The Hunter's Tale

A medieval kingdom is under siege by seemingly every force of darkness in the world. Which is probably very relaxing for the rest of the world. But it's all hands on deck for the Hunter's Guild to try and deal with the problem, and that includes Victor Vran, a Hunter with a little demon heritage in him, about which he is naturally broody and dour. You think he'd be happy he could create a bubble around him that slows his opponents, or shoots beams of pure sunlight from his hand, but nooooooooooo, not our boy.

In terms of gameplay, Victor Vran is much like the Diablo games. That isometric perspective as you run through halls and streets and sewers. Hordes of enemies swarm you, and you kill them with weapons or special attacks. The weapons also have various attacks, but there's a recharge time between uses. What seems like an excruciatingly long recharge time in some cases. There's also a recharge time on support items, like health potions, which is a really stupid game mechanic. If Victor has 50 health potions, and he needs one, why would he not use it, just because he used one not long ago? You can't take them with you when you die! (Although maybe you could if you died and were reborn as a vampire, but that's not what happens in the game.)

There are a variety of weapons, ranged and melee, and seemingly endless varieties of each one, all with different stats or special perks. This one has better armor piercing, or a higher chance of critical hit. This one causes frost damage with a crit, or gives you health back for a kill, or boosts your Overkill meter (which is the yellow bar, that lets Victor use his Demon powers.) You can switch between weapons and Demon powers and these little Tarot cards you pick up, that provide different boosts, when you return to the castle. Which usually happens whenever you complete a specific mission, but if things are going badly, you can always just call it a day and go back when you want.

I tended to stick with the scythe and the shotgun. I started with the rapier, because I think one-handed swords are cool, but the scythe had a certain stylistic appeal. I also tried the lightning gun for the ranged weapon, but just didn't like how it was working (or not, as the case may be.) Back to the boomstick it was! If it's good enough for Ash Williams, it's good enough for Victor Vran. 

There are a lot of levels in and around (and under) the city. Caves, sewers, marketplaces, farms, even a circus. Oh, and tombs. Lots of tombs, actually, which I guess isn't too surprising, but given the size and number of cemeteries, it feels like one of the Old West towns where the undertaker is the only one with any business. Only some of these levels have to be visited for plot purposes, but when you access the map from the castle, you can pick basically whichever level you want to explore. A few do have level restrictions, where they won't open until you reach Level 10 or whatever (I think you max out at 30.)

There are usually hidden chests and a handful of challenges to try and complete. Kill x number of spiders in a certain amount of time. Kill this many enemies without potions or shrines in a certain amount of time. There are also certain runes or something like that you can apply to Victor which make things harder, and are required for certain challenges. I didn't mess with that. I wasn't here to try and set some world record, I'm just trying to beat the game and save the city.

Plus, once I got into the later levels, I started dying a lot. Maybe because I wasn't switching to new, better weapons or being smarter about using Demon powers, I don't know. I just kept using the same scythe and shotgun for like 15 levels, and most of the time I didn't even think about the Demon powers. Honestly, the powers didn't seem that great. The special attacks usually require you to stand in one place, and simply weren't killing fast enough for that to seem like a good tradeoff, given the amount of damage I was taking. Again, maybe I just wasn't using them properly. There was some sort of Transmogrification machine in the castle to combine items to upgrade your stuff, but I couldn't figure it out enough to bother.

Perhaps recognizing Victor's near-whispered internal monologues would get depressing to listen to, God (or the game designers) abruptly add another voice inside his head. A cheerful, mocking one, that encourages Victor to get a better hat, or taunts him when one of his oldest friends and allies has become a vampire (that Victor must kill.)

It's the same voice actor as the Narrator in The Stanley Parable, which adds a whimsical touch. Really brightens up the endless slaughtering of the hordes of the night. One level is set around pumpkin farms, where you, of course, have the option of destroying the pumpkins. Which I did. Those pumpkins might have had gold or health potions stored inside, just like the crates, barrels, bookcases, desks, chairs, wagons and tombstones did.

Later on, we're in another subterranean level, and the voice tells Victor, if he find all the secret chests, they'll make him some of their special, scrumptious pumpkin pie. Intrigued as to how a disembodied voice is going to make a pie, I made sure to find every last hidden chest, the voice at one point remarking I must really want that pie.

When I found the last chest, it asked if I was ready to have some of that pie - before telling me, too bad, there's not going to be any pie. Someone destroyed all the pumpkins. It was a cheap gag, but I got a good laugh out of it.