Victor Vran ARPG

This game had the potential to be so much more than it already is and to be regarded as one of the staples of the ARPG genre!

Believe it or not, the cause for this is not the atmosphere, which is immaculate and somber akin to the gloominess of Autumn and the accompanying weird kind of coziness that comes with it.

It is also not the art nor asset/enemy variety, which, even though they represent a singular theme (doom and gloom), are so well done and varied enough to keep you from ever getting bored of the setting.

The game even has a serviceable story and surprisingly very good voice acting (the main character has the same voice as Geralt of Rivia) as well as a memorable OST.

The combat system is most definitely not the tarnishing factor here, since it is absolutely stellar!
Almost all weapons are very well done, simple in their uses and not too hard to master along with the ability to mix and match two of them at the same time.
The animations and sound effects are crisp, cool and fast.
All this, together with the abilities to jump, wall-jump and dodge, make a really enjoyable combating experience throughout the game.

On top of all of this you have your classic RPG equipment with different sorts of affixes, "Destiny Cards" (which are a fine creative spin on what essentially are pick-and-choose passives), "Demon Powers" (spells) and Talismans (powerful short boons or skills/attacks upon charging them up fully) which offer solid build variety and you are sure to be able to tailor equipment to your own playstyle and find very interesting synergies.

It should be noted however that upgrading certain pieces of equipment, such as Destiny Cards and Demon Powers, is EXTREMELY cumbersome and should have been automated since it requires a lot of Inventory navigation and management and the Inventory in this game is not very good.

Speaking of equipment, by the time your are done with the game, even if you optimized for loot drops, you will only uncover about half of the Legendary Weapons. This is a major disservice to the enjoyment in this game since the Legendary Weapons in this game are all unique, with unique effects and animations and you may not even get a Legendary variant of your main weapon.

Even though I listed some of the negatives just now, the main reason this game is a 7/10 and not higher is strictly due to the numbers !
Even on Normal Mode, the enemies simply have WAY TOO MUCH BLOATED ARMOR AND HEALTH stats.
We are talking about extremely optimized builds, with critical hit chance, damage and armor penetration still barely even making a dent in the lowest mobs on higher levels.
Since this game also scales all areas with your current level, this completely KILLS any sense of progression or power fantasy, simple as that.

I recommend you get this game on a good sale and to play together with a friend if able!
It was still a nice experience to get to journey through Zagoravia.

Experienced some hangs on the steam deck. Still nice game though.

Dodge and run away, annoying game.

Sum-Up

In-depth analysis further down.

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[th]🟩 Pros[/th]
[th]🟥 Cons[/th]
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[tr]
[td]
• The unique approach to skills and progression, based on items rather than ability trees, grants a high degree of build flexibility while keeping gameplay fresh.

• Excellent enemy variety: champions with many modifiers and plenty of named bosses in each map, all with unique skills and movesets.

• High challenge on the Hard difficulty. It balances well between character build and individual player skill.

• Almost all weapons and skills are viable, distinct, and can integrate into many builds, with few redundancy issues if any… at least until very late game.
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[td]
• Melee-focused builds become borderline unviable in later game phases due to the obscene amount of one-shots, chain-stuns and hostile AoE.

• Certain enemy skills can outright stunlock and instant-kill you without any chance to avoid them or react. It feels cheap and unfair.

• The storyline and characters feel generic, uninspired and shallow, even for an ARPG.

• The optional Map Challenge system starts well, but later proves too restrictive; it cripples your experience by banning the use of many features.
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[table]
[tr]
[th]🟨 Bugs & Issues[/th]
[th]🔧 Specs[/th]
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[tr]
[td]
• Significant input latency, which can lead to button presses not registering.
• The mouse cursor’s scaling in 1440p and 4K is far too small.
• In co-op, shared challenges can sometimes lose sync between players.
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[td]
• i9 13980HX
• 64GB RAM DDR5
• RTX 4090
• NvME SSD
• 3840x2160
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[quote]Follow our Curator and Website to see more high-quality reviews regularly.[/quote]

[table]
[tr]
[td]Content & Replay Value:[/td]
[td]23 hours is what took me and another player to complete Victor Vran on the Hard difficulty, taking considerable extra time to find most secrets and clear most challenges. Given that there are no choices and you can freely swap any build, the replay value is minimal.[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Do I recommend it?[/td]
[td]Yes, preferably in co-op. It’s a decent ARPG that plays out differently than most on the market, just beware of how annoying some of its optional content can get.[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]

Conclusion

[/td]
[td]Van Helsing at home, but actually pretty good. The unique gameplay design and solid variety carry it most of the way, despite a clichèd story and an uninspired setting.[/td]
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In-Depth

Writing & Worldbuilding

Many a Hunter vowed to smite the dark forces, and journeyed to Zagoravia to rid it of its curse; none returned. Then again, they were not Victor Vran. The demon-smiting Van Helsing cosplayer ventures alone into the eternal night enveloping the Transylvan-esque city. He does fit the part: hard-boiled one-liners and a demeanor that has no damns left to be given.

You won’t have any of them left as well, about the story at least, mostly sooner than later. It’s a generic, trite tale of a jaded hero coming to the rescue when all hope is lost, despite himself being cursed by the very forces he swore to destroy. “The abyss also gazes into you” and all that slop. Boring. If the side characters weren’t as insipid or the lore so minimal and dry, maybe I wouldn’t have switched to auto-pilot after just a couple hours. But alas, narrative was never a priority for ARPGs.

Zagoravia doesn’t shine with enticing ambiance. Despite the good variety of environs to visit, from desolate streets to forgotten dwellings and catacombs, none of them feels anything but already seen at any point. Even if coherent and cohesive, the worldbuilding ultimately feels stale. One generic dark fantasy location to the next, without much to note, environmental storytelling only hinted at in the best of cases.

Exploration & Secrets

The cursed city is divided into many districts, one more infested than the previous. You’ll cross them on foot, sparse checkpoints preventing excess backtracking by advancing your respawn position should you perish. As you roam, you’ll come across gates, acting as transitions between levels and doubling as map markers, enabling fast travel from your base at Castle Zagore. There’s no proper open world: even if some areas span far and wide, each is a self-contained stage with its own challenges and fixed enemy spawns.

There’s no absence of side areas and secrets in each location, many of which are hidden behind destructible objects, illusory walls, or platforming sections that use wall-jumping so that Victor can reach greater heights. Some just have chests with random loot, others even secret bosses and more than a few Easter eggs. It’s worthwhile to seek these out, at least until late game, at which point normal enemies will drop items just as good, or possibly better, than most chests you could find, making it redundant.

Character Progression & Challenges

Unlike most Diablo-like ARPGs, Victor Vran doesn’t have skill trees or attributes. When you level up, you may get new items or other rewards instead. That’s because the entirety of its skill system relies on weapons and gear, rather than class-specific abilities. For instance, a spellcaster Tome will have three skills, the same for all of them no matter the rarity, exceptions are made for Legendary ones, which may have specific modifiers, but could also completely suck.

It works the same way for each weapon, a feature often paired with unique passives that encourage using that specific weapon in a certain way, like Lighting Guns bouncing their beam between enemies with the Electrified status. You may swap weapons at any time. The same goes for armor sets and consumables, which all have different properties, armor ratings and passive bonuses, and usually, different ways to gain Overdrive, the game’s Mana. This system removes the need to stick to a fixed build and allows completely reworking your gameplay in a few moves: just swap everything and try something new if you get tired of playing the same stuff. On the other hand, it doesn’t allow the build depth and finesse other “classic” ARPGs may have.

The challenges are both the best and most depressing system of this game. On one side, they’ll grant you major XP and loot for completing them, especially early on, but on the other, some of them are tremendous hurdles that will sap your will to continue. Especially when a challenge asks you to not use Potions, Spells and Consumables to kill X enemies without taking damage, and stuff along those lines. All for what? A common chest. Good thing they’re optional; if you’re an achievement hunter though, I’m sorry for your soul.

Combat System & Bosses

Your demon-slaughtering will play out much like any other top-down ARPG around. You’ll be able to swap between two weapons to combine their skills, use consumable potions and other utilities, like AoE bombs, and cast up to two Demon Power spells, which use Overdrive, gained from slaying enemies or in other specific ways depending on the Armor Set you’re using. You can also jump, dodge and parkour around—a necessity, given the amount of projectiles, rushing enemies and hostile AoE in the average fight. At times, it almost feels like a bullet-hell.

Enemies power up more than you do, to obscene points: by the level cap of 50, on Hard, prepare to get one-shot at a moment’s notice by almost anything, nevermind if you want to be a tank, that’s not going to happen. Bosses, the proper ones, giant health bars and all, have multi-phase designs and are adequately challenging, although the real deal is with the secret ones found in special levels or obscure side areas. Combat is engaging, fun, and well-paced all around. The weight between hits and flying ragdolls emphasize the violence of each hit and explosion.

I was gonna write some of my gripes and stuff, but nah, aint worth it, this game just plain sucks.

Great and fun RPG. The base game is very polished. Despite relatively small amount of weapons and outfits, character can be widely customized by demon powers, destiny cards and talismans (DLC). Everything can be upgraded through transmutation. The main story is short, what takes time is completing challenges/elite challenges in all maps.
Mötorhead DLC is must have for all who love Mötorhead, Fractured Worlds DLC is kind of sad and lazy addition (and achievement grind).
Main character is voiced by Geralt of Rivia.

old school action rpg , alot of weapons to rummage thru

Victor Vran is a solidly mid-tier ARPG with a distinctive narratorial tone. Combat is fast paced but doesn't have a ton of depth to it, and the areas are generally too long with too much side content. While there are a lot of overlapping mechanics, the absence of a skill tree made it hard for me to see any consequential progression beyond percentage-point increases. That said, it feels okay in the hands and isn't an entirely unpleasant way to while away the hours. That is provided you mute the smug, metatextual narrator and skip the self-serious cutscenes.

I had a lot of fun playing this with someone that doesn't really play these type of games. We were both charmed by the atmosphere and voice acting. And they felt like they could contribute without me carrying them. If Grim Dawn or Diablo are "too much" for your friend, this may be the ticket.

My favorite ARPG. Love the dynamic action (dodge roll, jumping, combo chaining), weapons that actually change your play style (e.g. slow but hard hitting hammer with long charge up vs faster, combo driven swords, ranged weapons). And let's not forget the lightsabers and electric guitars!

To the developer, please make Victor Vran 2!

I guess it's okay if your one of those who enjoys these type of games where you need to jump and climb around, I'm not into it though but maybe a good game considering all the hype.

Thumbs up !

not fun to play

Gameplay is simply amazing. I had a really good time.

i played this on game pass when i tried it its so fun! and l loved it so much i got it on steam!

Simple but not with fun

its a pretty good arpg, well worth its price. had a lot of fun for the fist couple hours, but then the game reaches a point where it shows its weakeness, mainly in the reward loop. enemies become sponjes, your leveling up make things worst and theres not enough reward to keep going.
in games like old diablo, they solve this problem with different things, like sockets and gems, and I guess the transmutation was supposed to help in this aspect, but it was very poorly implemented.
there are other interesting concepts in the game, but they mostly came out shallow, like they were testing the waters with this game. for example, the "hex" concept, where you can pick and choose different aspects of handicaps to increase the difficulty is interesting, but, again, the rewards of using one are barely worth it, outside of people chasing achievements. badly implemented, it ends up barely used.
also, the "twist" in the story can be seen from a mile away, its a fairly bland tale.


still, for the price point, it offers plenty of fun. 6/10

Best ARPG ever made !

Victor Vran brings something new to the table when compared to the most famous ARPGs out there who all share pretty much the same systems (and devs). It brings weapons based gameplay, and at first it's great because the weapons are varied and very fun to play. There's a weird magic system that's you can't really use until you equip a costume, but it's not very well develloped, and a card system that's interesting but that doesn't really bring enough good synergies. But the worst point is that after about the 30th level, you hit a snag and the weapons and powers have a limit to how much you can level them up. Which is a fatal mistake because the main point of an ARPG is to constantly upgrade to stay on top of the curve.
So at some point in the game, less than half the maps in, you start slipping and feeling under powered. Plus that makes the game boring, because if you remove grinding from an ARPG, all that's left is boring mobs.
A lot of enemies have gimmicks that are more annoying than anything (undeads have to be killed twice, some enemies go into dormant state so you have to wait before you can damage them, etc...).
Levelup doesn't seem to have any purpose other than to make the enemy stronger and faster to the point that by level 10 you can't kite them anymore. I wonder if the game isn't easier if you just don't change your level

It's a pity because the engine and gameplay feeling are great and actually better than some other ARPG big names.
The production is okay despite the casualness of the developers, and the voices are rather good. But the humor is often cringe and the game feels obliged to constantly serve you mid-2000s pop culture references (gangnam style, arrow to the knee, etc), which is so cringe.

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