VICTOR VRAN PLUS

It’s a bit of a cheat.Īlso, I experienced some minor performance issues, even running on a GeForce GTX 980 Ti. I understand you don’t necessarily want a loot-based game to have levels devoid of enemies, but it led to me playing the game in a very specific way-completing all five Challenges on the hub world and discovering all sublevels, then accessing those sublevels from the level select screen instead of running back to them across the hub.

But for some reason the game re-hides the map and repopulates all the enemies in the hub world if you go back to the shop to sell anything or if you quit the game. For instance, each area is actually a massive hub and four or five smaller sub-levels. If you’re not here to click on enemies and watch them die, you’re definitely not going to stick around for the story. There’s something about a queen screwing up her kingdom, a ghost who spouts Nietzsche, and a narrator known only as “The Voice” who does a silly Stanley Parable imitation, but it’s all largely inconsequential. And also Victor is voiced by Doug Cockle, the guy who voices Geralt for us English-speaking Witcher players. I started writing an entire review of Victor Vran focused on the story, and quickly realized what a mistake that would be-because it really doesn’t matter. I’m pretty sure Challenges are what’s keeping me hooked to Victor Vran, because it sure isn’t the story. I’ve restarted maps upwards of a dozen times just to complete some pointless Challenge. Each map is tricked out with five normal and five elite Challenges-everything from “Find six secrets” to “Slay fifty monsters within 120 seconds with a hammer.” They’re entirely optional, they’re pretty much entirely for bragging rights, and yet I can’t stop trying to finish them. This modular approach to character classes also plays into Victor Vran’s other hook: Challenges. Since skills are tied to weapons, there’s a solid reason to keep around that shotgun or that hammer in your inventory, even if you only use it once every hour or two for specific boss enemies. The upshot is you’ll swap gear more often than, say, Diablo. Literally everything you pick up is loot,” a.k.a. Victor Vran takes the loot game to its logical end, which is “Everything is loot.

Victor Vran belongs on /r/punchablefaces.

VICTOR VRAN PLUS

Plus there’s an honest-to-goodness jump button. The correct way to play is with WASD movement or a controller, similar to the Diablo III console port. While you can play with click-to-move controls, this seems like more a concession to purists than anything else. Victor Vran somewhat overhauls a genre that for years has been primarily about click-click-clicking on enemies. And to its credit, that’s what Victor Vran is best at. There’s something about careening into a group of enemies with a scythe in hand (yes, a gosh darn scythe) and clicking on them until they die that’s…oddly satisfying. It’s true though-aRPGs get their hooks in deep. If I had unlimited funding and knew a bunch of hard-up scientists, I might set them to studying the problem instead of finding a cure for cancer or whatever it is scientists do all day.

I don’t know why a well-crafted aRPG is so addictive. And to be honest, it’s pretty much all you need. “ Something something I kill monsters because I am a monster hunter,” says titular character Geralt of Rivia Victor Vran (paraphrasing) and that’s about all the introduction you get in this game.