![]() ![]() Maybe I’ve been swimming too much in the Early Access area of Steam lately, but it was really refreshing to see an indie game with such a high level of polish applied. I did notice some screen tearing and framerate drops during cutscenes, but these are so brief and rare that it wasn’t much of an issue. I never had a crash with Victor Vran, and my PC chewed through dense dungeons and a lot of particle effects without so much as a stutter. Eventually, because even cheerfully dancing skeletons are evil, I had to break up 2012’s most irritating viral dance craze with a shotgun. It’s a dated joke, sure, but it is achingly sincere and it made me laugh. My favorite moment came when I discovered a secret enclave of enchanted dancers, skeletons wearing wigs and sunglasses and dancing to Gangnam Style. Though the narrator does most of the comedic heavy lifting, enemies and puzzles in the game are not without a sense of humor. Though I mostly enjoyed it, I found that the Voice’s jokes fall pretty flat when they winkingly break the fourth wall. It’s nowhere near as reactive as Bastion’s narrator, speaking much less frequently and referencing on-screen events much more vaguely. The posh but obviously evil inner voice narrates Victor’s travels, commenting on his actions and occasionally taunting him. Victor Vran is reminiscent of Bastion in the way its combat and characters work, but it also attempts something similar to the reactive narrator that made Bastion famous. If I didn’t have cash reserves and failed to get a lucky drop, the game became a slog with an underleveled weapon. Usually I found my gear through loot drops, but occasionally I had to turn to the incredibly expensive gear vendors in the main castle. The downside to this system, though, is that it’s heavily dependent on getting a great main weapon. With so many moving pieces, I’m impressed that everything evens out so well. I prefer the sweeping strokes of the broadsword, but I can’t say that it actually kills stuff better than the rapier or scythe. Combining powers with a friend in co-op, wading into a seething pile of nasties and making the whole dungeon go sizzle, is undeniably fun.Īmazingly, all of the skills and spells and boosts and weapons are all nicely balanced. Between weapon skills, throwable grenades, Demon powers, and Destiny cards, there are a lot of tools to fling at the army of the undead. ![]() Destiny cards modify character stats like increasing ranged damage, increasing health, or making enemies explode on a critical hit. Victor’s basic skills can be tweaked and augmented by a selection of two Demon powers-powerful spells with effects that summon meteors, unleash explosive shockwaves, or draw down a roving pillar of fire. Played with friends in co-op multiplayer, it’s a damn fine time. To be clear, Victor Vran is not as great as any of those games, but it’s not bad, either. Victor Vran’s combat requires more involvement than click-click-clicking through Torchlight, and its sense of whimsy separates it from the (sometimes) self-serious Diablo. But I think it’s more accurate to imagine it as Bastion strutting around in a campy Van Helsing cosplay. It is like those games in some ways: there are levels to grind through and loot to find and weapon skills to chain together. Like any ARPG, Victor Vran keeps getting compared to Diablo and Torchlight. He explodes so violently that the skeleton next to him explodes, setting off the next one, until the entire group has been reduced to a pile of calcium after one hit. I equip the monstrous two-handed warhammer and take aim at a nearby skeleton, the first of an advancing horde. Just in time, I open a treasure chest and find the preposterously named Zealous Executioner’s Hammer of Luck. ![]()
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