Hi! It's always nice to see a new blog, and you have a post style really similar to mine so I really enjoyed your review. Screenshots are great and you actually convinced me to introduce them in my next review, and you also scratched the itch for a VTM playthrough.

You mentinoed Arcanum, if you tolerate very old and clunky bird-view party cRPGs is a really unique game to play. The game is set in a steampunk setting where classic fantasy race live and are exploited by factory owners, and mages wield great powers but are discriminated since their powers can uncontrollably blow up everything randomly. A very unique setting that wasn't replicated in any other game, if I remember right.

Hey! I really appreciate the words and the reply, thanks for stopping by! I checked out your blog as well and I had a great time reading them, I can definitely see the similarities haha. Yeah, I wasn't sure about screenshots at first but the review ended up being super long with the whole gameplay section so I thought it would help break up some of the words.

I'll definitely look into it because I have a soft spot for old CRPGs (as infuriating they can be sometimes). And, after a little more digging into Troika, some of it's members worked on the original Fallout games so that gives me even more reason to check it out. Thanks for the suggestion!

Hey everyone, I'm Jared! Or...JAW562, JAW9801, JAW8773, Jetstraxzon??, and RedeX depending on your preferred corner of the internet. I'm just a guy who likes playing video games and writing annnnnnndddd who also needed some sort of accountability to get through my enormous backlog. It's been growing for quite some time and shows no sign of stopping. But, seeing as we have a little over a month before Dragon Age: Veilguard comes out, I have some time to tackle these games so let's just get into it yeah? Also if, for some reason, you want to see more of me, my profile has reviews of games I won't put on here as well as a link to my Twitch where I playthrough even more stuff that most likely won't be on here.

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines

Developer: Troika Games
Completed: 9/4/24
Steam Page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2600/Vampire_The_Masquerade__Bloodlines/

Man this game was weird. So I believe I picked this up maybe five years ago on sale? I'm not 100% sure or anything just that it was an RPG and I have a crippling RPG addiction that requires I buy any of them if they are on sale. Especially if they're weird ones from the early 2000s, I go apeshit for those. No matter how long it's been, this game had been sitting in my backlog for way too long so I figured it was time to actually play it.

For those unfamiliar, Vampire The Masquerade, or VTM as I will now be calling it, is a TTRPG game where you play as a vampire or something. Listen, I played the game, I didn't do my research, I'm a D&D guy and I don't really look at many other tabletop games. Either way, this is an RPG, based on a TTRPG, released in 2004 by Troika Games who made ??? before this. They did do some games before this, something called Arcanum which probably involves Wizards in some way, I don't know and I don't care. What I do know is they released this and closed not too long after when they tried to bid for the rights to Fallout 3, and we all know how that turned out. Still, the genre and release year were enough to get me interested so how did playing it actually go I hear you pondering?

If you just want to know my score, skip down to “The Verdict” section. I won’t mind.



The Story
Listen, I am not going to do this game's story justice okay? It's really good, probably the best part about it, but I really don't have enough time or patience to write a full summary so this is gonna go quick.

Set against the seedy backdrop of LA, we join our protagonist after a night of presumably rough sex. You (your character, not you pervert) find yourself turned into a vampire by your chosen partner. Not five seconds after finishing, some other vampires bust in and stake both you and your partner. You awake to find yourself and your partner on a play stage being observed by a group of particularly pale people while some pale pretty boy, named The Prince, goes on about how you guys broke code and stuff. The Prince then gives an order to his HUGE bodyguard to execute your partner, which happens quickly. Before the same is able to happen to you, a man in the audience, named Nines, calls "Bullshit!" on the whole affair and The Prince relents, allowing you to work directly for him in support of the Camarilla.

As I said earlier, I know nothing of VTM itself but you learn a decent bit about the Camarilla in game. In simple terms, it's a group of Vampires that come in and try to enforce certain rules like don't kill innocents or don't reveal yourself to humans, shit like that. However, when they come into a town and try to establish themselves, the current resident Vampires don't take too kindly to that and they often try to rally against them, calling themselves Anarchs, who in LA are led by Nines, the man who saved you from execution. Later we also get introduced to the Kuei-jin who are a whole different kind of vampire from the far east but that's really all you need to know about the story without going into spoilers. The story revolves around you working for all these different people and then finally deciding at the end who will stay in LA once and for all.

It's a simple premise for sure, but the world and the characters along the way really make up for all of that. LA is a grimy ass town that really makes you feel like you could see anything from a Vampire to a Zombie around the next corner, and LA in the game isn't so bad either. All jokes aside, the setting of the game does a great job of making you think that Vampires aren't the most dangerous thing in this world and that humans can sometimes be just as dangerous, and when a lot of the missions deal with human and vampire affairs intermingling, then the world truly does accent the game well. As mentioned before, the characters are also pretty damn great. Most of the important ones you meet are also vampires and they always have something to say about the current situation or the different factions vying for control. Who knew the vampire world was so politically charged? You also gotta realize that most of these guys have been alive for decades if not centuries so it's always a good time hearing more about their backstories and origins.

While a lot of the dialogue is great and pretty witty, some of it can be a bit much, especially in what YOU can choose to say. LIke most older RPGs, you have two personality types you can take in conversation: one of a normal, polite person, and one of an asshole who has no time for anyone's shit and does not care. I chose the former most of the time while choosing the latter for select people. Some of the lines you can choose though, man, it’s just a lot sometimes. I remember there specifically being a line that referenced the Bush Administration, a lot of the flirting lines were super over the top, and, of course, the different ways you can say goodbye, my favorite being: “This scene is dead. See ya.” It’s a nitpick really but I would be lying if it didn’t get an eye roll or a groan occasionally.

That’s really all I wanted to mention when it came to the story, it ends on a pretty satisfying note, at least in the ending I chose, and it leaves a decent bit of speculation to where you would want to go back and play another game in this universe. Though we have to wait another year before we can do that, according to the Steam Page for VTMB 2 at least.



The Gameplay
This’ll probably be the biggest section of them all, there’s a decent bit to go over with the gameplay, including: Classes, abilities and disciplines, combat, hacking, lockpicking and conversation routes, and level design. Simple enough right? Similar to the story section, I’ll give a short overview on all of it and then give my opinions.

Classes- Classes, or Clans as this game calls it, are where your disciplines, beginning abilities, and even appearance come from. I'll give them all a short overview.



Venture: These guys are basically Vampire royalty. They are often in positions of power and use their powers to "persuade" others to get to do what they want. Not too physical and have access to powers that are useful in conversation. I didn't choose this one mainly because they seemed too prissy for my taste.

Tremere: Blood mages if I remember correctly and I'm pretty sure the most overpowered class in the game? Don't quote me on that. I'm sure they have access to a bunch of different powers that others don't have but they aren't good at punching things so I didn't choose this one. Also the male version really reminds me of Dennis from It's Always Sunny.

Toreador: Basically your social class through and through, they're good at talking to and charming others. Not much more about them but this was my second choice simply because I always like choosing the talking route over the combat route in games, still though, if I need to punch something, I want to be able to, and these guys didn't cut it.

Nosferatu: EWWW I hear you say. Yep, these guys live up to their name for sure. Looking like the titular Nosferatu, this is that class in old school RPGs that changes completely how you play the game. Am I crazy in thinking that's a regular thing in these games? Like that class that clearly the game devs had a ton of fun coming up with and adding but it just changes the whole flow of the game so most people don't choose it? I don't know, maybe I am crazy. Either way, this is a stealth class for sure. The Nosferatu aren't allowed to be seen above ground by humans so they have to stick to the sewers to get around, they do have access to some sneaky powers though so it isn't super impossible. I clearly didn't choose these guys not only because I don't like sneaking, but also because I didn't want to look like a mole rat.

Gangrel: Loner fighters who fancy themselves beastly. Did that make any sense? Good because I'm not repeating it. The Gangrel are pretty decent at fighting and have some unique powers that let them tap into their animalistic urges. These guys were maybe my third choice but I really didn’t want to constantly be sitting on the ground like a schmuck so I moved on.
Malkavian: Ever wanted to play as a crackhead vampire? Perfect, here’s your chance to. Malkavians are interesting in the fact that, in conversation, they hear voices that tell them things, things you can use to unlock unique dialogue with whoever you're talking to. Reading wiki articles about these guys, it’s crazy to see just how much unique dialogue they get so if you like the sound of that, choose them. I didn’t because the male Malkavian genuinely freaks me out with his energy.

Brujah: BRUJAH FOR LIFE BROTHER! Have you ever wanted to walk in a room full of decked out vampires and be able to kill every single one of them with just your fists and your super speed. Good, you’ve made the right choice then. Brujah really like punching shit but their not the best socially, while that aspect upsetted me, I really like punching stuff and I figured I’d get better at the persuasive arts later, which I did, so I got my perfect character with the Brujah.

At the end of the day, this really only influences your starting stats, appearance, and your powers (AKA Disciplines). You can change your stats later with XP points so you're really not locked out of anything. The only ones who are, however, are the Nosferatu, who can never increase their seduction because they are ugly as sin, which makes sense.



Disciplines and Abilities- What are those disciplines you keep talking about I hear you asking. Well they’re vampire powers, that’s really it. And, as said above, each clan gets their own unique three, some are not fully unique to themselves, but some are. Now, if you think I’m going to give a run down on all of them, you must be smoking something. Basically all I’ll say is that most are passives that buff your character in some way, and some are targeted which do things to your enemies. Also, everyone (I think) gets access to Bloodbuff which just makes you a bit better at ability checks, speaking of abilities…

Abilities! There’s a ton of them and they all buff various things, like your damage with guns or with melee weapons or how good you are at making speech checks, blah blah blah. Listen, you’ve probably played a video game before so you understand these are super important yeah? You can increase these using XP points, which you don’t gain from leveling up, there are no levels in this game. You just get a variable number of XP points depending on the activity you’ve done and then you're free to use those to increase any ability you want. That’s a little different but I promise that’s all there is. I wouldn’t lie to you just so I don’t have to write more…probably.



Combat- Well let’s get the good out of the way first yeah? The combat in this game wasn’t what I was expecting! I was really expecting something turn based or tactical, imagine my surprise when I got a full blown Action RPG instead! It was really kind of refreshing, obviously it didn’t revolutionize the genre or anything, but it did something different that I don’t ever expect of RPGs around this time so I have to give it props. What else…what else…oh yeah! It’s not unfairly hard! Any challenge the game gives you is usually well deserved and doesn’t come out of nowhere, it has a good difficulty curve. Uhhhh, yeah I think that’s it honestly.

It’s not like this game has terrible combat or anything, it just isn’t the greatest. In battles, you have three choices of dispatching your foes: Fists/Melee, Guns, or Magic. Now I’m not sure about the magic part as I played Brujah and they only have passive buffs they can apply to themselves, I believe some of the others have target magic? It said so in the tutorial so I’m adding it here. Anyway, your main choice is between Fists/Melee and Guns, whatever floats your boat. Combat from there is just spamming your powers and M1 until your enemies die. I honestly don’t have anything more to say, I wish I did. There is stealth and stealth kills! And that’s all I’ll say about that. But you’re not playing this game for the combat, you're playing it for the story, so it’s serviceable enough.



Hacking, Lockpicking, and Conversation Routes - I put all of these together mainly because there's not much to say about them, they're all pretty important, and they all get you through obstacles that can’t be handled with fighting.

Now Hacking and Lockpicking are actually handled pretty differently in this game. It isn’t done through a minigame; here, it’s a simple ability check. Based on a combination of different abilities on your character sheet, the game will decide if you can pass the difficulty of a lock or a hack, and if you can’t, your shit out of luck. I found it kind of interesting that both have animations but neither are done through minigames and instead are just handled automatically. I actually kind of liked it. Normally, I can appreciate the diversity the minigames offer to the normal gameplay flow but here, I enjoyed how it wasn’t interrupted. Something to note about computers though, their passwords don’t change, and since computers are operated through your real life keyboard, you can just cheese every terminal in the game if you find the password online. I would be 100% lying if I said I didn’t do this once…or twice…or more.

Conversation routes are just as straight forward. Every now and then in conversation, you’ll have access to special colored dialogue with a unique font, special right? Each color corresponds to a different check: green is intimidation, blue is persuasion, and pink is seduction. And, if you have a high enough value, these will appear in dialogue and often lead you to discover new things or get past certain obstacles, the usual shit. The thing I find interesting with these though is that the dialogue won’t appear at all if you don’t pass the difficulty check. I feel like in most games it would be grayed out, but not here, just something to note.



Level Design- Now I normally don’t really talk about level design unless: it’s really integral to the game, there’s an example of really stellar design, or an egregious sin against the level design gods is committed. You can probably guess which one I’ll talk about here.

THE FINAL TWO LEVELS OF THIS GAME BLOOOOWWWWW.

Alright, I’ll be saying something that could probably be considered spoiler-like here but I don’t really think it is. I chose an ending that I believe had me go through two separate final levels. I think in other endings, you only have to go to one or the other. So am I a bit biased when I say that both of them sucked when I didn’t have to go through both of them? Yes. Does that change anything? No. The last two levels of this game are a goddamn slog of never ending enemies and confusing maze-like areas. Throw in one or two puzzles that make no sense and boy howdy do we have a recipe for disaster.

If these took place earlier in the game, I wouldn't mind as much and I probably wouldn’t mention it, but the fact that it happens right before the final bosses? It evokes a feeling that a player should NEVER feel when playing a game and can one that can wholly ruin their enjoyment. The feeling of: “I just want this to be over with already.” Some may argue that it’s not that bad if it happens late in the game since it’s already almost over, I completely disagree with this. I feel like if it happens toward the end, that feeling is super fresh in you once the game ends and that it permeates your thoughts about it. If it happens earlier on, there may be a part right after that changes your mind or maybe the story propels you forward to finish it. There’s upsides and downsides to both but either way, it’s a horrible feeling that shouldn’t be felt at all.



The Graphics
I’m not really a graphics snob so this section is going to be damn short. I figured I’d add it because there’s one part of this game's graphics that I do want to praise.

Overall, the graphics are serviceable. Certain bits have a little less…love put in than others, like a lot of the background characters' faces. But the bits that had attention put on them look fine, with some obvious aging included. BUT, the part that I really wanted to mention was the facial animation .

This area of the game must have taken some serious work and it paid off. Every conversation you have with any talkable character has their own unique lip syncs AND animations. Some animations used by characters are only used in that conversation and NEVER AGAIN, NEVER TO BE REUSED. Most modern games, not even RPGs, don’t do that. I know I’m probably overreacting but I just think that’s so cool they took the time to do that and the game definitely got some brownie points with me for that.

The Verdict
With just about every aspect of the game covered, or at least the ones that factored into my decision. I believe we can come to a solid verdict. Overall, I’d give the game a solid:

8/10

While a lot of what the game does is serviceable, not spectacular, it has something that I think is more important than any of that: it has heart. I know that sounds lame but trust me, it’s the quality that makes games truly good and can cover up a lot of their faults. I felt a lot of the developers' hearts when I played this game, each corner of the game had little details I loved and they clearly cared about the TTRPG itself and they wanted more people to experience its world. And I’m glad I did.

I know I joked about them at the start but it’s truly a shame Troika Games shut down so soon, I would have loved to see more of them, and would’ve even liked to see their take on Fallout 3. And you know what? Maybe I will check out Arcanum, Wizards aren’t as cool as Vampires, but at least I’ll get to see more of Troika.

AND THAT”S IT. My first big review of a game on my backlog. It felt good to write this and it was damn fun so hopefully you’ll see more of me soon. If you read this whole thing, thanks, hell if you chose to skip just to the verdict and read that, thanks. Either way, you took the time to read my stupid words, and that means a lot to me.

What’s next, well it’s a long one, and I’ve already started it. I’m thinking I’ll write some more reviews on other games I’ve completed recently or I’ll provide updates on this one. Either way, I’ll see you all, eventually, in the Kingdom of Bohemia!

Could have been better for sure...