Let’s get this over with early: Bloodlines 2 most likely shouldn’t have been referred to as Bloodlines 2. Shared setting and a pair transient, questionable cameos (plus one completely garbage little bit of beauty DLC) apart, there’s little tying this recreation to Troika’s authentic janky cult hit FPS/RPG hybrid. This isn’t an RPG with deep mechanics, all kinds of character builds or dialogue that reacts to mechanical selections. If that’s what you want out of a recreation bearing this most hallowed of names, then you may be dissatisfied and pissed off.
However in case you are keen to put a long time of desires to relaxation and method it purely by itself phrases, you may discover an entertaining if flawed romp by means of the World Of Darkness. A brawl-heavy, linear motion recreation punctuated with Telltale-esque reactive dialogue and held collectively by a surprisingly compelling, century-spanning undead detective thriller.
Weirdly, I would say that Bloodlines 2’s closest peer is Teyon’s surprisingly charming Robocop: Rogue Metropolis. One other recreation set inside a small unfold of dense metropolis streets and fight places, providing dialogue selections to color within the margins of a mostly-static story. A narrative by which your character is a corpse compelled into the position of enforcer and investigator on the behest of the town’s cold-blooded rulers. Though, Robocop one way or the other has extra RPG components. Go determine.
Not less than your main protagonist right here is extra photogenic than Alex Murphy. You are taking part in as The Nomad, a semi-customizable (you possibly can tweak their gender, face and outfit, however not pores and skin tone or voice) Dracul-esque elder vampire, waking up from a hundred-year nap into modern-day Seattle. Selecting the pseudonym ‘Phyre’ from a band poster, you are thrown straight into the morally ambiguous motion (splattering a pair hapless human safety guards) earlier than rising straight into native vampire courtly intrigue.
I say ‘main’ protagonist as a result of attributable to Plot Causes, the Nomad is sharing their head with a second vampire’s disembodied character – Fabien, a show-stealing bloodsucking detective who’s been working the Seattle beat because the Nineteen Twenties. He is a Malkavian – a member of a clan of vampires typically tormented by visions and insanity, however manifesting right here as simply being a unusual Tex Murphy-like gumshoe.
Fabien is an affable, ever-present voice of comedian reduction and perception, commenting in your actions and selections in dialogue, and sometimes cheering in your victories in fight. Whereas many of the recreation has you taking part in as Phyre over the course of per week within the Emerald Metropolis, even a vampire wants their magnificence sleep. Throughout the daytime, management switches to Fabien’s prolonged flashback sequences – non-combat segments that use his psychic detective-ish powers to analyze a collection of grisly murders relationship again 100 years.
Alternating between the 2 roles and storytelling types works effectively, too. Fabien will get to talk with inanimate objects (actually simply arguing along with his personal creativeness), dig into individuals’s recollections and navigate conversations by means of psychic disguises, whereas Phyre handles all of the preventing within the current, armed with a set of primary fight strikes, plus 4 blood-fueled fight skills based mostly on which of the six clans you selected – an assortment of direct-damage skills, motion powers, distractions and room-clearing ‘ultimates’.
There’s an entire lot of fight too, and whereas not with out some awkwardness (The Chinese language Room’s bread and butter has at all times been walk-and-talk narrative fare), it is a principally satisfying energy journey. Working like a mix of Batman: Arkham Metropolis, Dishonored and a first-person Streets Of Rage, Bloodlines 2 may be very a lot not a stealth recreation, exterior of a pair mercifully quick instant-fail segments. Sneaking might help, but when the sport places you in a room with enemies, it desires all of them useless earlier than it will allow you to proceed.
Luckily, the Nomad is constructed for brawling, with a mix of primary gentle and heavy punches – the latter generally setting enemies up for satisfying however rare air-juggle combos – triggered by quick or lengthy mouse clicks, and an assortment of poorly-tutorialised, multi-target kick strikes carried out by dodging in a path and following up with an assault. You might be tanky, aggressive and might heal and restore makes use of of your 4 clan-specific fight powers by ending off enemies with a fast bite-punctuated ending transfer. A bit like nu-Doom’s glory kills, albeit with much less assorted animations.
As you get additional into Bloodlines 2, extra highly effective, interesting-to-fight enemies are launched, and extra weapons turn out to be out there. When you cannot equip any gear completely, the Nomad’s telekinesis energy (out there always with no value) allows you to magically throw knives and swords as projectiles, lob explosive gasoline canisters or choose up weapons simply lengthy sufficient to empty them within the tough path of an aggressor earlier than discarding. The rhythm of brawling, improvising with dropped weapons, burning by means of fight powers, and refueling them with finishers is an engrossing loop.
Nonetheless, there’s just a few rookie errors right here. Issues can get messy if too many enemies nook you in melee vary. And as talked about, components of the fight are poorly defined, with kicks – particularly the highly effective dropkick transfer – by no means even getting talked about, and a parry transfer – the one actual defensive choice, carried out by dashing forwards – being largely ineffective in my expertise. I’d additionally suggest anybody re-bind the keys for the sport’s 4 potion varieties – a non-replenishable useful resource solely present in fight zones. They’re certain to the 1-4 buttons by default, and it is all too simple to by chance chug them, particularly provided that activating your fight powers requires you to carry the fitting mouse button and press a type of 4 keys, too.
Exterior of fight, Seattle is a surprisingly small place, roughly 4 blocks by 4 blocks, lower than a sq. kilometer, all of it mendacity beneath a number of inches of snow and gearing up for Christmas celebrations. Much less an open world, extra a handful of very scenic streets that you’re going to shortly turn out to be very acquainted with. They’re beautiful environments although, with neon lights illuminating the snowy haze round buildings.
Inside and outside, every set is meticulously dressed, if often static. Curiously, texture element is wildly variable. Some partitions are coated with indicators which you could learn each little bit of fantastic print on, whereas others are illegible smears that look twenty years outdated. The whole lot appears to be like nice from a distance, however the insides of some rooms are full of those clashing property. Not less than the top result’s mercifully gentle on hard-drive area, with the sport clocking in at a comparatively svelte 25gb.
As scenic as Seattle’s streets is likely to be from a distance, they’re simply units for characters to behave towards. ‘Looking’ people for blood is a tedious course of however solely actually needed should you do not wish to trouble climbing to the rooftops to choose on randomly spawning packs of enemies for therapeutic. Whereas probably not offering any form of reward – fight supplies minimal XP, and there aren’t any cash or loot techniques right here – rooftop fights do get entertaining afterward within the recreation, when rival enemy factions plus Seattle’s police division flip the higher metropolis right into a messy warzone, whereas the locals under fake to not hear the fixed screaming and gunfire. Nonetheless, it is fight for fight’s sake, if the primary mission areas have not sated your bloodlust.
Again at road degree, the worst half is the sidequests, that are unquestionably unhealthy. Every of the six vampire clan representatives scattered round city presents a bit little bit of dialogue about themselves and their faction, a ‘romance’ choice that begins with awkward flirting and ends in a fade-to-black and a pair strains of eye-rolling dialogue, plus (most crucially) the choice to unlock powers from the opposite clans, letting you swap out any of your default 4 – the closest factor the sport has to RPG mechanics.
The issue being that to earn these unlocks, you have to do busy-work, and it’s the most shameless padding I’ve seen in any form of open world in a very long time. One vampire desires you to assassinate human targets. One desires you to assassinate named however in any other case common enemies across the map. One other presents fetch quests, and the final three need you to tediously scour the town for hard-to-spot collectibles. With out fail, they’re all time-wasters providing not a single attention-grabbing encounter, and may solely be engaged with should you actually need a particular energy from one other clan.
Bloodlines 2 does have a number of little flaws round its edges, a few of which may get patched in the midst of round half a 12 months of deliberate DLC, a few of that are unshakeably structural, however the story the sport tells saved me going till the top. It is a tightly written vampire homicide thriller, delivered extra theatrically than cinematically, with dialogue and exposition typically occurring with a handful of characters buying and selling verbal blows towards certainly one of The Chinese language Room’s exquisitely dressed backdrops. A number of pink herrings that really feel like dropped story threads from a extra bold iteration of the sport apart, it builds up the layers of intrigue properly, and virtually all of the solid (a pair dozen vampires and their minions) are simply the fitting steadiness of shifty and flamboyant sufficient to maintain you guessing at motivations, till the revelation-heavy ultimate act.
Funnily sufficient, two of the largest gamers within the story – the participant character and Ryong Choi, the newly-appointed ruler of the town’s vampire inhabitants – are the blandest. The latter being a by-the-books company sort as stiff as her pant go well with, and the previous’s motivations being yours to form, inside limits. Forcibly assigned the position of Seattle’s vampire ‘sheriff’ not lengthy into the story, whether or not Phyre is working for private achieve, a need to maintain vampire society on the down-low, or benevolence to man and bloodsucker alike is up so that you can select.
But it surely’s Fabien that steals the present. Even when taking part in as Phyre, he is a cheerful, advising voice in your head that offers every thing a bit extra color, and higher nonetheless once you’re taking part in as him throughout these prolonged flashback sections. He is a goofy Nineteen Twenties gumshoe archetype that simply occurs to be a vampire, not a lot searching as accepting blood donations from a handful of contacts round city, fueling his skill to have sassy items of proof back-talk him, or to interview suspects magically disguised as a random individual that the interviewee is aware of, leaving you to navigate dialogue bushes rigorously to determine who he is even taking part in the position of. His presence turns Bloodlines 2 right into a buddy cop drama with vampires. Phyre’s the nice/unhealthy/murderous straight man/girl (relying on the way you play them) and Fabien’s the humorous one. And it principally works.
However is ‘principally’ adequate to justify that steep price ticket? The general drawback right here is that in a 12 months filled with completely superb video games of all styles and sizes, Bloodlines 2 is merely okay. An entertaining mid-budget technique to go just a few evenings in a well-recognized setting. With the credit rolling after round 22 hours, together with some skippable sidequests, I am unable to deny that I loved most of my time with it, however not sufficient to have me replaying it any time quickly.
Not that there is a lot purpose to, both. A cursory try and yank the story off the rails by choosing each delinquent, confrontational dialogue choice resulted within the plot following the very same trajectory, with considerably snippier interactions with the solid and some new strains of incidental dialogue based mostly on clan alternative. Being an elder vampire implies that individuals will put up with a LOT of your bullshit, it appears. Other than some Fallout-esque epilogue slides based mostly in your few selections, there’s not a lot you are able to do to steer the story. Not an inherent flaw should you’re keen to guage this recreation by itself phrases, however a ultimate nail within the coffin for these hoping Troika’s legacy lives on by means of this recreation.
