Oh my beautiful Zagoravia
Nothing has changed at the narrative level compared to PC output, and this means, for those who did not know it, that Victor Vran Overkill Edition offers a plot full of humor, punctuation of fulmicotone and paradoxical situations that only keeps in the background the invasion of demons that struck the city of Zagoravia, one of the last human strongholds in a fantasy medieval with extremely dark tones, in which humanity requires the help of demon hunters to not succumb to infernal hordes.
The protagonist is one of the last of his kind, and was dubbed no less than by Doug Cockle. He became famous for having given his cavernous and rococo voice to Geralt di Rivia: in a product with only discrete production values, the Bulgarian development team, the Haemimont Games guys, dealt with Cockle’s experience and charisma by doing by Victor Vran, a cheerful and often self-heiress character, who smashes several times during the fifteen hours needed to complete a full run.
Arriving at the cause of the demon’s infamy, addressing the leader and sealing the open portals with the world of hell would in theory be the main targets of the demon hunter, but he, in the process, hopes to find his old friend mysteriously dispersed, thus joining the useful to the delightful.
This Overkill Edition also includes both downloadable content released on PC after launch, one of which, entitled Motorhead through the Ages, moves the setting into an alternate past, at World War II, by playing cards on the table and playing ( albeit almost never too pushed) by the horrors of the conflict and the Nazi hierarchies from Hitler down. Certainly you will not play Victor Vran Overkill Edition either because of the quality of interweaving or the thickness of the characters, but some of the dialogue and the one-liner of the protagonist might be worth the price of the ticket alone.
Different, but not necessarily worse
Beyond the obvious resemblance of belonging to the same genre, Victor Vran, even in his output on consoles, maintains the peculiarities that distinguish him from Diablo (ubiquitous reference when it comes to RPG action with isometric view), making it a complementary product, in a sense, that can be safely joined to the Blizzard title without replacing it.
The contradictory background, to name a few, is far less thorough than many congeners: already during the early stages of the game, when you are not forced to select a class and then bind to an archetype, it is clear how the production of Haemimont Games points to versatility and immediacy of gaming experience, trying to lessen the time spent by the player in the menus and streamlining the micromanagement.
Further examples of this game design choice come from the level pass, which will not be rewarded with points to be distributed between the various stats and the ability to switch from one weapon to another at the push of a button at the same time and rhythms that are more confined to pure action than role playing.
Nevertheless, even in this Overkill Edition, the bulgarian team’s product offers enough variety of offensive solutions to avoid repetition after a few hours: arms ranging from white-to-white weapons to distance, and an equitable and combineable card system however, ensures a decent level of personalization of your avatar.
From our point of view, the choice not to offer the canonical classes to choose from restricts the product’s replayability, because the combat approach, which elsewhere is drastically different if you select a paladin or a demon hunter, here ends with ‘flatten a bit’: leaving players free, there is a risk that most of them opt for a jack-of-all-trades, a versatile and competent character in a variety of fields, but it does not excel in any of them.
