The Code Vein Demo Is Good, but Not Great
It’s easy to tell from the demo to tell that Code Vein is exactly the kind of experience Bandai Namco’s marketing and previews implied it would be. It’s a title remarkably similar to one of FromSoftware’s Souls games, though it distinguishes itself through an anime aesthetic. The sampling here is big enough to show the player the similarities and differences it will have compared to its inspiration. Some are for the better, but others are for the worse.
Following an initial bit of exposition, the game throws players with their created characters into the tutorial to learn its mechanics, like most other modern video games. Unlike better examples, there’s a full-on assault describing how the core action functions and what the controls do, easily enough to overwhelm even a player familiar with how Souls games work. There are hints in the menu, and the early difficulty in the first area is tailored towards learning how basic combat functions. But it’s easy to make it to the final or secret final areas of the demo and still have no idea what certain mechanics and features do. Hopefully the final game better segues players into the game, though the chances of that are low.
In the core gameplay, Code Vein’s development team tried their best to mimic the feel of a Souls game in terms of using basic weapons. Basic attacks feel similar, while the player character is capable of blocking or dodging– and given how hard enemies hit, they’ll need them. Several weapons and classes are available early on, which use basic swords, big broadswords and axes, spears (my preferred weapon), and slightly long-range guns. There’s also a drain attack, that — no, doesn’t refill health like in Bloodborne — but increases the amount of bonus magic a player can use, like Silver Bullets in… Bloodborne. There was bound to be some inspiration here.
By the way, there’s so much information the game requires you to take in and remember that I had to refresh my memory for this post, despite just playing the demo. There’s a bit too much to learn at once.
This all sounds fine, if pretty damned complicated, but the feel of the action doesn’t live up to the promise. Hitting enemies doesn’t have as satisfying a feel as it should, to the point that it sometimes feels like attacks whiff right through enemies when they actually don’t. This makes defeating enemies feel less satisfying. It’s interesting that something as ostensibly unimportant as this can hamper how thrilling a game feels, a lesson in how actually-important these factors are. This also helps turn some of the boss battles available into endurance tests rather than the tough-but-enjoyable bouts they ideally should be. Dodging also isn’t as intuitive as I’d like unless the player character’s equipment is “light.” There were times when I pressed the circle button to dodge, only to take a meaty hit anyway; at other points, I dodged after taking a hit.
It doesn’t help that the control scheme seems designed to piss off Souls fans, at least initially. Instead of mapping basic attacks to the shoulder buttons like FromSoftware’s titles and other inspirations like Lords of the Fallen, attacking is done with the face buttons. It’s easily enough to throw anyone adjusted to From’s games off for at least an hour, given how similar Code Vein otherwise feels mechanically. It’s not like, say, Team Ninja’s Nioh, where it makes sense for the face buttons to be used for attacks instead thanks to the mechanical differences. It also shows why the Souls games’ controls are mapped this way, so the player’s finger is never too far away from the dodging button, since enemies hit hard.
The partner system is a blessing and a curse. There are several of them to use in the demo, including chracters who aren’t part of the early story, and they can usually hold their own as well as a human player would. In fact, there were points early on where it felt like they were walloping enemies better than I could. But they can also get in the way in tight spaces, and there are quite a few of them in the demo. That’s also the fault of some odd enemy placements and an at-times uncooperative camera that zooms too far into the player — especially during bosses.
Due praise has to be given to the exemplary character creator, which includes so many options that it’s easy to spend hours creating either the perfect player character, or to create some that reference characters from other works. There’s fortunately also an option to tinker with the character in the game, though switching genders isn’t possible.
A prompt at the start of the Code Vein demo says it isn’t entirely representative of what the final product will be, and I hope that’s the case. The core action could use more polishing. But I have the feeling they wouldn’t have released this if it didn’t closely resemble the final game at this point. Fortunately, games always receive post-release updates, so it’s possible they could provide some gameplay tweaks the game desperately needs after it arrives on September 27th.
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Geoff
News Editor | Geoff is some nerd who writes for a blog and thinks he's knowledgeable. He write a lot about video games, but is capable of writing about other subjects, too. Twitter
