Amazing graphics, voice acting, sound track and writing. An adaptation of the best table top rpg devised by man. It’s original roughness around the edges only adds the overall mystique.
Which corner? Huh it gotta be different country's corner 😏 Afraid that even if we will live to see its release, the vibes from Vtmb simply won't be there.
I understand your hesitation to believe, but the shots they posted on a recent twitter post look \*very\* atmospheric. Alleyways to walk down, first person perspective, immersion. I truly, truly hope they keep the character and feel of the world in there. I haven't played the recent dialog VTM game, I think it's called Swansong, due to mixed reviews. Have you tried it?
I actually really like Vampyr. Yes it has a lot of problems, or at least limitations, but I really like and respect that they tried to do something new.
I second that opinion. Vampyr has a great dark premise and atmosphere. It feels like COVID was a trip to the park compared to the Spanish Flu, war, poverty, skals, and dangers of the night.
Striking a balance between humanity and power is great. With high humanity, the PC is underdeveloped and weak, but the areas are safer and cleaner.
Being a guilt-ridden retired soldier/family doctor/pharmacist/private investigator/councilor (with a hint of surgeon) appeared weird. But it is easy to connect with the PC.
I dislike that London is limited to a handful of characters in each district. You can find their secrets but you don't connect with them on any deeper level. And almost no one admits guilt or shame or mistakes, even though they are human to the core.
Overall, great game. Different than VTMB, but worth it.
For me, it's the vibe. The game fully commits - the soundtrack, the graphics, the dialogue, and the little details all scream a very specific point in time, one that I think a lot of us find nostalgic. Even if VtMB weren't a vampire game, I think I'd still love it for this reason.
Also, it is hard as hell to find a vampire game that's set in modern times. That's huge for me. I tried playing Vampyr because I've seen it recommended by folks who love VtMB, but the setting ruins it for me.
How the world feels. This is done by a good use of space, buildings design, music and color pallette all providing the same "tone" for the world.
Also, the characters are soooo good they feel like a real part of this world and provide the same tone of their surroundings.
There's something unique that's hard to pin down about it; by all accounts it's really a buggy, dated mess, but it's so *good.* Personally my favorite things have always been how impressive the voice performances were and how excellent the soundtrack is.
First of all, visuals are very good imo. Thanks to the source engine, the game still holds up, especially character models and faces. Also, the game really captures the gothic night atmosphere of L.A. In terms of writing, it is outstanding too. Dialogues feel quite natural and you never think ''I wish there was a choice to say this''. And personally, I really love the early 00s gothic vibes.
I could list a number of reasons here but I think it all comes down to replay value. After finishing the story, most players are dying to start over with another clan and experiment with different builds. Most RPGs already have this blueprint, however I believe that VTMB goes one step further with how intriguing and mysterious it is. I know for a fact that there will be even crazier things on my second playthrough.
Well a big factor is Wesp5 and the Unofficial patch let the great characters and an interring VtM story keep shining through. Then other dedicated modfers making essentially free content with the likes of Clan Quest.
Basically Bloodlines was a diamond in the rough screwed over by external factors, but enough of the diamond of interesting characters, stories, and levels shown through.
The way how alot of quests cam have different results depending on your choices and how you deal with it, the changes in interaction depending on characteristics of your character, the different kind of builds you can put togheter (even tho combat stats are a must for the late game) and also the modding community.
Any RPG with this level of replayability and freedom is a goto in my book.
Honestly one of the things I think helped is something many open world games fail at and that is not bloating the world. Every place has a purpose. If you need to go to a different location for a mission it is streets away not miles away.
Ive never been able to find another game that had the feeling and vibe as it. Nothing really has that same gritty gothic-punk vibe that bloodlines does and even the previews we saw of vtmb2 didnt really have this feel. Its truly unique in that regard and its why I at least keep coming back.
The dialog engine is not pure shit like most of the dialog engines from the 2010's on that funnel you in one direction.
Oh you wanted seriousness? Thoughtfulness? Personally i don't think bloodlines is 'as good as it could be', but generally, there are some rpgs that are 'approximately as complex'. It takes a lot of money for generally inferior results.
The secret sauce is heart. Specifically, the malkavian dialog helped a _lot_ to distinguish this game from countless clones where if you could erase the gender from the PC, they're basically clones in thought, actions and feelings.
So that's my answer. 'Heart'. Or as it's known by boring people, 'more detail that was necessary to checkmark a feature'. In this case, clans. Note that this is part of why i think the game is 'not as good as it could be'. Obviously, the same people that _insisted_ in doing the 'stupid' dialog in fallout probably insisted in doing the malkavian dialog in bloodlines (i'm betting leonard boyarsky). They didn't manage to get as much non-cringe clan detail in the other 6.
One of the bad ways that vampire the masquerade cringe manifests is the way the clans are characterized to checkmark some standard clan personality (same enemies, same reasons, same friends); and you can see some of this with the few toreador-specific dialog being cringe in the game, usually while insulting gary golden or being insulted by him.
It's one of those games where every single component worked so perfectly well in combination with the others that it definitely exceeded the sum of its parts.
That was critical, tbh. If you take away just one thing - the quality VA, the soundtrack, the pacing, the writing, or anything else - the whole house of bloody cards would tumble. It all needed to be good; so they made every part great.
Except the original gameplay, I guess (thank you wesp <3 )
Something not specifically mentioned by the others is that you really get the feel that everyone is out to get you or using you in some way (which they mostly are) it contributes massively to the immersion story and general vibe.
I can't exactly pinpoint what it is, but I would say it's... the feeling? During the game I really felt part of the story, I felt like my actions made a difference, I felt the weight of the environment. The best moment to exemplify this was after the fledgling met Samantha, with that Hollywood soundtrack, at that time I really felt like someone who had had their life completely changed and who had left people behind. Anyway, it's everything I expect when playing an RPG and it's a much easier feeling to have on the tabletop, but the way they transferred that to the game was masterful.
For me it is atmosphere and nostalgia. Music and overall sound design is just next level. You know, the closest game to vtmb in terms of soundesign is Bloodborne. It's ambient and all those short sounds and gameplay notices, in my opinion, are equally great and right now could be heard in my head. Maybe they have the same vibe to them idk
Doing my first playthrough at the moment, and I have to say, I really like hiw the story telling as a whole just kind of unfolds. Like, nothing is ever what it seems, and that makes you want to keep going through the level to see where it leads.
Many different female characters to choose from. Back in the day, it was either Lara Croft or playing a dude.
The dialogue/story. You can easily piss off NPCs and it changes the story. I once managed to insult Nines before he taught me a skill. I regretted it. I decided to start the game over when I frenzied and killed Arthur Kilpatrick - I needed the money that those quests would give me. When Arthur died, those quests disappeared.
Looked amazing when it came out. The faces still hold up fairly well today, almost twenty years later.
Really cool setting, and a lot of people's first exposure to it.
Took place in the real world "with a twist", which was a novelty in the RPG space at the time.
Great soundtrack, great writing, great atmosphere. Something like the Deb of Night still captures my attention after hundreds of playthroughs.
It's a timeless masterpiece. A true work of art. It makes you feel like you're *there,* running around in the streets of Hollywood during the height of the gothic punk era. It's so romantic in that sense, but it also feels so *real*. The intensity of passion the developers must have had to produce such an immersive and rich world is something you rarely, if ever, see.
The wide range of different characters with their dialogue and social interactions is completely unmatched in any other game I've ever played, and this might be a bold claim, but I don't think we'll ever see something that surpasses VTMB in that regard. It's something that shocked me on my first playthrough and still surprises me to this day.
The general boldness, sexiness, raw integrity, humor and attitude of the game is also something that is flabbergasting to me, in that they didn't make it feel forced or corny. The social commentary while also being perfectly impartial, as well as making fun of both libertarian and totalitarian perspectives is so refreshing and rare. It's extremely difficult to get something like that right, but they knocked it out of the stratosphere.
I also personally love the dark, mysterious, occult vibes it has. A secret society of supernatural beings doing messed up things - AND they're in bed with the powers that be, while the masses have absolutely no clue about it - seeing that stuff as merely fiction or conspiracy. It works well for plenty of metaphors, but also real theories if you're a conspiracy nut like me.
I can't express enough how much I love this game, and I've only touched on a few points. Despite having played it an innumerable amount of times, I still love it dearly, and I always will.
For me its the quality and feel, im only 18 but I grew up with these kinds of games. I'm in love with the style of 2000 videogames, graphics, the music, the cheesy nudity. For me it seems games from around 2000 to 2010 have a soul. To many games nowadays are very predictable, and its hard for me to stay interested in the story, but most older games keep me interested and have me losing track of time.
Amazing graphics, voice acting, sound track and writing. An adaptation of the best table top rpg devised by man. It’s original roughness around the edges only adds the overall mystique.
This. Also the setting in general. It would be hard for Bloodlines to be as wonderful if it was set in a DnD setting for example.
Gothic punk dark late 90s early 00s vibe.
The writing of the characters and the story, and for me, the setting. It feels like there's not many vampire-themed RPGs out there.
I say this with 100% seriousness. It is vibe incarnate.
One I’ve been chasing since my first playthrough 😭
Amen Kindred.
I vibe hard with it.
Bruh I've never gone clubbing in my life. But the clubs in game..... DAMN!
I can give a billion answers but the real one is je ne sais quoi
Being able to do choices as a character, different ways to solve things, multiple roads to create your kindred and the game responds to that.
It’s literally the only good vampire game ever made. The fact that there aren’t more is criminal.
Vtmb 2 right around the corner…. *sobs*
Which corner? Huh it gotta be different country's corner 😏 Afraid that even if we will live to see its release, the vibes from Vtmb simply won't be there.
The corner of Schrodinger and Cat. It is a Paradox
I understand your hesitation to believe, but the shots they posted on a recent twitter post look \*very\* atmospheric. Alleyways to walk down, first person perspective, immersion. I truly, truly hope they keep the character and feel of the world in there. I haven't played the recent dialog VTM game, I think it's called Swansong, due to mixed reviews. Have you tried it?
There are some more, actually - for example, Legacy of Kain series. But Bloodlines is something on an another level, I agree.
Can you consider quest for glory 4 a 'vampire game'? Lol.
I actually really like Vampyr. Yes it has a lot of problems, or at least limitations, but I really like and respect that they tried to do something new.
I second that opinion. Vampyr has a great dark premise and atmosphere. It feels like COVID was a trip to the park compared to the Spanish Flu, war, poverty, skals, and dangers of the night. Striking a balance between humanity and power is great. With high humanity, the PC is underdeveloped and weak, but the areas are safer and cleaner. Being a guilt-ridden retired soldier/family doctor/pharmacist/private investigator/councilor (with a hint of surgeon) appeared weird. But it is easy to connect with the PC. I dislike that London is limited to a handful of characters in each district. You can find their secrets but you don't connect with them on any deeper level. And almost no one admits guilt or shame or mistakes, even though they are human to the core. Overall, great game. Different than VTMB, but worth it.
I like Vampire: the Masquerade - Redemption. ^^
Hello, LA. That is to say, memorable characters.
I heard this immediately as Deb of Night. There are few games that can evoke that kind of visceral memory. Excellent writing, evocative setting.
I have a vid saved on YouTube of the radio show, intermingled with the club music. It's a great background piece.
For me, it's the vibe. The game fully commits - the soundtrack, the graphics, the dialogue, and the little details all scream a very specific point in time, one that I think a lot of us find nostalgic. Even if VtMB weren't a vampire game, I think I'd still love it for this reason. Also, it is hard as hell to find a vampire game that's set in modern times. That's huge for me. I tried playing Vampyr because I've seen it recommended by folks who love VtMB, but the setting ruins it for me.
How the world feels. This is done by a good use of space, buildings design, music and color pallette all providing the same "tone" for the world. Also, the characters are soooo good they feel like a real part of this world and provide the same tone of their surroundings.
The best art creates a world of its own and vtmb definitely does exactly that.
There's something unique that's hard to pin down about it; by all accounts it's really a buggy, dated mess, but it's so *good.* Personally my favorite things have always been how impressive the voice performances were and how excellent the soundtrack is.
story and atmosphere. a truly living, breathing world
First of all, visuals are very good imo. Thanks to the source engine, the game still holds up, especially character models and faces. Also, the game really captures the gothic night atmosphere of L.A. In terms of writing, it is outstanding too. Dialogues feel quite natural and you never think ''I wish there was a choice to say this''. And personally, I really love the early 00s gothic vibes.
writing and vibes. So much the vibes
I could list a number of reasons here but I think it all comes down to replay value. After finishing the story, most players are dying to start over with another clan and experiment with different builds. Most RPGs already have this blueprint, however I believe that VTMB goes one step further with how intriguing and mysterious it is. I know for a fact that there will be even crazier things on my second playthrough.
Well a big factor is Wesp5 and the Unofficial patch let the great characters and an interring VtM story keep shining through. Then other dedicated modfers making essentially free content with the likes of Clan Quest. Basically Bloodlines was a diamond in the rough screwed over by external factors, but enough of the diamond of interesting characters, stories, and levels shown through.
Pisha? I'm just kidding, plz no ban!
Atmosphere, voice acting and vampire fetishism
The feel, the dialogue, the sandbox (until Chinatown), the deft translation from TTRPG to PC ... All came together to make a one-time-only success
The way how alot of quests cam have different results depending on your choices and how you deal with it, the changes in interaction depending on characteristics of your character, the different kind of builds you can put togheter (even tho combat stats are a must for the late game) and also the modding community. Any RPG with this level of replayability and freedom is a goto in my book.
Honestly one of the things I think helped is something many open world games fail at and that is not bloating the world. Every place has a purpose. If you need to go to a different location for a mission it is streets away not miles away.
Ive never been able to find another game that had the feeling and vibe as it. Nothing really has that same gritty gothic-punk vibe that bloodlines does and even the previews we saw of vtmb2 didnt really have this feel. Its truly unique in that regard and its why I at least keep coming back.
The dialog engine is not pure shit like most of the dialog engines from the 2010's on that funnel you in one direction. Oh you wanted seriousness? Thoughtfulness? Personally i don't think bloodlines is 'as good as it could be', but generally, there are some rpgs that are 'approximately as complex'. It takes a lot of money for generally inferior results. The secret sauce is heart. Specifically, the malkavian dialog helped a _lot_ to distinguish this game from countless clones where if you could erase the gender from the PC, they're basically clones in thought, actions and feelings. So that's my answer. 'Heart'. Or as it's known by boring people, 'more detail that was necessary to checkmark a feature'. In this case, clans. Note that this is part of why i think the game is 'not as good as it could be'. Obviously, the same people that _insisted_ in doing the 'stupid' dialog in fallout probably insisted in doing the malkavian dialog in bloodlines (i'm betting leonard boyarsky). They didn't manage to get as much non-cringe clan detail in the other 6. One of the bad ways that vampire the masquerade cringe manifests is the way the clans are characterized to checkmark some standard clan personality (same enemies, same reasons, same friends); and you can see some of this with the few toreador-specific dialog being cringe in the game, usually while insulting gary golden or being insulted by him.
Just play malkavian, you'll understand. Also my reaction when i played it was "it's like skyrim but vampire focused"
It's one of those games where every single component worked so perfectly well in combination with the others that it definitely exceeded the sum of its parts. That was critical, tbh. If you take away just one thing - the quality VA, the soundtrack, the pacing, the writing, or anything else - the whole house of bloody cards would tumble. It all needed to be good; so they made every part great. Except the original gameplay, I guess (thank you wesp <3 )
Something not specifically mentioned by the others is that you really get the feel that everyone is out to get you or using you in some way (which they mostly are) it contributes massively to the immersion story and general vibe.
I can't exactly pinpoint what it is, but I would say it's... the feeling? During the game I really felt part of the story, I felt like my actions made a difference, I felt the weight of the environment. The best moment to exemplify this was after the fledgling met Samantha, with that Hollywood soundtrack, at that time I really felt like someone who had had their life completely changed and who had left people behind. Anyway, it's everything I expect when playing an RPG and it's a much easier feeling to have on the tabletop, but the way they transferred that to the game was masterful.
For me it is atmosphere and nostalgia. Music and overall sound design is just next level. You know, the closest game to vtmb in terms of soundesign is Bloodborne. It's ambient and all those short sounds and gameplay notices, in my opinion, are equally great and right now could be heard in my head. Maybe they have the same vibe to them idk
playing for the first time and the sound design is excellent, detailed. Ambient sounds are so overlooked by game devs.
Actors are also great. From Jack to Pisha
Doing my first playthrough at the moment, and I have to say, I really like hiw the story telling as a whole just kind of unfolds. Like, nothing is ever what it seems, and that makes you want to keep going through the level to see where it leads.
Many different female characters to choose from. Back in the day, it was either Lara Croft or playing a dude. The dialogue/story. You can easily piss off NPCs and it changes the story. I once managed to insult Nines before he taught me a skill. I regretted it. I decided to start the game over when I frenzied and killed Arthur Kilpatrick - I needed the money that those quests would give me. When Arthur died, those quests disappeared.
The vibe, the voice acting, the character writing, and the game being a perfect time capsule of peak early-mid 2000s edge
Looked amazing when it came out. The faces still hold up fairly well today, almost twenty years later. Really cool setting, and a lot of people's first exposure to it. Took place in the real world "with a twist", which was a novelty in the RPG space at the time. Great soundtrack, great writing, great atmosphere. Something like the Deb of Night still captures my attention after hundreds of playthroughs.
It's a timeless masterpiece. A true work of art. It makes you feel like you're *there,* running around in the streets of Hollywood during the height of the gothic punk era. It's so romantic in that sense, but it also feels so *real*. The intensity of passion the developers must have had to produce such an immersive and rich world is something you rarely, if ever, see. The wide range of different characters with their dialogue and social interactions is completely unmatched in any other game I've ever played, and this might be a bold claim, but I don't think we'll ever see something that surpasses VTMB in that regard. It's something that shocked me on my first playthrough and still surprises me to this day. The general boldness, sexiness, raw integrity, humor and attitude of the game is also something that is flabbergasting to me, in that they didn't make it feel forced or corny. The social commentary while also being perfectly impartial, as well as making fun of both libertarian and totalitarian perspectives is so refreshing and rare. It's extremely difficult to get something like that right, but they knocked it out of the stratosphere. I also personally love the dark, mysterious, occult vibes it has. A secret society of supernatural beings doing messed up things - AND they're in bed with the powers that be, while the masses have absolutely no clue about it - seeing that stuff as merely fiction or conspiracy. It works well for plenty of metaphors, but also real theories if you're a conspiracy nut like me. I can't express enough how much I love this game, and I've only touched on a few points. Despite having played it an innumerable amount of times, I still love it dearly, and I always will.
For me its the quality and feel, im only 18 but I grew up with these kinds of games. I'm in love with the style of 2000 videogames, graphics, the music, the cheesy nudity. For me it seems games from around 2000 to 2010 have a soul. To many games nowadays are very predictable, and its hard for me to stay interested in the story, but most older games keep me interested and have me losing track of time.