RMMV 2 Vampyrus Crimson

[leenat40]

On February 20th, rose the first Blood Moon, today marks it's return.

2 Vampyrus Crimson is a vastly enhanced version of the original 2 Vampyrus, featuring:

1. Over 80 new pages of Cutscenes.

2. Improved performance and visual quality.

3. New music.

4. Custom talking sound effects.

5. Bug fixes.

6. Much more!





"Embrace the demons within"​

The Story​

2 Vampyrus is a single player, story driven RPG taking place in a futuristic medieval kingdom of Endel. You play as Adrian, a man that has lost everything to war and vampirs. Through a chain of events Adrian realizes that in order to have his peace he needs to get revenge on the man who killed his wife and burned down his village. What awaits Adrian is a tragic tale of sacrifice, loss and revelations.



The Gameplay

2 Vampyrus is primarily a story driven adventure game with minimal gameplay interludes consisting of light stealth and detective work.


The Trailers​

Spoiler

Definitive "Crimson" trailer:

The Screenshots

Spoiler

The Game

https://www.mediafire.com/file/upfd2oamng7d6ga/2_Vampyrus_Crimson.rar/file​

 

[hiddenone]

I tried to play this game, but ended up quitting after Adrian kills his son for running off to get flowers for his mom. I just wasn't invested enough in the characters and story to want to retry that chase event over and over like this was a horror game. I think you've been too focused on making and remaking this story that you've ended up losing sight of what exactly will make the game fun for people to actually play.

Spoiler

Overall, it feels like you haven't listened to feedback since the first game of yours I played. I went back and reread my old feedback, and it still seems like a lot of what I mentioned before applies to this game as well. If you're happy with your game, then I guess you can just ignore this feedback.

As I said, I couldn't get invested in the story. There's a lot of details thrown at the player right away, and I found Adrian to be unlikable which makes it hard to continue the game with him as the main character. A lot of it comes down to personal preference, but I didn't see any of Adrian's good points which makes it hard to really feel for him even if bad things are happening (his sister mentioned that he was helpful, but him cutting her off rudely made it seem like she was overselling him). And the fact that he kills his son if the player fails to successfully run from him made me feel like he wasn't going to improve as the game goes on (why do I think he kills his son? Because it goes straight to a game over where the screen talks about death being the best thing for humans... What else am I supposed to think?).

You say the game is story-driven, so why are you limiting yourself with small message boxes? You don't have to make giant ones that can fit an essay, but it would probably be easier to follow the cutscenes if the characters weren't forced to speak in short sentences. I found the few messages that used three lines to be easiest to read since I could see all the information at once.

Honestly, this game felt like it would be better as a full visual novel, without the 'walk to the next cutscene' parts. I think if it's a story you want to tell, then just tell it without trying to force player involvement into parts that don't need it. There were quite a few cutscenes where Adrian would go to where he needs to without me having to do anything, and those felt smoother than whenever I had to wander the town randomly trying to figure out where to find the next cutscene (like finding where Alvah was, it ended up being the last building I checked).

Custom buttons for saving and loading are fine (I don't understand why there's a pause option, but maybe that's useful later in the game), but it's important that the player can remember what they are. Q and E seem very random to me, which meant that after a few minutes I had forgotten which button does what. There are plenty of ways to get that info to the player easily, but one that you could do right away is just have a 'Controls' file in the download so the player can go back and check.

The lighting is too strong. Interiors were all super dark in the corners where the lantern light circle didn't reach, which was odd since it was daytime so the rooms shouldn't have been as dark as a moonless night. The world also seems to be on fire all the time with all the yellow and red tints, and it's not easy to look at after a while. It's great that you're using tints, but don't be afraid to desaturate it as well.

 

[leenat40]

@hiddenone Damn, thanks a lot for giving it another go!
Even if it may not always feel like it, I always listen to feedback and try to incorporate it where I can!

It's just sometimes I do find it really hard to balance where I think the player should have control and where it's acceptable to just have only cutscenes, but for my next project I am aiming to definitely lean into the story aspect way more than the limited gameplay I manage to get in there.

(P.S, I never intended for it to appear that he kills his son haha, that's probably not a good look on him )