Wow, I am very pleasantly surprised. I was expecting another same old ARPG, but Victor Vran is really good. It has a different formula to the genre and adds an arcade feel to the game with challenges.
The shotgun is my favorite. I never tire of the aimshot. It has a satisfying kick and rewards good aim.
Nice humor in the game.
Only annoying thing is I spend $20 on it today and now I read its being released fully tomorrow, so I bet it will be on sale! Doh!

Victor Vran Is the Greatest Action RPG Since Diablo 2

This is an Early Access preview, which I published on TechZwn.
http://techzwn.com/2015/07/victor-vran-is-the-greatest-action-rpg-since-diablo-2/

I sometimes wonder whether any action-RPG could replace the mythical spot held by Diablo 2. There were only a couple that came close (in my opinion Bastion, Torchlight 2, and Path of Exile), and I’d say the rest were just fillers.

But a new game is has joined these ranks, and while I can’t say it manages to out-do Diablo 2, it certainly comes close.

I nearly wrote off Victor Vran before trying it. It looked too much like a copy of Van Helsing (which is decent), but after giving it a shot, I was surprised to find a game that takes the monster-slaying mayhem of Diablo 2, combines it with the narration of Bastion, and brings in some of the skill-based combat of The Witcher series.

The developers at Haemimont Games seem to take many lessons from The Witcher 3. First and foremost, the main character (Victor Vran) sounds exactly like Geralt from The Witcher games. In Victor Vran, you’re a monster slayer, and you get called into a city that has been overrun with more horrible creatures than you could shake a boom-stick at. Your character comments on what he finds, comments on the smell and feeling of the places you take him. And he reminds you here and there of his role in this world, and the brother-like bond that exists between him and his fellow hunters (who you may come across alive or dead in this fallen city).

Also like in The Witcher, the combat makes you consider which tools would be best for a given area. Fighting spiders? Maybe the scythe would be best. Skeletons? Grab a warhammer or shotgun. Taking on a vampire? My choice is the rapier.

The combat is also built in a way that allows you to basically not get hit, if you’re good enough. You can roll out of danger, you can jump over enemies or projectiles, there are only a handful of skills and buffs you can use at once, and potions can only be used sparingly.

Taking a few lessons from Bastion, you have a mysterious narrator who comments on your actions. And also like in Bastion, every weapon type in Victor Vran brings a significantly different combat experience. Playing with the warhammer feels slow and powerful. The sword feels devestating and puts you in harms way. The rapier is fast and agile. The shotgun makes you feel like an old-West gunslinger with a special attack that instantly recharges if you manage to kill the enemy.

You can choose between the Diablo-style controls, where the mouse controls your attacks and movement. Or you can go with the default action controls (which I chose), which lets you control movement with the keyboard, and attack with the mouse. The action control makes it feel a lot more like a skill-based combat game than it does a random click-fest.

The voice acting is very well done. Characters are convincing, and the actual dialogue is just as good. You don’t roll your eyes when an NPC speaks, and I found myself taking time to listen to the characters even if I could finish reading the dialogue before they could finish saying it.

There are a few features that some gamers might not like, but that seeem to be done intentionally by the developers. Victor Vran is simple. You only get a few spells. There isn’t a skill tree or a sheet of attributes you level up. And it basically doesn’t have any character classes.

There is only one hero in Victor Vran, with a choice of three different looks that give different buffs. Every time you level up, you’re given a new feature (like being able to wield two weapons, or being able to carry a new skill) and you’re given a choice between three items (typically cards that give you buffs, a spell, a weapon, or a mystery chest).

Instead of having classes, it adapts to your playstyle. As you pick your perks, you slowly build the type of character you want to play. And you’re not locked into these choices. If you chose a card that gives more health for melee combat and you want to play ranged, you can just switch it out for another.

It seems the developers also expect you to swap weapons depending on what you’re up against. You could probably use the same weapon the whole game, but you’ll quickly see that some weapons work better against different enemies. This makes the combat feel more varied. If combat is starting to feel monotonous, you can just switch it up.

What really makes Victor Vran shien, however, is that it’s deeply immersive. This is a culmination of everything it does well.

You feel like a monster slayer, Victor Vran describes his feeling or sensing, the narrator teases and comments on your actions, characters have personalities, the combat makes you stop and consider the best approach for each situation, and the story makes sense of why you’re basically one-manning a city overrun with monsters.

https://youtu.be/uYVuJsa4Hck

The major addition to the game in the full version since early access is the addition of the main single player story. The game is packed with humor and doesn’t take its setting or story particularly seriously. The voice of the main character will be instantly recognized as Doug Cockle, the voice actor who also voices The Witcher’s Geralt of rivia. The game doesn’t hide this fact with lines making references to the Witcher and with Vran himself sounding exactly like the other monster hunter in an overtly silly way. The games humor is a nice touch and works very well in some places. The voice acting is all done well, even the intentionally cheesy elements, the star of the show however is the voice inside Vran’s head who acts as a narrator in everything you do and will comment on what you’re doing. The narrator is a blend of the narrator from bastion but with the personality of Borderlands 2 handsome Jack providing a dark humor to all the narration for example calling victor Vicky throughout.

Online co-op is featured which I think is a huge benefit to the game. ARPG's in general are one of the only genres where co-op modes not only work well but can provide huge benefits and personal enjoyment. Victor Vrans online mode works well and will the fast paced combat a lot of fun can be had playing with others online. It’s one of those few games that’s good in both short bursts and long play sessions and it’s a game that keeps you engaged throughout.

The core mechanics of the game while simplistic are fun and addictive, it goes to show that a game doesn’t need to be complex to have large amounts of both playability and fun. The ARPG genre is a popular genre but there’s few massive hits out there, even fewer with a high standard of quality in all aspects of the game. Victor Vran is one of those rare games, it has quality and quantity. The story is well written packed with humor and irony designed to poke fun at itself and various fantasy games.

This is the one of the best ARPGs ever. I love Path of Exile, Diablo 2 and Titan Quest and Victor Vran is in that tier, if you like any of those games this is a must buy.

It's gameplay is a lot faster that most other ARPGs but has the depth, fun and build creating that is core in this sort of game. When I started played in the early early access it had just the core gameplay and that was enough to hook me. Now there have been many great updates and with each the game improves immensely and I have been coming back every time for more fun.

The result is a polished, fun and refreshing game that I will be coming back to every content update.

11/10 must buy.

The action-RPG genre has certainly had it’s share of highs and lows. While Diablo and it’s sequels, to greater or lesser degrees, have largely been seen as the high-water mark of the genre, plenty of other contenders have certainly tried to match it. Path of Exile and the Torchlight games have had the most success, but with the release of Victor Vran, it’s safe to say there’s now another fighter in the ring.

Victor Vran features about as much story as one would expect from an ARPG. While it lacks some of the beauty found in Diablo 3‘s cutscenes, it makes up for it with some decent voice acting and great music. Again, probably due to budgetary limits, nothing quite matches up to Diablo‘s grandeur, but fits nicely around what Torchlight has been capable of.

Perhaps most distracting is the presence of some of the voice actors. The same actor who voiced Geralt in The Witcher series voices Victor Vran. The titular character is a monster hunter in a steam-punk inspired, medieval world. It’s distractedly similar to The Witcher in many ways, not to the point of imitation, but more in a sense of accidental ode. Luckily, few are sticking with Victor Vran for it’s story.

The game begins with a tutorial of sorts. You learn the basics of movement and combat. Players are given the option of using either a mouse and keyboard or a controller (I went with the controller). Both options have their limitations, as one would expect, but I found the controller implementation to be well-handled. Again, it doesn’t quite match up to what Blizzard was able to accomplish with Diablo 3 on consoles, but it’s more than serviceable. In fact, the console ports of Diablo 3 always felt a bit more arcadey than their PC counterpart. Victor Vran‘s controller utilization feels much more in line with the mouse and keyboard’s more strategy-lite feeling.

Following the tutorial, you’re given the option of choosing one of three classes. All classes are still Victor, but they play decidedly different. There’s the wizard-like character, who specializes in magic, a rogue-like character with quick, but light, attacks and a specialization in distance-based attacks, and the warrior-like character. Seeing as how the tutorial was all done from the warrior’s perspective,t he sudden change was jarring, and did little to encourage me to explore options outside of the warrior class.

Actual combat is fast and fluid. Each weapon has it’s own basic attack and two limited special attacks. With the press of a button, you’re able to swap between two different weapons. This adds a lot of strategy to the mix. For example, fighting a powerful monster might require the use of multiple special abilities. Thanks to the two weapon system, you could use the two specials of weapon A, switch weapons, and then use the specials of weapon B. Adding to this is the Demon abilities, which are dictated by an Overcharge meter. As you kill enemies, your Overcharge meter fills. Once full, Victor can unleash a powerful Demon attack which lays waste to hordes of monsters at once. Once you’ve leveled Victor up enough, you’re able to have multiple Demon attacks on hand. Demon attacks can be swapped out for others that are picked up from killing enemies.
The biggest issue I run into in loot heavy games such as this (and Diablo, Borderlands, Torchlight, etc.) is that most of the loot feels unimportant, since it’s less powerful than what I’ve already equipped. I tend to find myself sorting through garbage to find pearls. Unfortunately, Victor Vran isn’t really any different. It does add “Uncommon” versions of Common items, and that certainly adds to the excitement, but only to minimal effects.

Perhaps what Victor Vran does best for the genre is in how it increases Victor’s levels. It puts an end to much of the min-maxing found in so many other RPGs, and gives you a set upgrade based on your level. For example, at level 15, your ability to wear various outfits can now have larger effects on how you play. At each level you’re given the choice between three different items which, generally speaking, cater to whatever you unlocked by leveling-up. This does away entirely with the tedious nature of leveling found in most RPGs. There’s no need to sit and worry about the choice you made being the wrong one, and instead allows you to just enjoy the action and manage your inventory.

Victor Vransidesteps traditional sidequests, which tend to get messy and distract from the main quest. Instead, each map has 5 bonus objectives which are all fairly simple in nature, even if some are frustrating to complete. Some examples would be finding all of the hidden treasure chests, killing x-many monsters in x-many seconds, or killing x-many monsters with a specific weapon. The payout you get for completing each is substantial enough that you’re driven to actually complete them.

Victor Vran does little to set itself apart from the likes of Diablo, Torchlight, and the Van Helsing series. Instead, it chooses to focus on tight gameplay with excellent controls and does away with a lot of the tediousness of the genre. It’s a game that has benefitted entirely from the Early Access program and is a shining example of what can be done when giving players access to games early.

4/5 Stars

Read more at Gizorama.com

**Review copy provided by developer**