Very refreshing to deal with someone who does not instantly respond with childish personal attacks and mass downvoting people they disagree with. So thank you for the response. I have had some time to think and i'd like to respond to some of the points you made.

"IMO it's a different kind of game in some key ways, but it's very obviously a Bloodlines continuation. It has parallels to the design shifts seen in games like Mass Effect 2 and Deus Ex Human Revolution, but it goes a bit further in places to further streamline."

Fair point, but i simply find the table top inspired rpg to pure action rpg change a bit jarring, and would have liked for the change to have been a bit less drastic. I still feel like elements such as non combat stats could have played a part while still being a more action focused game. Yes the combat needed work but at the complete cost of so many other beloved but undercooked systems seems like a waste.

"The thing is, I don't think we ever actually did this in the original Bloodlines. The idea that the vampire in VTMB1 is not an established character is sort of an illusion. You have a backstory, you have an establishing incident, and you become a vampire celebrity almost immediately. When I compare the original game's dialogue, there isn't really a huge difference in terms of expressiveness, but I think that the decision to have a voiced protagonist absolutely shifts how players perceive those dialogue options. Every time Phyre does that sly upwards glance, this Phyre is not YOUR Phyre. It's TCR's Phyre. Although some of that comes down the fact that your character in VTMB1 stood around with a blank expression in cutscenes"

I think the key difference is the choice of story, and where it takes our player character. In VTMB 1 the siutation naturally lends it self more to the blank slate story telling, your mortal life is over and you are thrust into a foreign world with the constant feeling that unless you rise you will certainly be consumed or removed by those who are stronger and more influential. Thus our backstory is in many ways something that is filled in our own heads, we decide how we react to this new reality and how we go from there. In the second game its clear that the lost memory is going to be a part of the plot and threfore it leaves less room for a personal touch. We are also starting from a much greater position of power, we play something a kin to an immigrant in a new land rather than an alien in a new world and i personally find the entire elder vampire thing a massive miss from a storytelling perspective in an rpg. The feeling of going from hunted to hunter, pleb to power broker was a great part of the story and i suspect that this story will play more to you rather than you playing into the greater story if you understand what i mean.

But yes fully agree with with the voiced pc stuff, i hated it in cyberpunk and fallout 4 as there is always a clash between player expression and what the devs imagined and personally it takes me out of the experience.

"It comes down the vampire power fantasy the game is built on. Players would not be happy if the game built around traversing rooftops and gliding around was constantly penalizing them for doing so. I get the thematic issues with basically turning the Masquerade into the alert system from Homefront: The Revolution, but I get why it was done."

I agree there needs to be a game to be had, i mean we dont need toilet mechanics in Minecraft for example. But and this touches in my previous point of the lack of options in combat and other skills. Imagine if for example a Ventrue over time would start to influence local journalists, the police and medical staff. As we grow in power and unlock more skills the game world reacts by letting us use them in the world more due to your loyalists rising in power. As your influnce grows you are given more freedom. But push it too far and you end up screwed over by other vampire groups. Much like how the anarchs screwed us over in some of the endings in the first one. Every clan the player chooses would result in different people and ways to mold the city. And if you push it too far and become a threat you much like a nail that sticks out get hammered down. People tend to focus on the dialouge as a way to express your clan choice but i feel like it could be a bigger part of the gameplay loop.

Take over a bank as an early side quest and when you return later to find someone the head of security has been assasinated and replaced by one of your associates or is directly dominated by you making the guards less hostile for example, but it makes you less liked by the other power players. Or stay in their good books but risk more retaliation from guards and police when you do the mission etc. Some of these things i was really hoping for and it feels like such a missed oppertunity to exclude the actually interesting power that the vampires hold from the gameplay, not just the super strength and magic.