent!".

You will fall in love with Safia. It doesn't matter that you've told her to fuck off at every turn and have no regret getting her ghouls or friends killed, she will start calling you her love and you will mourn her when she fakes her death, and then be mocked for falling for her flawless charms.

You're an elder vampire who has spent centuries dealing with politics, but you will never be able to figure out the most obvious political shenanigans and schemes, even when Lou Graham is practically spelling it out for you because she has no idea what subtlety is.

This spreads to the gameplay too because, outside of the open world, almost every section seems designed to nullify the use of your powers. Stealth sections in particular usually place you in these narrow corridors flanked by big teleporting shotgun dudes who are designed with an open area where you can dodge around in mind so you'll be forced down a very specific sneaking route. Yeah, you can still tough it out, fuck with the game and get through fighting; but it's tedious as hell.

One section I hated in particular was after you deal with the Gardener, the hunters bust in on mass and you need to stealth about. When you enter this building, it actually looks like a good stage for a stealth section, with a lot of interconnecting rooms and passages that give you plenty of traversal options to stealth around the enemy. Sucks to be you though, because the Hunters, despite entering for the first time propelling down from the ceiling, have managed to lock every door leaving you just in this two story hall where the only way to get between the two floors in the hunter guarded stairs in the middle. The geometry is designed so that you traversal skills are of no use, you are funnelled into the stairs with the giant group of hunters. I basically broke the game here when I realized that I could loudly kill swaths of people with their back's turned in front of everybody so long as I throw a bottle somewhere, so this level was just me ping ponging across the room, throwing anything at the wall, running back and stealth killing a bunch of them before the physics broke and launched me into space.

The quest after this, however, was probably the best, and only real good, level in the game. The attack on the Hunters' base places you in this big, open area with plenty of little groups of enemies to deal with. It's the first non-overworld stealth section where the traversal mechanics are allowed to shine. You can cover a lot of ground in seconds, pick people off in a rush, find plenty of shit to throw at people before hiding away. You don't even have to do stealth really, because everyone's out in their own little clusters that, so long as you're careful about keeping them contained, you can get into big fights without alerting the rest of the base. It also helps that the Hunters are probably the best enemies in the game, that feel challenging without being annoying or tedious to deal with. They don't have the annoying dash/teleportation of the vampires that makes landing a hit annoying, and they don't have the nigh-super armour and lack of feeding option of those unbirthed fucks. They simply work well together with gadgets that keep you on your toes and remind you to prioritize your targets.

Boss-wise, I enjoyed Benny and how the fight devolved into a three-way battle between me, him and the anarchs because he's just that much of a beast. I especially liked that they didn't do that bullshit where the boss is immune to your powers and I could make him explode too. Then, of course, the Toredore dipshit comes along and disables my powers so I can go for the janky, inconsistent melee combat in a big glomp of assholes while she teleports away any time I almost get a combo going. OH AND THE FINAL BOSS IS ANOTHER TELEPORTING ASSHOLE WHO SENDS HER MINIONS AFTER YOU AND YOU CAN ONLY CONSISTENTLY HIT WITH THE TERRIBLE THROWING MECHANIC BECAUSE SHE WILL INSTANTLY TELEPORT AWAY IF YOU TRY TO GET CLOSE TO HER. GREAT.

Also, I'm an Elder who just got the mark binding his power removed; the fuck you mean the crippled population of the Anarchs ran me out of town just because I didn't kill their boss?
 
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