| Title | Why I'll be playing Code Vein long after I've given up on Dark Souls |
| Author | Tom Chick |
| Posted in | Game reviews |
| When | December 25, 2020 |
It would be easy to fire up Code Vein, run around some of the early game areas, and conclude that it's a Dark Souls soul in an anime body (amply bosomed ladies and androgynous boys with spiky coifs and freakishly large eyes). You wouldn't be wrong..
Yours is the first take on this game to actually get me interested. I just assumed it was some waifu game with Soulsy combat, but those systems sound like they’ve got a nice crunch to 'em.
I love a game that lets you really mix things around. I may need to pick this up - I’ve been totally unaware of it up till now.
Wow yeah, I was already interested, but this moves the game up several notches on my priority list. Sounds like a fun set of systems to experiment with.
I’m the reverse, this review told me why I would probably fall asleep playing it. What’s a game without frustrazzzzz…
Also you can totally change your skill set at any time during Dark Souls too: try equiping another weapon.
Just remember that Tom loves his systems! I thought the demo was a little mediocre. If it came to PC Game Pass, I might play it anyway.
I have it here in my backlog waiting for me. One question, though. Are there spiders in the game? How many?
I found this
if the spiders look like this, I am okay. I stopped Bloodborne because of it. I was pretty far, but I just hate Fromsoft now for their effing spiders. In every damn effing game of them. Screw you Fromsoft and your stupid games. I think Dark Souls 1 was free of them, good for you, game!
I had to stop playing EDF. It just makes me feel bad…
if I remember correctly, except for some mutant dogs and a couple pinwheels spiky balls, all the enemies are humanoid, with the closest thing to a spider being large stalky mantis type robots or something.
Tom, did you get to name her Sarah Palin or customising her to look like one?
You can definitely finesse the character creation.
I skip all the cutscenes and just imagine my own. In fact, the game I’m playing in my head is called Code Vein: The Adventures of Young Sarah Palin. That’s not weird or anything, is it? You also pick a codename for when you’re playing online. I chose Wasila Fox, because it sounds like what Sarah Palin would be called in a Metal Gear Solid game.
-Tom
That’s an extra star in the review right there. Everyone adjust your expectations accordingly!
This read to me as “I wish I was better at Dark Souls” :)
This is in fact exactly what put me off about the demo, and the mechanics were sufficiently opaque that I deleted it and didn’t look again. I’m tremendously grateful for the review because the game you’re describing sounds like something I’d like to play (very much unlike Dark Souls, incidentally).
Bought. Played for a couple hours and really enjoy it.
I really don’t like Souls games but this is definitely not as hard and it controls really well.
Thanks for the Best of 2019!
It’s really easy to grind, which isn’t my experience with other games like this (although I remember a ton of loot in Nioh). Since bad guys are constantly dropping loot you can sell, there’s a far more generous economy than in most other Dark Souls style games. And the add-on dungeons felt like leveling up gimmes.
Also, Code Vein really wants you to play with an AI sidekick, which takes a lot of the pressure off you. Even when you add another player into the game, you still get an AI buddy! However, I recommend leaving your AI buddies back at the hub when you decide to actually knuckle down to learn the gameplay mechanics. It kind of sucks when you’re trying to practice and Mia keeps sniping your dance partner. :)
-Tom
All this was explained in the tutorial before I started the game, but your review explains it much better Tom.
So if the Code is the class, and you level up the codes, then if I level up a fighter, then my other classes will be relatively weaker compared to my fighter code, right? So do you try to keep all codes equally leveled up?
Ah, but you don’t level up the codes. They’re static. Some of them have missing pieces you have to find before you have access to all their gifts, but they don’t level up. They will always come with a set of basic attributes (strength, dexterity, etc) and a set of inherent gifts (that you can use to unlock for other codes). That won’t change.
Leveling up in Code Vein comes down to two things: 1) You can spend “money” to level up your character, which gives you more hit points and stamina (I think leveling also adds to the stat that determines the effectiveness of gifts). These will then be further affected by the attributes you set when you choose a code. For instance, codes with high vitality naturally give you more hit points, and code with high fortitude give you more stamina. But on top of that, you’ll always keep whatever you earned from leveling up.
And 2) your weapons and blood veil can be upgraded with a crafting system, which is also one of the main “money” sinks. Improving weapons and veils is one of the progression tracks, although it’s still a pretty loot rich game in terms of what you find as you’re playing.
-Tom
I bought it a year ago now, played it for a couple days then stopped cause it felt boring and barren. Lost interest then the dlc came and the reviews were piss poor. Bandai by itself can’t manage a single anime game right. Character customization was amazing I will say
it takes a couple hours before the importance of certain passives and skills begin to fall into place. I was bouncing off the game pretty hard until somewhere around the 3 hour mark. Then it clicked and because I had unlocked a few more class codes by then I was able to spend more time customizing my character and playing around with different weapon types.
This is one of the few games I’ve given 3 hours to click. I’m normally not that patient at all.
This review was well written, but I do think that if you believe Code Vein’s “respec on the fly” system is unique in the souls-like genre, you’ve missed some games. The Surge is almost identical in that you only have one core leveling money sink that impacts all builds, the other money sink is in equipment upgrades, and your class is entirely driven by your gear.
There’s probably a little less depth overall, and there are definitely a lot less options in the early game. You start with 1 of 2 sets of gear and have to defeat enemies to get new gear and the early areas only offer 1 new easily accessed set (which is the other one you didn’t pick to start) and 1 other that comes from a single kind-of-hidden enemy. Code Vein literally starts you with 3 codes and will give you like 4 more from the NPCs as soon as you complete the tutorial area. But still, the idea of Dark Souls without forced specialization is there and you get cyber punk instead of anime waifus.