Code Vein II

Sometimes games come along that are incredibly difficult to review. Code Vein II starts off incredibly uninspired, bordering on downright boring - and it's really only because I have to, in order to write this review, that I bravely struggle on. In a way, it's lucky - because once the first few hours are over and a rather dull story about time travel has been explained and the first boring environments are behind me, it actually grows into something I'm starting to like. At least a little bit.

As an experienced player, I also know that Japanese role-playing games usually take a while to really "shine". At the same time, it shouldn't be downright boring at the beginning - which, unfortunately, it is for the most part. I don't really understand the point of starting with such dull environments as we are presented with here. But yes, as I said - it gets much better.

Code Vein II offers a story about travelling through time to prevent a bleak future. We are met with a decaying post-apocalyptic world, and by changing events in the past, our hero can hopefully save it. There's nothing fundamentally wrong with the story, and most of the characters tied to the fate of the world get several scenes that go into depth. However, the dreamlike, stylised sequences that explain what has happened are rather boring and attempt to compress events into small, uninteresting summaries. Everything is more interesting as a concept than it is in execution, and our silent protagonist - whose appearance you can customise - does little to make it more interesting. Code Vein II is also completely independent from its predecessor, so you can jump into it without any prior knowledge of the first game.

The concept of time travel proves to be slightly more interesting when it comes to the game's environments. After those first boring hours, when you finally leave the game's first area for the more interesting mainland, you are met by a sunken city. A few hours later, you visit the same environment - but in the past, and it is only here that I get the first feeling that this game does have some qualities after all. The visuals get a boost, exploration becomes much more fun, and even though the world itself isn't that exciting, the boost from the start is so high that I actually start to have a little fun. It's an open-world game that is limited by being devoid of content except for a few patrolling enemies. There's no dynamics, nothing interesting - but at least it's quite nice in places.

Visually, it's pretty dark and dreary overall. It feels like a game from the last generation as a whole, and in terms of design, it leans heavily towards a mix of Souls/Anime. Apart from some impressive views when standing on high ground, everything from the colour scheme to the design feels rather blasé. In addition, there are several occasions when the game's frame rate seems to go haywire and it becomes incredibly choppy at times.

Code Vein II is at least as much a Souls-like as it is a Japanese role-playing game. In fact, perhaps even more so the former. The experience points, called Haze, that you collect are used at the game's rest points, called mistels, to level up and become stronger. If you die, the collected Haze is lost, but you can return to the place where you died to pick it up again. However, something that is a little frustrating is the fact that if you die on a boss, the lost essence ends up inside the locked area where it is located. In The First Berserker: Khazan, for example, you could thankfully pick it up outside, so in Code Vein II, you have to use it, or rather, defeat the boss, if you don't want to lose it completely.

Speaking of bosses, this is an area where Code Vein II shows both some of its strengths and some of its weaknesses. I have deliberately avoided mentioning one of the giants of the genre from recent years, namely Elden Ring. But now it's time. Through a kind of fog similar to that found in FromSoftware's masterpiece, you trudge into the area that houses one of the game's many bosses. While Code Vein II's combat system has already revealed how it works against the earlier, more manageable enemies you've encountered, it's only when you face the bosses that you're really put to the test. There's quite a lot to get stuck into here, and since the bosses are such a big part of the game, that's exactly what I'm going to do.

Firstly, as expected, they can take a lot of punishment. It's also important to understand that the classic "dodge and roll" system is something you'll have to work with a lot. They also hit hard, and a couple of hits are completely devastating to your health meter. But there are two things in particular that I think really detract from the entertainment value here. The first is the issue of "one-hit" hits. I appreciate a challenging experience. And I am aware that writing that something feels "unfair" can, of course, be met with the response that there is a significant "skill issue".

But when designing bosses, it must feel like there is some chance of studying patterns and getting better. I have played and completed Elden Ring, and although dedicated Souls fans would certainly argue that it is a relatively easy game compared to the giants of the genre, it was challenging enough for me. Many of the bosses in Code Vein II are really tough, absolutely, but unfortunately there are also things that work against you besides the fact that they kill you with a single hit. The controls are simply not as tight as they need to be, regaining life requires a small animation where you are completely vulnerable, and the design of the attack patterns is such that many bosses just swing around a bit too much for no reason, in my opinion.

But I think most of it comes down to the fact that it's not particularly fun or well-designed. I don't feel any WOW factor, I don't feel any (great) need to study and try to master it in order to move on. It feels more like a frustrating obstacle than anything else. In addition, the difficulty level is extremely uneven. One of the first bosses took me a few tries, but I still felt like I had a chance - if I just played a little better. Then came two bosses that I easily killed on the first try. Only to be met by one that took forever. A lot depends on their attack patterns and a little too much on chance. Because sometimes when they knock you down, they follow up with an attack that kills you completely. In addition, when you're about to perform special attacks, you're still vulnerable in animations that linger.

If your life disappears, you get another chance, though. You have a companion with you who revives you, but then you have to stay alive before they return. This meant that I mostly ran around and avoided attacks until they did - because when they return to the battle, the same thing happens again; if you die, you are revived. However, the companion's return time gets longer and longer each time.

Code Vein II leans its combat system towards the very familiar. Heavy weapons do more damage. But of course, you move slower, while light weapons allow you to fight more effectively but at the cost of dealing less damage. You use something called "Blood Codes" to create different builds, and although the numbers and statistics, just like many of the items you pick up and what they are used for, are quite confusing, you learn it as you go along and get the hang of it. Upgrading items requires items that can be found or purchased. However, I don't really like the system of using the experience you've gathered to level up, buy things or upgrade weapons. I would have preferred some kind of currency that was independent of that.

I mentioned at the beginning that Code Vein II is one of those games that is difficult to review. So I'll elaborate on that a bit. There is a lot about this game that is solid. The more time I gave it, the more I liked parts that I initially found quite frustrating. The biggest problem is probably that most of it lacks polish. The game often throws you into rather dull environments - the game's dungeons often feel like pure cut-and-paste environments. The open world is also extremely empty and uninteresting, and the game's soundtrack is completely unremarkable.

The combat system has its finesse, but at the same time it is quite unpolished and the controls do not feel as responsive as they should be. The bosses are challenging and the feeling of defeating one is sometimes satisfying. But they lack the finesse that the very best in the genre have. So it's time to mention the most important point; Code Vein II pales in comparison to many others. If you've experienced the best in the genre, this simply feels several levels below. It's not just about the enormous strengths of those games, but unfortunately more about the weaknesses of this game and the fact that the areas that needed to be more polished unfortunately aren't.