Did you really want to get into Dark Souls but just couldnât get past its gritty, gothic art style? Code Vein, a new game from Bandai Namco that combines all of the color and flashiness of the Tales series with the face-palming difficulty and epic choruses of the Dark Souls franchise, might just be what youâre looking for.
Oh, did I mention that youâre a Vampire who uses the blood of enemies called ârevenantsâ to acquire new abilities and stay alive? âĤLetâs start somewhere simple. We got to catch up with the gameâs director, Hiroshi Yoshimura, and its producer, Keita Iizuka, at a closed-doors Q&A session held at Bandai Namco headquarters in Tokyo.
First, a disclosure from Yoshimura: âTo begin, I have played through this demo twice today, and both times I have died at or before the bossâĤâ a promising testament to the gameâs difficulty which proved true for the third time as well. A voice peeped up from the crowd, âis there an option to change the difficulty? Like, if I donât want to spend hours getting past a single part, can I just choose to make the game easier?â
The two exchanged cursory glances before Iizuka spoke, saying ââĤno, the game does not have an easy mode or difficulty slider, or anything like that. The game is made for you to build off of self-improvement and finding these strategies for yourself.â
You can assail enemies with light or heavy attacks, dodge with the X Button, or suck blood from your foes with the Circle Button. Sucking blood allows you to recover health and upgrade your character, and this is where they justify the gameâs unchanging difficulty:
âThe reason why we donât have a difficulty setting is because you can change the main characteristics [of your character]. In Dark Souls game, for example, if you mess up developing your character and their specializations half way through the game, thereâs really no way to go back, and it can feel like a waste of time. In Code Vein, you can explore lots of different character traits [like weapons and magic sets] without fear of having to stick to just one specialty or play style, and help you overcome challenges.â
Iizuka was talking about a system for leveling up and developing your character that sounded more similar to Borderlands 2 than Dark Souls, where you can re-assign points to explore branching ability trees that change the way your character approaches combat.
âI think by taking a different approach you might have an easier time getting out of places where you feel stuck. Also, youâll be able to bring 1 NPC character along with you, who will not only support you in combat but help you in various ways along your journey.â The system sounded similar to Pawns from Capcomâs Dragonâs Dogma.
My final question was simple: Why VampiresâĤ? Yoshimura laughed, saying âIâve loved Vampires ever since I was a kid. When we were thinking of a scenario for a game and wondered how the character might obtain new abilities or grow, we thought about them stealing blood from enemies, and having the characters be a vampire sort of fell into place. I havenât seen a game that uses that kind of system before and it seemed like a really unique mechanic.â
I couldnât help but wonder if theyâd played Bloodborne. Stay tuned for more news about Code Vein right here on Siliconera.
Published: Sep 25, 2017 02:00 pm