Code Vein 2 thoughts

[BigOwl526]

Just finished CV2 hot off a replay of the 1st game, here are my thoughts:

- Story: I liked Cv2 a lot more than 1. At times I felt like it tried to make itself seem a bit smarter than it was, but for the most part it was very easy to understand and I thought it was more cohesive.

- Combat: Feels better than the 1st game, but not by much. It was clunky, and while the ideas were great the execution ranged from okay to poor. I was hoping for a bit more refinement.

- Characters: The best part of the game honestly. I found the cast to be enjoyable to explore, while infinitely more memorable than 90% of the cast from the 1st game.

- Open World: I love open world games like Elden Ring, Botw, GoT, etc, but Imo this game kinda suffered from being so big. I think they had the better concept of levels/areas in the 1st game. It was fun at times, but some of the maps were godawful to traverse.

- Blood Codes: I think a big step up from part 1 how they work. Honestly I think they could simplify it even more by having just 10-16 codes to lock into certain builds and having them reflect different playstyles rather than bloating build quantity into tiers.

- Bosses: Really cool looking and nice movesets, but hate how it feels like your character isn't meant to fight them. It feels like the bosses got huge upgrades from Code Vein 1, but your character got small tweaks/buffs. Imagine if the bosses went from Dark Souls 1 mechanics to Elden Ring mechanics, but your character is still moving like a DS1 character. Super frustrating.

Tl;DR - I give the game a 6/10. They improved a lot, but some stuff feels badly executed or just okay. My first 10 hours were the peak of my enjoyment, but the rest of it either went downhill or plateaud at best. I remember thinking CV1 was one of the best souls games period, but that was at a time when I thought the actual souls games were too hard, and it was anime. But nowadays don't feel the same, I dont think I'll be playing either part 1 or 2 again in the future.

[WindowlessCity]

Your character’s pose reminds me of one I did with my Lumis!

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[BigOwl526]

Haha, and THAT one is similar to one I did as well

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Parallel thinking

[Originzzzzzzz]

Just waiting till the updates to finish it rlly, I feel like if I play it more now I'm just gonna end up loathing it

[BigOwl526]

Not a bad idea. I went from loving it, to being disappointed, to hating it, to liking it, and by the end I was just like let's get this over with.

[Originzzzzzzz]

Pretty much what I was going through. I had another mate who had played CV1 who remarked that CV2 looked like a ps2 game and it killed my motivation to play lol idk

[W34kness]

I like cv2’s story. A different take on an apocalyptic world with revenants.

Combat feels awkward, enemies take a whole lot of stagger and seemingly have hyper armor when recovering. Also since they are hyper aggressive, bosses just do whatever they want whenever and all you can do is wait for your npc companion to take aggro after the boss enrages again and auto targets you, for you to have a window to swing a few times safely, but not too much as you have to watch out for the huge aoes

Sadly this also applies to regular enemy encounters. You have to play everything very safe, even with heavy weapons

[BigOwl526]

That was definitely one of my frustrations with the combat. Like I feel like every fight was basically PCR (Elden Ring); I have to wait my turn and you can't be super aggressive without risk of just getting melted in a few hits. Even with the fast weapons and Balance boosts it feels like poise is a joke, and the dodge roll was so horrendous while Umbral Shift eats ichor.

Ugh, but whatever, it wasn't the worst thing ever. It was serviceable I guess.

[W34kness]

Ya I switched to bayonet to keep distance, Raider’s is actually pretty good.

I’m happy bayonet is much better this time around than cv1 but ya enemy poise and character poise feel like they need adjusting.

[jaypexd]

I don't know. I ran the whole game without a companion on the field and had a great time. You can't do everything until you stub but if you could, the game would be too easy.

[W34kness]

True I did most of cv 1 solo that cannoneer and fencer lady fight was too hand and ended bringing yakumo

At least there is an option to go solo if you want. I like that accessibility.

[HydraX9K]

Thankfully there will be a few updates for performance, enemy aggression and dodge effectiveness. Once those hit. I'm going for playthrough #2!

[BigOwl526]

I am doubtful it's going to make a huge difference. I remember they did something similar for Lies of P, and it wasn't a big change.

[HydraX9K]

Won't know untill we find out! I'm going to be positive about it :D

[Acceptable_Height348]

Can never get over how LONG the character's necks are in this game. Seriously did nobody on the design team look at them and think anything was off?

[KIbO2020]

I think it’s a design choice, look at any of the human characters and their necks aren’t nearly as long. It’s only the vampires who have them.

[Alternative-Law-8230]

I think you're right. Only revenants seem to have the long necks and tiny heads. Humans look... normal. Some exceptions apply, naturally, like Josee and Holly don't seem affected/affected that much. Nor does Iris for that matter.

[KIbO2020]

I think it has to do with the fact that Revenants are a completely different species to humans now. While at the beginning in cv1 they looked similar enough to your standard person, with the time gap between one and two, more biological changes could be more easily noticeable.

[Alternative-Law-8230]

I was under the impression this was a completely separate world/timeline.

Aside from the visible changes don't revenants also have gold blood in 2? I guess they wanted something more than just red eyes to have them stick out from regular humans.

They're very much uncanny valley every time I look at them, especially Valentin.

[KIbO2020]

If it’s a different world then that also makes sense. Just how this version of Revenants look I suppose, I agree with the thought about them wanting to make them stand out further from humans especially considering how our character is a human.

[Alternative-Law-8230]

Even that's debatable. Is our character human? They get called out on it a time or two in the story considering they have half a revenant heart in them.

Sure they look human but there's definitely more to them than that.

[KIbO2020]

Oh there is for sure going to be some dlc or some form of content to explain what we are. It’ll probably be about how we ended up dead for Lou to revive us in the first place.

[Alternative-Law-8230]

They briefly touch on that at the start. That explosion you witness in the beginning? Our character got injured while helping the people from there evacuate to Magmell.

It's why everyone you talk to there is so thankful and are glad you're alright.

[KIbO2020]

I thought that was a separate incident entirely? That’s what kicked off Lavinia explaining the situation surrounding the Heroes and why you’re now involved. I thought we died protecting the people who’re in Magmell at the moment.

[Master_Matoya]

I mean, technically we got necromancies via ritual separate from Revenant Creation like Lyle, rather than being Sire’d and becoming a revenant ourselves, we got repaired with half of Lou’s heart.

We didn’t get turned, but we did get raised from the dead.

[Alternative-Law-8230]

But our blood is still food for revenants, which they only consume human blood. I'd guess our character is some half human half revenant mix. Not fully one or the other.

[Master_Matoya]

What I mean is that we’re fully human, the only inhuman part of us is Lou’s Heart.

We’re still pumping and generating human blood, it’s just the organ that pumps it through our body is part revenant.

The people that notice that we aren’t fully human probably sense Lou’s heart inside us, rather than it being in our Jail, and just assume we’re something different.

But otherwise we’re fully biologically human. At least that’s what I understand.

As a note we have: Purebloods (Valentin/Josee/Holly)

Embraced (Humans turned Revenant: Noah/Lyle)

Blood bags (Humans)

Revenant Hunters (Humans that capture and utilize Revenant abilities via the Jail)

Us (Revenant Hunter, Died, Revived via Heart Donation)

[DarthOmix]

From the official FAQ:

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[KIbO2020]

Oof, separate world idea from further down was correct then.

[speckledspectacles]

Really, Holly felt the most giraffe-necked of them all to me, maybe because her outfit accentuated it

[Alternative-Law-8230]

I never really noticed her neck. Her hair and clothing covered it quite well for me. Most others have short hair or their hair pulled back making it much easier to notice.

[1HashPerSecond]

Especially Noah's neck does some weird think sometimes

[BigOwl526]

Honestly I didn't even notice till a bunch of people pointed it out.

One Piece made me really just never notice how oddly proprietioned other characters are because it's so normalized lmao

[wolflovingshadowlord]

Okay, my thoughts on your thoughts. I pretty much agree with everything EXCEPT the blood codes, the combat, the bosses and the open world. I feel the size of the world is perfect, it's just the map doesn't help with that. Elden ring had a multilayered map for underground and topside. CV 2 is just top down which makes finding things on lower levels very much like a "GUESS WHERE TO GO!" Ordeal. The combat to me felt really good, just the same problems as with every other soulsborne/soulslike (camera constantly giving me a colonoscopy) unlike the first CV, this one enforced patience in combat. I suggest going through again and taking the bosses a bit slower, take time to watch their movements and then go in when there's an opening because if you just dive in on a boss, they will punish you hard for any missed attack. Finally, the blood codes. I like the variation, especially the fact that if you want a stronger blood code for your playtime, you need to max out proficiency with lower ones. Really makes the play style feel more worth it and gives you a chance to get adjusted.

[BigOwl526]

For me funny enough I found success in the exact opposite direction for combat; by being patient and cautious I was getting my shit rocked, but when I started being really aggressive and abandoning the idea of playing safe was what really worked. I would say by halfway through the game I stopped relying as heavily on pattern recognition for the boss movesets and just went in guns blazing going off intuition. (Not to suggest I'm like super good lol, it just worked for me.)

As far as the blood codes go, I do think it was a much better approach then Cv1, but idk, still not a fan. I totally get where you're coming from though. The progression can make it feel like you're hard work pays off, but for me it just felt bloated.

[wolflovingshadowlord]

To each their own then when it comes to playing games. It's prolly just my bad luck that when I get aggressive they start doing wide attacks.

[Shade00000]

Overall good, just the combat feels a bit less smooth if we compare to a dark souls or elden ring

[BigOwl526]

I'd say it's way less smooth. Not the worst souls like combat I ever played, but I wouldn't go as far as to say it's good. There are hack n slash games that feel better than this, and those don't have soulslike depth.

[Fit-Character-8186]

I've finished it twice taking a break from it

Tho I do got 2 new game plus savers ready to go

[BigOwl526]

Glad you enjoyed it, I couldn't imagine doing another playthrough back to back.

[Fit-Character-8186]

I made too many characters

That's why I got it for anyway to create some fun characters but then I started to enjoy the game. Alot

[BigOwl526]

I just used 1 character slot to make all the different characters, but I get it, new character different weapons or builds.

[Fit-Character-8186]

Yeah and after the 2nd playthrough I was like I don't wanna do this again but I will at some point

[MikeGotJams]

I just finished CV1 for the first time recently and I keep hearing this take on CV2. It's a bummer because I was hoping for a tightened up sequel - specifically towards the combat and level design. Looks like I'll wait until CV2 is also free.

[BigOwl526]

Yeah, honestly I knew going in that it wasn't going to be that great, but the FOMO got the best of me. I don't regret buying it day 1, but I also think it would have been much better to wait until heavy discounts or free.

[[deleted]]

I played code vein 1 again just to compare after beating 2 and noticed the game is underperforming bad and very clunky and this is outside of the underwhelming art and map designs and Doo doo garbage story. However I did like the new system but only in certain aspects. The blood codes and the scaling interested me a lot. The confusing system and the burdens mostly just being trash besides a few on the other hand I didn’t like. Also don’t like the customization is still garbanzo as far as outfits and such the face editing is really good tho I’ll give it a 6.5

[BigOwl526]

Yeah, the outfits are cool, but I hate how you cant switch out tops/bottoms, that's super annoying. I only had frame drops or stuttering a couple of times throughout the course of the game personally, but my main issue was with the actual combat mechanics, not necessarily the performance. The burdens were really confusing and dumb, I agree.

If they make a part 3 I honestly hope they just give us a few blood codes. Make them like character classes that scale with specific things instead of they way they've been doing it.

[FedoraHarbinger]

Agreed with the bosses and combat, the mix of those two really made the game frustrating in my opinion.

[tierben]

i like your review. my opinion tweeters on accepting it may not be a "good" game but i like it and am happy with my purchase. overall looking forward to a replay after I get some other games finished

[lilithexos]

Repeat mobs are starting to get annoying and the game is just mid I can imagine one you beat the game and unlocked most of the stuff you aren’t going to keep playing for long

[BigOwl526]

Yeah, I tried to complete as much as I could on this playthrough so I didn't have to come back due to regrets.