There are aspects of Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 that I truly enjoy and others that I truly dislike, much like the idea of actually becoming a vampire. Creator Unquestionably, The Chinese Room has done a fantastic job of transcending its usually linear and slow-paced universe to provide us with an open world, streetlight-drenched Seattle that is delightful to explore, along with positively stunning narrative and voice acting. However, fighting never goes much beyond being simply decent, and this nighttime excursion is kept from greatness by a lack of reward for both technical and narrative decisions.
The slice of Seattle that serves as a hub for Bloodlines 2’s searching, stalking, and politicking is impressive to behold, though don’t expect GTA scale here. At around five by five blocks with most buildings climbable and rooftops fully navigable, there’s quite a bit more room to prowl than in Bloodlines 1’s Santa Monica, with several distinct and memorable areas from the charming Pioneer Square to the lantern-lit Chinatown. Moving around it by clamoring, leaping, and gliding is some of the most fun I had.
Though don’t anticipate GTA scale, the area of Seattle that serves as the center for Bloodlines 2’s politicking, stalking, and searching is amazing to see. There is a lot more space to prowl than in Bloodlines 1’s Santa Monica, which is around five by five blocks with most buildings climbable and rooftops completely walkable. There are a number of unique and memorable locales, such as the lantern-lit Chinatown and the quaint Pioneer Square. Some of the most enjoyable things I did were shouting, leaping, and gliding around it.
For another, there just isn’t enough variety in the NPC models and voices to keep me fooled across the 30-plus hours my first playthrough took. I probably fed on one specific woman wearing the same exact hat at least a couple dozen times.
You are required to maintain the Masquerade while at street level, meaning no using your powers or feeding in front of normies, which is appropriate. You can’t have a Vampire: The Masquerade game without, well, the Masquerade. But I did find it was a bit too easy to shake off any suspicion if I messed up.
Additionally, this is where your semi-customizable elder, Phyre, will seek their prey, which will be unfortunate humans who, depending on your hunting strategy, can be agitated, frightened, or enticed. Although I recognize that feeding is an important and inevitable aspect of the nighttime routine, I believe there are a few ways it may have been done more effectively. To start, all you have to do is eat to replenish your fighting abilities. You get thirsty every night when you wake up in the tabletop game, and your blood pool would gradually decrease in Bloodlines 1. This doesn’t have to be a survival game, but it would have added a sense of desperation and helped sell the idea that vampires require blood just as much as humans need food and water.
Rather than being a Vampire: The Masquerade game, Bloodlines 2 occasionally feels like a generic vampire game.
The Beast, the dark, raging voice inside every vampire that motivates them to do horrible things and can trigger an uncontrollable state called Frenzy, is the essential element of Vampire: The Masquerade lore that is virtually absent (except from one cutscene that occurs regardless of what you do). The ultimate finest mechanism in the 5th Edition of the Vampire: The Masquerade tabletop game, upon which Bloodines 2 is based, is an escalating hunger track that makes your character more likely to react in a monstrous or unpredictable manner the longer they’ve gone without feeding. I understand that most people dislike losing their sense of self.
However, the absence of this is an almost fatal error because it is so essential to the vampire concept. It’s the only option that continually gave me the impression that I wasn’t playing Vampire: The Masquerade but rather a generic vampire game.
At least the fighting is hard, heart-stopping, and generally quite good. Because it’s all in first person and you and your opponents are always moving quickly, it may be a little confusing, and I wish there was more of a “hard” lock-on ability. However, there are some fascinating subtleties to learn, like as the different kicks, parries, and telekinetic grabs. Once I figured it out, it could be incredibly exciting, at least for a melee build.
Although it’s limited in some areas, such as boss fights, and can even feel like a form of punishment for choosing to concentrate on it, stealth is also fulfilling and rewarding. Some of the more esoteric fighting techniques, such as Tremere Blood Sorcery, are incredibly amazing the first few times you use them. For example, boiling someone’s blood from the inside is just as brutal and bombastic as you might think, but after a while, they start to feel more like gimmicks than playstyles. However, some of Bloodlines 2′s highlights were the hectic and action-packed scenes that pitted my environmental skills, movement abilities, and even my adversaries against one another.
Unfortunately, it fails most when used as an RPG. It’s not precisely a standard zero-to-hero narrative because you are playing as an elder vampire. However, as a representative example, your melee attacks in the start do exactly the same amount of damage as they will in the boss fight at the end. You will gain all of the Disciplines for your chosen clan during the first eight hours or thereabouts, after which everything else is essentially a sidegrade. These include the ability to turn invisible and to smooch an enemy to win them around to your cause. By locating secret symbols painted in blood over Seattle, you can improve your health track.
Highlights were the action-packed scenes that brought my skills together.
The fact that you can only equip four Disciplines at once, and only one from each category, further restricts this. For instance, you cannot combine the mobility skills of two distinct clans to create your own hyper-mobile playstyle. These limitations don’t seem wise to me at all. Since each discipline has its own pool of power points rather than drawing from a shared pool of stored blood that I could use anyway I pleased, I also don’t particularly like that each discipline can only be utilized once in combat before needing to refuel. Restrictions can be beneficial at times. None of these, in my opinion, are. I am a vampire. Let me do what I want, please.
The graphic customizing choices offered by Phyre were truly appreciated by me. From the Ventrue’s sleek business dress to the Brujah’s punk rock streetwear, each clan has four distinct clothes to unlock. In fact, NPCs will respond to you differently depending on what you’re wearing; for example, they will find you more attractive if you expose a little more skin. That is very incredible. However, we are without a weapon slot, which is undoubtedly not very good. I understand that Phyre is both a living weapon and an elder. She may fling a fire extinguisher across the room or telekinetically utilize a gun as a kind of one-time battle consumable. A melee, however, is always a hand-to-hand conflict.
And once more, from the perspective of character customisation, this is basically restricting my style. Can I slay these chumps without weapons? No. However, a vampire with a trenchcoat, two pistols, or a snazzy katana is simply too iconic and stylish to exclude from any vampire role-playing game. In the tabletop game, it’s a component of character development and self-expression. Why are we here?
From the sardonic Nosferatu Tolly to the self-indulgent queen of Seattle herself, Lou Graham, the cast does a terrific job voicing the plot, which is about solving a string of tragic murders and navigating court politics. Everyone should have experienced this since it’s so amazing.
The cruel bootheel of anticlimax essentially crushed every intriguing choice I made during the chronicle, chewing it up and spitting it onto the sidewalk. A 30-second voice-over for the epilogue ended all of the plots I had started, the alliances I had formed, the chess pieces I had moved, and the awesome vampire elder shit I had been giddy over in the magnificently inspired lead-up to the finale. It also totally prevented me from getting the actual showdown I had been longing for. I was heartbroken. This could be worse than Mass Effect 3’s original conclusion. It appears as though somebody tore out and burned the book’s final chapter.
There is never a point at which they can be combined or deployed in a clever way that would make me feel like I solved the case, which is another huge wasted opportunity. At the end of the night, this is a story that seems almost annoyed by the fact that it has to offer you any kind of choice at all.
Verdict
I have a complex, love-hate relationship with Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 that is nearly impossible to condense into a single thesis statement or, at the very least, a single-digit number, if I may truly indulge my inner Toreador. Sometimes I want to strangle it to death, and other times I want to be alone with it in a passionate moment. sections of it that I adore are nested among the things that irritate me, and I can pick up the faint scent of things I detest in the sections I enjoy the most. There is a plot that is worth seeing, but it ultimately let me down quite badly.
Despite totally neglecting several important portions of it, it captures the essence of what it should feel like to play as one of the Kindred through every snatched bite and sly fight. Was it enjoyable to me? Of course. Yes, without a doubt. Would I suggest it? That is a far more difficult question. The problem is that, even though the two Bloodlines are such dissimilar animals, I could argue the same about the original Bloodlines as well. Despite their serious flaws, both are exceptional and one-of-a-kind attempts at the apple. Or the jugular, I suppose. And I think that’s the greatest complement I can give it.
