More Initial Thoughts On Victor Vran, The RPG From The Tropico Developers

Victor Vran was released recently, and I gave it a small write up, but a major graphic bug stopped me from getting far. This was fixed incredibly quickly, and I’ve now sunk some time into it.

About the game (Official)
Victor Vran is an isometric Action-RPG with a massive selection of weapons, items, outfits, demon powers and destiny cards. Experience intense combat action with dozens of enemies attacking you from all sides and unleash powerful skills to finish them off!

Victor Vran lets you decide how to play the game. Forge your own personal version of Victor thanks to a vast array of powerful weapons, game-changing outfits, wicked demon powers and destiny cards. Use special moves, combine skills and weapons to wipe out hordes of hideous beasts and clever boss monsters.

I was really impressed at how quickly they responded to, and solved the graphical bug I was getting. Not only that, but the developers are generally responsive to all my messages. Really fantastic to see such communication from them.

Linux gameplay video; actual thoughts below it
It should be noted that I lowered some settings for this video, as SSR gives some games quite a performance hit. It’s not the fault of the game, and it still looks fab.

Some initial thoughts
Reminder: The game is still in Early Access, so we will have another post on it once it is completed.

Performance
I’ve been playing the game with everything but MSAA maxed out, I have kept MSAA to x4 and even with that I’ve been getting seriously good framerates. During large battles I will still see 70-100 FPS. It feels, and looks fantastic.

I imagine they haven’t even done a full optimization pass on it yet, but I don’t care. The performance is just awesome. That was a lie, I do obviously care, but it’s just so good right now.

Gameplay
I don’t honestly think I’ve had this much fun with an action RPG since Diablo 2. I spent many hundreds of hours in that, and I imagine I will be doing the same here. Torchlight 2 is nice, but I feel far more at home with Victor Vran for some reason I can’t quite put my finger on.

Victor Vran can certainly feel like a button bash fest, but what is a good action RPG without that? I do very much like being able to hold down the main attack button, and not have to keep tapping it though. That’s a nice touch.

There seems to be a decent enough variety in the enemies too, like different types of spiders, skeletons and ghostly ghouls that have area of effect attacks, and much more. There can be bigger and more powerful versions of each with special attacks to throw at you too. You end up getting swarmed quite easily if you hang around spider nests, and it makes it delightfully frantic as you swing your weapons around, or rapid fire your shotguns.


I think the fun factor was amplified when I purchased a lightning gun, and boy is it awesome. Not the best weapon when an enemy comes running at you with a sword, but you can easily switch between two different equipped weapons, and that makes it even more fantastic to play through. I very much dislike games that only allow me to have one set of weapons equipped.

There are aspects that remind me of Diablo, apart from it being an action RPG of course. It has shrines that can heal you, and I have good memories of seeing them in Diablo II. It does play out rather differently to Diablo II though.

One way it differs from a lot of action RPG games are the challenges. Each map section has its own set of challenges, and if you fail them you can simply repeat the map as many times as you wish. I have been guilty of replaying a map multiple times already, as I just wanted the rewards! It adds a good bit of replayability to it.


The one thing is does lack is character customization. There is a little in the way of choosing a reward when you level up, but you don’t fine tune any statistics, and I really like that. It makes me be able to concentrate much more on the action, and less about working out monotonous things like agility. It’s like the opposite of Pillars of Eternity, and that makes me very happy.

The fact that this has full gamepad support makes me extremely happy, and the controls are really straightforward too. Move around with the left stick, rotate the camera as you like with the right stick. The camera movement is smooth as silk as well, and further makes me fall in love with the game. Honestly, the way the gamepad support is done is so good that I will never play it with keyboard and mouse, I like it that much. The UI doesn’t change between using a mouse or a gamepad either, and seems to work seamlessly with both.

The only issue I have with it right now, is that my beloved scythe with extra skeleton damage has vanished. Apart from that it has been pretty smooth sailing for such an early release for us. It’s one game I’m really glad I’ve been able to jump-in early and test.

Final Verdict: Once it has the final release, it’s going to take the action RPG world by storm. It’s already a favourite of mine for great performance, and fun gameplay. Using those almighty hammers is awesome. I really look forward to future additions to the game, and I hope they don’t stop with it at the final release.

Check out Victor Vran on Steam. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.