Victor Vran Review

Dungeon crawlers, perhaps more than any other genre, tend to follow a rather strict recipe: hack-and-slash combat, varying landscapes with multiple paths, usually demons of some sort and a fair share of magical abilities and weapons. Oh, and let’s not forget the loot, after all, for a lot of people that’s the most important part of the game. Victor Vran is a very traditional dungeon-crawler and one that uses all of these ingredients effectively, if somewhat unimaginatively. In many ways, it’s an exemplar of what the genre should be, but it’s certainly not interesting or original enough to attract most gamers.

What is interesting, however, is the fact that Victor Vran has been developed by Haemimont Games, the team most famous for the Tropico series. Considering the lack of expertise in the dungeon crawler department, this game is a fine effort. Still, the set-up is incredibly standard fare: taking on the role of mysterious demon hunter Victor Vran, you must travel to the magical land of Zaragovia and uncover what happened to your old friend. Of course, Zaragovia just to happens to be overrun with demonic creatures and has become a hotbed for demon slayers like Vran. So it’s up to you, as ever, to deal with the creatures and save Zaragovia.

Which, in short terms, means traipsing back and forth through a decent number of dungeons (although, admittedly they’re mostly over-ground), killing demons and gathering loot. On this front, Haemimont Games has done a fantastic job. Gameplay feels satisfying and can be played in several different ways - varying between fast and dynamic or chunky, plodding, but powerful. Ditching a class system means the player is free to swap between different play styles at any point in the game, they only need to change the weapon Victor is using. With seven different weapons on offer, ranging from swift scythes to long-range shotguns, there’s plenty of stuff to try but enough that you’ll probably be familiar with each of them by the game’s end.

Of course, as with many games it’s difficult not to simply stick with the weapons that you’re familiar with. Plus, it does seem as though the scythe has a particularly useful ability that really clears the crowds. Those crowds, by the way, are a visually interesting bunch. Enemies in Victor Vran tend to follow a few general archetypes - you’ve got the weak but numerous spiders, the reanimating skeletons and fast wraiths, as well as vampires, spirits and big ol’ bosses. There are a fair few varieties of each, so combat can be quite an unpredictable affair, and as mentioned all of the demons look excellent. Even the dancing skeletons.

You read that right. Despite much of the game having a rough, serious exterior, there’s actually quite a lot about Victor Vran that’s far from imposing. Those Gangnam Style skeletons, for example, can cause Victor to start dancing and therefore become vulnerable. Or there’s the outfit that’s presented to the player at the start of the game - a rather ridiculous pimp-esque suit that changes the way you can use the game’s demonic powers (more on those in a sec). While much of Victor Vran’s marketing and initial impressions suggest that this is every bit the stone-cold dungeon crawler, it has a slightly cheeky undertone that makes sense when considering Haemimont’s Tropico background.

As for those demonic powers, they’re a little less tongue-in-cheek, and a bit more ‘monster kill-y’. As well as being a suave monster slayer, Victor also happens to be some sort of demon himself, who can use magical powers ranging from beams of death to flying rock-balls of doom. It’s all pretty standard stuff, but the ability to constantly swap them out, like the weapons, means it’s easy to change around your style of fighting even further. There are around twenty of these demon powers, and while some are certainly better than others, they’re all fun to use and experiment with - what’s more, the different outfits you can style Victor with change the way your overdrive meter (which allows you to use demon powers) fills.

Another part of the recipe that wasn’t mentioned earlier is a loosely defined story; it certainly seems as though most dungeon crawlers feature one of those, and Victor Vran doesn’t mix things up on this front. The tale of a kingdom on its last legs isn’t exactly enthralling. While the writing and voice acting is all good, the way the tale is presented, largely through boring text icons, does very little to engage the player. It feels like a missed opportunity, especially considering the voice of one Geralt of Rivia (Doug Cockle) is used for Victor himself and some slightly interesting characters pop up once in a while - keep an ear out for the amusing voice inside Victor’s head, for instance.

All of this is wrapped up in a game world that certainly looks the part, and with an excellent camera system that lets the player swing the viewpoint 360 degrees it’s easy to appreciate the details. As with the rest of the game, there’s nothing here that’s especially original or exciting, but the dungeons look the part and accompany the wholesale slaughter perfectly. It helps that most actions in the game, from completing challenges to dropping bombs, result in satisfying visual effects and audio. Even the basic monster-slaying feels excellent when paired with the meaty audio and fast visuals.

Victor Vran really is a very standard dungeon crawler, as apart from those slightly unusual moments, there’s not a whole lot to distinguish it from other titles in the genre - comparisons with better games like Diablo 3 and Torchlight 2 will be difficult to ignore. Yet for those looking for something to quell their desire for loot (of which there is plenty, if not all that much consequential, in Victor Vran), this game should happily fill that need. What the game provides, it provides well, and Haemimont deserves credit for creating a good first foray into this market. If nothing else, it feels like a game that really needs a sequel to help get a decent story and more expansive world alongside the excellent gameplay that’s already in place. Victor Vran is worth a go, just don’t expect it to be a time-sink akin to other dungeon crawlers, it simply doesn’t have the longevity.