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 TL;DR: Victor Vran is a very polished, multiplayer arpg which focuses on dynamic movement in combat. If you like arpgs you should buy it and play it. Official site Steam store link metacritic page I am a big fan of arpg games, especially diablo 2, diablo 3, torchlight 2, Titan quest, The adventures of Van Helsing, Sacred 2 and Path of exile. I like min/maxing and theorycrafting. I like clicking my mouse a lot. Above all else, I really enjoy being rewarded for clicking my mouse a lot by watching some numbers get higher. Victor Vran has all this and more. Victor Vran is at it's heart a very traditional arpg but it has several massive differences that make it into something very unique and ejoyable. Visually, it looks suspiciously like a much more polished version of "The incredible adventures of van helsing" games, (although that is not really a unique intellectual property for video games) but it's not really a "classic" arpg for several reasons that I will briefly explain. It's very positively reviewed on steam too, if that helps. Focus on movement In Victor Vran, you can dodge and jump. Every enemy attack can be dodged and in fact, this is the main focus of the combat. You can also jump over enemy attacks. You can even jump off walls to get higher and make your way to higher levels in the maps for secret areas, shortcuts, or to gain a vantage point from which to kill your enemies safely. You can even press LMB when mid jump to stomp on the ground and knock enemies back while cancelling any skills they were about to cast. While there are some builds that allow you to tank attacks while standing still, the entire game is really built around this dynamic movement. I personally think it has the most excellent implementation of "movement as defense" in any arpg. Here is a video that does a good job of showing how fluid the combat is in this game as well as a few of the different weapon types. You'll notice how he switches weapons regularly and regularly dodges around and over enemy attacks. It also shows the wall jumping. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gQlkABOBlE Skill timings and different playstyles A lot of weapon skills have various timings and "mini games". The first example that comes to mind is shotguns. If you take the default LMB shot as soon as it comes off cooldown, it applies a vulnerable effect which makes your next shot a crit. If you kill an enemy with your charged shot, it refreshes immediately so shotgun combat ends up being about timing these shots (which, incidentally are timed nicely to work in between dodge rolls).  The tome's LMB shoots magic bullets which cause an enemy to drop charges. Collect these charges and you can consume them to use a special skill without cooldown (There's also a legendary tome which makes laser cats fall from the sky when you collect 10 charges but the less said about that, the better). Combat with tomes ends up being about dashing around the battle collecting charges to keep your powers up indefinitely. The sword’s LMB does a basic attack that can cleave other nearby targets, but every third attack will apply Vulnerability to any target’s hit. Vulnerability in Victor Vran makes the next attack on the target have a 100% chance to be a critical hit. The sword’s Q attack is a heavy damage dealing attack with a good length cooldown, but that cooldown is eliminated if it critically hits. So using the LMB attack three times to apply Vulnerability to ensure a critical hit on the Q attack is a very powerful rotation. The synergy doesn’t stop there. The E skill is a single target stun, but will also stun all nearby enemies if used on an enemy suffering from Vulnerability. There are lots of different weapon types in the game, these are just a few examples. There are also "demon powers" – special defensive or offensive skills that require a build up of overcharge to cast. You can equip two weapons at the same time and switch between them at will. Use one weapon until all the cooldowns are in effect, then switch to another weapon and do the same. By the time you switch back to the original weapon, the cooldowns are refreshed. No classes  Your abilities are determined by the type of weapon you have equipped, your armor, and your destiny cards. While playing through the game you can completely change your playstyle numerous times if you get a great weapon drop, or want to try something new out for variety. Your armor changes your defensive stats but also the way in which you accumulate overcharge. You can accumulate it by attacking which rewards a "beserker" approach, or only via crit which rewards a high crit build and there are more traditional caster builds that accumulate overcharge over time, meaning you can always have your most powerful abilities available when you most need them, such as at the start of boss fights. The destiny cards affect numerous attributes such as armor penetration, crit chance, movement speed, weapon damage, consumable cooldown, health, life steal, crit damage, and lots of very unique and useful effects such as dropping a bomb every time you dodge or causing a massive aoe explosion on crit.  There really are a lot of creative ways to combine these cards with different weapon types and armors and end up with a character that plays in an entirely new way.  Replayability and challenges  Every area of the game (of which there are a LOT) has it's own challenges that reward replayability and give you in-game currency, xp, or high quality weapon drops. There are challenges to use certain weapon types, kill bosses without taking damage, finding all secrets and many more besides. If you want to 100% the game you'll need to do them all. There are also "hexes" which are modifers to make the game more difficult in exchange for more xp and in-game currency and a fair amount of the challenges involve using them. There are PvP zones, epic boss fights, some genuinely humorous interactions and a secret shop owner called Geban who has some steaming hot deals for you. It's polished, has solid netcode, is relatively original in what has become quite a stale genre and I liked it enough to make this post about it. So give it a go yea?
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Jan 10, 2016 11:42
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Here's a compilation of the boss fights which may contain spoilers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7toPIBE_RKY And here's a couple of builds to show you how the card/armor/weapon system works https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v86WymyOe0M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOols4rn8zU
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Jan 10, 2016 17:26
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