I’m pretty sure those are gated by gameplay progression. Or maybe level. By the time I finished the storyline at level 32, I had a whole mess of both.
-Tom
Gotta land sometime. ;)
Finished the last boss earlier tonight, definitely a surprised hit for me this year. My only big complaint was that I felt that things got a little too repetitive in the late game; once you’ve upgraded the gear that you want to use, there’s no real need for anything else due to how little the items scale as you level. I kind of wish that there was one more rarity tier between the set legendary and the yellow rare just to give you some more oomph to go searching for chests and such. I will say that I love the idea of having challenges and things to do beyond just the hack and slash … or stab and blow up in my case.
I wish there had been content gated by the challenge stars. It would have been nice if they’d incentived those challenges somehow, with something related to actual gameplay. Especially since the"endgame" or “postgame” content is the elite challenges you unlock when you beat that last boss.
-Tom
Yeah, I was hoping for something like that too; some kind of bonus reward system for getting X amount of stars would have made that be a lot more motivating to go through. Otherwise, I don’t have it in me to do all the challenges.
I finally finished the game at level 32. An enjoyable little game (looks like about 15-17 hours total for a first play though); For the last third of the game, I ended up using a scythe / shotgun combo. I had optimized weapons and cards for defeating large numbers of monsters instead of taking down a single large boss. So, after a number of ignominious deaths, I ended up but had to swap out to sword/shotgun with diamond shield for the final confrontation. It is nice to be able to swap around builds as necessary.
The plot line is not terribly original and the writing is just terrible, but voice acting is quite good (with perhaps only a fair-to-middling job on a few of the side characters). Victor and “the voice” are well acted. Too bad they didn’t have anything interesting to say, and had to utter some very cringe-worthy lines.
I did not go after all the stars, and am also not certain I want to… After defeating the last boss, I found a treasure map that seems to be sending me out to previous locations to find treasures. Does anyone know what that is about? Is it similar to the treasure maps in Torchlight 2?
The treasure maps – and bounties, I believe, although I never got one of those – just give you loot once you collect each of them on the list. They’re designed to get you to spam the chat channel with treasure map codes. No joke. I think if you right click it, you send a code into general chat which people can then use to get your treasure map. It’s basically a half-assed attempt at some sort of social media interconnectivity.
As for the stars, did you notice the number of available stars doubles when you beat the last boss? In addition to the five stars for each map, now you have five “elite” stars!
-Tom
This is now $13+ at GreenManGaming with their 10% sale + voucher. Even though I’ve been pretty vocal about not liking games like Diablo 3 and Torchlight, this game sounds cool due to the dodging and jumping. I just don’t get engaged clicking on hordes of enemies, but it seems like this control scheme is more ‘actiony’ and would keep me feeling like I have a more active role. Is this a fair assessment?
I’ve had good luck lately getting games that I enjoy: Metal Gear Solid V, Dying Light, Crowntakers, Invisible Inc, Big Pharma. I want to keep the streak going! I still have Mad Max, Massive Chalice, and Telltale Game of Thrones on deck too! And I’m still on pace to spend at least $100 less on games than I did last year. Next year I want to cut spending down again.
Yes it is.
Thanks, got it. Don’t know if I can pull myself away from Dying Light to try it out right now, but hopefully soon.
Quitting during a level doesn’t let you resume at your last checkpoint? That’s not so good. I had to stop to eat dinner and when I resumed later I had to start the first level over after reaching the first checkpoint.
Took only 5+ minutes to catch up, but still annoying if there was tough stuff to redo.
Just got prompted for difficulty. A lot of times these types of action RPGs are easy in normal difficulty, but the game recommends normal for first playthrough. Any advice?
I always play the first time in Normal. With Victor Vran, I felt like the challenge was just right at that difficulty. The start of the game is easy, but difficulty ramps up in later areas in my experience.
I tried it on hard mode (or whatever it was called), and I found progressing was too slow and not much fun. Normal is fine, and you can make things harder later on in the game by enabling various hexes (these give you xp buffs but also make the game harder).
I’ve only completed the tutorial area and the Royal Gardens, but so far I like it. Using the controller to maneuver is making a big difference to me. Also, so far at least, the game is easier to read because while there are groups of enemies, it doesn’t get as crazy as Diablo. I’m not a big fan of when the screen is just filled with stuff - enemies and special attacks. So far that hasn’t happened in Victor Vran.
It’s pretty to look at and the music so far has been pretty pleasant too.
The Brood Mother spider was a lot of fun. Crowd control and not getting pinned it was a challenge. I don’t think I would have enjoyed it if not for the controller and the ability to dodge. I had to retry 8-10 times. The scythe was definitely my best bet and I didn’t try it until about 5 losses. I do have one worry - the player gains XP and levels up when they retry the boss battles (or replay any level), so I’m worried the balance will get out of whack for other levels. I must have gained 5 levels just during the times fighting that boss.
Victor Vran isn’t one of my favorite games by a long shot, but it is a good time for now.
From the number of stars it looks like there are 41 locations - does this sound about right (looks like 205 max stars with 5 per location)? I think I have a little over 20 revealed - 4 of them undone. If this is the case I still have a ways to go. I’m level 27 right now. I decided to play on hard. I’ve died a bunch of times but there really doesn’t seem to be any penalty other than losing my hardcore status. I tend to like to wade in with a sword, roll when I need to. I also have a decent crit chance at 50%, so I look for abilities based on crits.
Have you found any legendaries yet? They’re not as game-changing as in Diablo 3, but they do have some interesting perks.
Purple ones, right? I got some cards that I think were purple. No purple weapons yet.
Yeah, purple. I got a pretty cool rapier recently. I’ll try to take a screenshot of it later ;)