The Incredible Adventures Of Van Helsing is a lesser known Action RPG that has a lot of
familiar gameplay, but is it better than the classic Diablo series or the persistant Path
Of Exile game?
I've had a chance to play it for a few hours, and I'm here to give you my first impression
review.
The original Van Helsing was a surprising game that came out of nowhere and won over
ARPG fans.
Developed by Neocore Games, it's a gothic noir setting which is perfect for an action
role playing game.
Each game is basically a new chapter in the series because they are all very similar.
You choose from one of six characters: the protector who is a tank like warrior, the
bounty hunter which is ranged damage, elementist which is magic damage, umbralist which is
a stealth damage dealer, phlogistoneeer an armed heavy weapons character, and the constructor
another heavy weapons specialist.
Tkhe characters and setting are nice and definitely helps you feel immersed in this gothic game
world.
Most of the gameplay is typical, however the campaign is quite an adventure.
You dungeon crawl your way through levels picking up additional side quests along the
way and returning to town to refuel and regroup.
There are tons of side quests in this game, as you can see the whole side of my screen
is filled with them.
Conversations with NPCs give you dialogue options but these are mainly just to accept
or turn down quests, not really to change the story.
The voice acting is nice, but nothing mind blowing.
The details of the game are where it really stands out.
The skill trees allow you to develop into specific builds and really buff the particular
spells that you enjoy the most.
Within each spell there are three extra abilities and then four possible passives.
You can find different combinations or just focus on leveling a few core abilities.
As the bounty hunter I focused on dots and elementals while leveling my default skill
shot.
Then you have Katarina, your companion.
She has almost as much depth as your own character with three different skill trees that support
you and herself.
The companion is incredibly useful, especially if you are playing single player because you
can set her up to be your assistant as a tank or damage dealer.
The game also has a few small passive leveling features.
Like the chimera, which is a beast that you send out to hunt for treasure.
You can level up your beast and choose particular quests that will provide different rewards
of gold, experience, and special items.
Then you have the army resistance missions where you train soldiers and send them into
battles as well.
It keeps you busy and multitasking to help the campaign and the loot hunt feel like less
of a grind.
There's also a tower defense style side quest that has great rewards, but is surprisingly
difficult.
The graphics and sound design is nice, albeit a bit average.
The details are good and definitely suit the lore of the game.
Each one of the Hero characters looks very unique and monsters look intimidating.
There's nothing that incredibly stands out, but then again it's on par with the current
games like Diablo and PoE.
There's plenty of difficulty levels if you want replayability and I hear that the challenge
is very tough on higher difficulties.
And of course there is a hardcore option where you character dies permanently.
These types of ARPGs are ideal for multiplayer and the multiplayer community in this game
is very small.
You might have fun playing it, but I wouldn't depend on this game for long lasting multiplayer.
Multiplayer games tend to be most popular during the first week of release and then
it goes downhill from there unless it's one of those everlasting high supported games
like Counter Strike or DOTA 2.
And during the first week of release Van Helsing has less than a thousand players which is
a pretty small player base.
The game supports both controllers and mouse and keyboard setups.
Obviously mouse and keyboard setups are ideal and the default for this type of game but
it's nice to see controllers supported for those playing in the living room on a couch
tv setup.
The game even changes the entire interface to match the controller based setup which
makes navigating the menus a little easier.
There's a few negatives I'm hearing from Van Helsing veterans.
For one thing, you can't port your character from the first two games which is a surprising
let down.
The also reduced the level cap to 30 for your main character and 25 for your companion.
There's also not too many new features.
It's basically just more content on top of the first two games.
Which isn't a bad thing if you love ARPGs or the Van Helsing series.
Everything about this game strikes me as average or slightly above average.
From the graphics to the gameplay and features there's nothing truly exceptional.
However the game is only $14.99 which is really cheap for a full ARPG like this one.
So you may want to give this one a shot if you want to slay a few demons cause it can
be a fun ride.
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Positives: Classic ARPG Gameplay
Many Difficulty Options Comprehensive Campaign
Negatives: No transferring characters from previous games
Lower Level Cap Too Similar To Van Helsing 1 and 2
Bottom Line: Give it a shot if you love ARPGs.