The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing II Review

You’ve seen - or heard - Van Helsing’s story before. Whether you’re a bookworm, movie buff or general popular culture whore, VHII’s narrative premise will be as familiar to you as the cold side of the pillow (it’s bliss). Unlike that though, this isn’t comforting at all, because Van Helsing II’s juicy amounts of content are held together by a pretty big cliché.

Following directly on from the conclusion of the first episode in the monster hunter’s story, Van Helsing has found himself the target of one General Harker. With professor Fulmigati now deposed and dealt with, the concept of destroying an evil figure only for the conquest to give way to an even more evil sod is what Van Helsing II is all about. Harker wants nothing more than to capture Mr. Helsing and his companion Catalina, so he can send a message to the resistance of Borgova: this is his city, and anyone who tries to rebel against him will be crushed into mulch.

Half an hour in, and you’ll find yourself having to make a hasty retreat from the capital city after being attacked by Harker and his weird, steampunk-inspired machinations. Back in your - largely unchanged - hideout from Van Helsing’s first episode, you’ll be given some quick tutorials to accustom yourself to the new and improved features.

The bread and butter of Van Helsing II’s “kill ‘n’ loot” gameplay is obviously its combat, and while it has improved over its predecessor, there are still some issues that have carried over from before. Thankfully, the range of sentient creatures you’ll be putting to permanent sleep has increased by a huge margin, and with the greater variety has come greater tactical choices. Enemies capable of hurling projectiles at your face will now stay back instead of charging blindly towards you to fire off whatever it is they own and larger, burlier enemies will charge you with the intent of overwhelming you in mere seconds - which they do.

Enemy AI, while improved, is still one of Van Helsing’s biggest problems. Neocore Games have added much more variety to the ways in which you choose to play as the monster hunter, but the larger pool of choices rarely make any difference to how you approach combat due to the sheer amount of enemies you’ll face at once and how they will instinctually try to sever you limb from limb at a moments notice.

I’ll be careful here and say that this isn’t a moan at difficulty, it’s a valid concern at how combat can quickly become tedious when you’re unable to put distance between yourself and your enemies, and while having literally hundreds of enemies on screen at once is impressive, each conflict quickly devolves into a sort of Dynasty Warriors knock off - where you just button mash your way through simple, dumb opponents.

Using the keyboard to set up skill combos - manually prioritising abilities to fire off in sequence - can help to add a little diversity, but it’s not a resolution by any means. Outside of the globetrotting you’ll do as part of the main - and rather dull - story, Neocore have added a small group of side activities you can partake in if you so choose. The tower defence mini-game from before returns, and in addition to being rewarded for your efforts, the system as a whole feels much less like a shoehorned feature to pad out content. Filling out side activities in your lair are duties that you can send comrades out on in a vein similar to Assassin missions in Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, and hunts - another side activity that provides you with the ability to send out your pet Chimera to gather loot.

As mentioned, class and skill systems have been vastly expanded over the game’s predecessor. Not only can you now choose between specific classes that specialise in the standard magic, range and melee, but the amount of abilities is much more varied. Ranging from charged, area-devastating abilities like thunderbolt to freezing ice clusters that make enemies shatter like fragile family heirlooms, the competent, but seemingly unchanged graphics engine at least makes you look like a badass.

At a similar length to the first episode, there’s far more non-essential content that you can sink time into if you so wish, including a bucket-load of side missions (which for some baffling reason, aren’t repeatable if you fail them), but what will keep you playing - like all top-down RPGs - is the co-op. Returning from the first episode, playing with another person or friend may help to remedy some of the combat’s glaring issues, and with more variance in classes, each Van Helsing no longer looks practically identical.

Van Helsing II isn’t a huge improvement over its predecessor, but it’s certainly starting to show increasing signs of becoming an excellent RPG. Unfortunately, the game is still hindered by some combat issues and a bland story, but the basics are there, we just have to hope the Neocore continue to improve on their IP.