CODE VEIN
Ever wanted to be a vampire? Ever wanted to be in an anime? Ever wanted to realise that character creation hell exists and that we might, in fact, be able to attain too much creative freedom? Ever wanted to see an expansion on the God Eater universe that has absolutely nothing to do with God Eater at all, leaving you absolutely frustrated at the lack of dedication to genuinely good future content for the game you’re playing? Code Vein’s for you!
● Action RPG
● Released 31 / 05 / 2019
● Developed by BANDAI NAMCO Studios
● Published by BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment
● Platform: Xbox One / PS4 / PC
[played on PC]
Reviewed: 10/06/2020
CODE VEIN - which I’m not going to always capitalise because fuck you, it’s dumb - is in my humble opinion a decent entry into the Souls-style genre of games that is considerably more approachable for those who are considering dipping their toes into said genre in the first place. It’s not a perfect game by any means, with some balancing issues here and there, frustrating moments and frankly irritating bugs that were a little too frequent for my enjoyment, but it’s definitely a game you can have fun with. Unlike the Souls connoisseurs (those brave fellows who seem to believe that if every game claiming to be Souls-like isn’t constantly beating you into the ground like an abusive spouse with anger management problems, then it isn’t worthy of being categorised as a Souls-like at all) I’m going to go out on a limb and say that this game honestly does a very good job of finding a balance between rewarding skilled play and good preparation, punishing ill-timed reckless or greedy plays, and providing challenging content that is neither too easy nor too frustratingly hard.
I am pretty confident when I say that I don’t think that this is how ladders work. At all.
There are, of course, moments when the game misses the mark on striking that balance.
Code Vein’s biggest and most egregious flaw is that it loses huge momentum upon entering the Cathedral of Sacred Blood, which is roughly half way through the game. Not only does this area make you question if FromSoftware considered a lawsuit given the fact you could be forgiven for thinking you just walked into Anor Londo, but the Cathedral is both entirely too long and far too samey. It is by far one of the longest areas in the game and everything, very tediously, looks the same with practically no landmarks to help you navigate it. The checkpoints (called Mistles) in the Cathedral are also terribly placed, being incredibly sparse and at arguably very poor locations, which makes dying anywhere in the Cathedral feel unfairly punishing given that - like any good Souls-like - death resets all enemy spawns and you lose all your Haze (aka Souls aka currency aka the shit you always want to be saving.) It is, funnily enough, this Cathedral that also houses one of the most infamously challenging mini-bosses in the game: the grand asshole himself, Argent Wolf Berserker. This absolute hulking chode of a mini-boss might have been fun to fight if he wasn’t the size of a brick shithouse, had the ability to OHKO you with surprising range, and demanded that you fight him in arena so small that I actually don’t even think it deserves to be called an arena.
Fuck this boss.
There are other similarly frustrating areas, too. One of the end-game areas that we’re just going to call “Memories Of…” to save on spoilers is a city map with tediously narrow corridors filled with blind turns, hidden alleys and a layout that makes pretty much no sense. It takes a lot of thought to create a map in tight spaces that still feels good to actually play through and, unfortunately, Code Vein fails to achieve this during the Memories Of chapter - monsters aren’t placed particularly well, it’s too easy to be ambushed through no real fault of your own and the map never really provides you with accurate ‘breaks’ with larger spaces to get your bearings. It’s just narrow corridors filled with enemies that want to - and will - fuck your shit up.
In fact, if we’re being entirely honest, the environment and map design is probably Code Vein’s absolute weakest point. Though all the maps are visually different, and I like the style of the graphics (really, I do!) I don’t remember ever enjoying exploring. Maps always felt annoying at best and, at worst, downright terrible. Some were better than others, and felt like more thought went into monster placement as well as monster design. Interestingly enough, I actually think that the Depths are some of the best designed maps that Code Vein has to offer, which is strange, because the Depths maps are all optional challenge maps that don’t really look that different from one another as you go through them, and aren’t mandatory in the slightest in order to beat the story. Even then these maps suffer from “same enemy” syndrome and in turn they all wind up eventually feeling boring as you wind up fighting the same enemies in a slightly different corridor. I suppose for a vampire with immortal life, “same shit, different day” is a problem they inevitably have to contend with at some point, but that doesn’t really excuse the fact that it’s just bad game design.
Why, then, despite this criticism, do I say that I found Code Vein fun and think it’s a good first entry into the Souls genre for any who might be interested?
It’s the combat! And also the character customisation too, but mostly, it’s the combat.
Code Vein’s combat system is built upon a flexible and surprisingly customisable class system, with classes called “Blood Codes”. As you progress through the game, you will obtain different Blood Codes, with each one containing a minimum of at least four skills (often more) that you can level up using the Haze you get. Blood Codes can be switched at Mistles in the game for no cost, and beyond that, many Blood Codes contain skills that - once maxed out - can be equipped even when you aren’t running that specific Blood Code. This allows you to hybridise a build based on your preferred style of play with a genuinely surprising amount of flexibility that I don’t think I’ve seen in other Souls-likes before; you can mix and match from the several different caster Blood Codes to become an absolute magical monster, you can mix and match different buff skills with passive damage increases to become a very nimble but extremely fragile glass cannon, or you can even specialise in becoming a supportive healer (since Code Vein allows co-operative play with other players and also provides you with an NPC companion, meaning healing in this game can be of genuine value!) Some Blood Codes are more powerful than others, of course, with Queenslayer build being the most infamous for the “Final Journey” skill that significantly boosts your damage output, but will eventually kill you unless you defeat the boss encounter in time. That said, if you have a problem with a Blood Code that feels “too powerful” it might surprise you to learn that you can simply not equip that Blood Code.
It is a solid foundation that the rest of the combat in the game builds upon with, generally speaking, success. Because the class system is robust enough to support some very fun combinations of skills, buffs and passives, Code Vein combat can prove to be quite dynamic and encounters can quite drastically change in how you should approach them based in how you choose to play. Better still, as the game does support multiple New Game+ playthroughs (with the option of increasing difficulty each playthrough, if you really want to seek out challenges) you’re genuinely encouraged to try out different Blood Codes and find ones that you find fun and engaging to use. Personally, I always found a lot of fun using one-handed swords and playing highly mobile, utilising stuns on bosses when they had openings so I could glide in and stab them, and then glide back out. As such, I really loved playing with Final Gambit when I got it because it added significant risk/reward to the way I played; I was already an extremely fragile build when playing and using Final Gambit put me on a time limit that would slowly force me into riskier plays the longer a fight went on. Boss fights are genuinely fun and engaging and outside of Sir Shitlord Wolfzerker in the Cathedral, who was just rage inducing at all times and wasn’t even fun to beat, I regularly felt like I was getting better with every failure and beating bosses always felt rewarding. Even the second most frustrating boss that I can recall - one of the earlier ones, in fact and on thinking about it, all the earlier bosses were more teeth-gnashing than later ones - was at least extremely rewarding to beat when I eventually cut them down.
That said, I do have to dock points from Code Vein for not having more bosses. The game isn’t short as such, but it feels shorter because there’s actually not as many bosses as you’d think the game could have. Worse still, the Depths don’t have any new bosses at all, and all use slightly more challenging versions of the story bosses. Which is… I mean it’s just a shame. Bosses are easily the strongest point of Code Vein, so the fact there’s so few overall is something I really have to criticise. Speaking of things to criticise, I guess Code Vein also has a story, but to be honest… not the best story I’ve ever seen. It’s just your average anime story. Maybe a bit painfully average, but not bad either. There’s not much to say about the story other than Louis is the best waifu, and Io is my favourite partner.
In Conclusion
I enjoyed Code Vein, and I think overall, it’s a game worth playing. It definitely has flaws, and it almost certainly isn’t for everybody: those who prefer rock hard games will likely find it too easy on a first playthrough (though NG+ scales dramatically hard if you enable difficulty scaling) and there might be those who just can’t jive with the anime style. If you have any familiarity with Souls-likes however, and you enjoy them, then there’s a lot to enjoy here. The class system is extremely flexible and there really are dozens of builds you can play with. Many boss encounters, with only a few exceptions, are legitimately fun and feel rewarding to learn and beat without feeling like they unfairly punish you for a bad play. Combat is typically always fun, even against smaller enemies, and there is always satisfaction to be had in revisiting past areas for any loot you may have missed and crushing an enemy that once gave you trouble. I’ll also say here that, personally, I enjoyed the difficulty of Code Vein and found it to be generally well balanced throughout, with only a few areas that felt frustratingly unfair or forced. I have yet to play the DLC for this game, so I may make a separate review for the DLC specifically at a later date and it’s why I haven’t spoken about it here.
+ The Good
Extremely robust class system that’s remarkably well balanced and gives incredible flexibility to players
Genuinely cool boss designs, and fun boss encounters overall that encourage strategic play and learning tells
Fantastic character customisation that is, honestly, an entire game unto itself and can have hours sunk into it
Combat is fun and can be as chaotic or as controlled as you want it to be based on how you choose to approach any situation
- The Bad
There are simply not enough different bosses in a game where bosses are the highlight
Level design overall is lacklustre, with some in particular being very badly designed
Enemy variety struggles in the same capacity that boss variety does
Painfully average anime story
