Vampyr (Nintendo Switch)

I really enjoyed this game from start to finish, so much so I played it through twice back to back. The story is a really interesting take on the pandemic of the Spanish flu (apt given the current circumstances), it's absorbing and gives you plenty of options and different routes. The game states that your decisions shape the outcome of the game which is definitely true. One of the major drives for me to play it through a second time straight away was to get one of the alternative endings that you get from making different decisions. You have the choice to feed on more people and become stronger quicker, or do the opposite and end up playing more tactically to gain the experience to get stronger or beat tougher opponents you would beat easily if you'd fed on more people. The graphics are great. The atmosphere is dark and brooding as you'd expect for a vampire orientated story. The map of the city expands with each chapter of the main story plus you can find many side quests exploring and speaking to people you find as well as lots of hidden items and interesting bits and pieces. There is no way to quickly skip between locations, you will always have to move around the whole map or backtrack through sections again. This isn't necessarily a bad thing because the map isn't huge and you can use your stamina to run through. As you get accustomed to the map you will also learn the quick shortcuts and fastest routes anyway so it takes little time to skip back through the areas. The combat system is simple and works well, your choice of weapons will dictate how you use the combat system as well. Probably the only downside for me is the loading times. There are two different loading situations. One sometimes pops up moving between areas and another when you're moving on to a big event (not always) or after you've been killed for example. It can be a bit random when some of these loading screens come about but when they do it can take quite a while which can be a bit frustrating, particularly if you're just running down the street or something. Or if you are killed, you're already frustrated you just got knocked off and then you have to sit there for a couple of minutes waiting for the game to load again. That being said, as I mentioned at the start, I really enjoyed this game. If you fancy something a little different to you're usual Mario or Zelda on the Switch then I would definitely give this a go. Rewarding to play going down the good guy or the all you can eat route to get different outcomes. Plenty of hidden bits of pieces and things to keep you coming back and a definite noir/gothic feel that looks and works well.

A hugely enjoyable gothic vampire game in Victorian London where you are Doctor AND Vampire. Very good horror game on Switch.

Everything fine.

Well, the game is excellent really with a superb story driven by player choices with very good voice acting set in a suitably dark gothic 1918 London during the Spanish Flu epidemic, it is very well realised and positively dripping with atmosphere backed up by fantastic music and sound effects. Characters are all interesting with their own stories and motivations, dialogue is excellent with your choices as the player having a huge impact on all aspects of the world and the final outcome of the story. I don't think being a vampire has ever been done so well in a game, you are torn between the fact that you are both a doctor that's meant to help people and at the same time a new vampire that is learning it's new powers and thirsting for blood! Combat is decent in a basic sense and is along the same lines as Bloodborne although obviously not as good and then there are loads of pretty cool vampiric abilities that you learn and upgrade through the evolve system by finding hideouts to rest in, here you can also use crafting tables to upgrade your weapons which include both melee and firearms as well as make serums for yourself and craft health treatments for using on the citizens of the various districts around the city. This is where Vampyr is a really good game... Dialogue and player choices. You can literally choose to either save or kill anyone in this game, killing or "embracing" citizens as it's called is the fastest way to evolve and become a real bad ass super powerful vampire making the game way easier in the long run, however this will lead to big problems in the districts and possibly a very bad result for you at the end of the game... The choice is yours! Vampyr literally does tick every box that any fan of the vampire mythology could ever want in a game and it's brilliantly done in many respects... So why does it lose a star? Plain and simple poor performance on the Nintendo Switch version I'm reviewing here is the only reason for this, mainly a very dodgy frame rate which causes plenty of problems and quite a few bugs and sporadic loading issues that pull the player out of the immersion of what is otherwise a really good game. I definitely wanted to give Vampyr 5 stars but the performance issues in this Nintendo Switch version of the game mean sadly I can't and 4 stars is the best I can award it which may actually be a tad generous but I really do like the game a lot so there we go, without further patches to improve the games performance 4 stars is the very highest rating it can be given.

It could have been great had it not been ruined by some terrible game design choices that make it more of chore to play than an enjoyable experience :- 1. No fast travel, therefore constant back tracking, very tedious. 2. No ability to save when you want, totally at the mercy of the autosave, therefore no ability to backtrack if you make a bad choice. 3. Inconsistent spikes in difficulty all over the place. 4. If you die then all the consumables you went into a battle with are lost, it doesn't just load up your pre death load out. Not so bad most of the time, but there are a couple of tricky boss battles which make this highly irritating. I gave up with this game in end, as I don't believe any game should feel like a chore to play through like this did. It's a real shame as there were some great ideas in it.

Got this for my partner and she loved it the game runs great but as a trade off the visuals are perfect but being able to play on the go is a trade off she was willing to make great game.

Great game!

Despite of having some issues (frame rate drops, falling outside scenario, missing item pick up notifications…) I have loved the game. Story is great. Combat is easy and can be great fun. Conversations are the best, you can get to know a lot of people. Looking forward to Vampyr 2 :)