Code Vein is best described as Anime meets Dark Souls. To elaborate on the sentence, anime is a type of catoon that originate from Japan, whether it's in the form of movie or series by
any studio, as long as it's animated its an anime. Dark souls on the other is a popular game series that are notoriously known for their difficulty. This souls like games are usually played in
a third person prospective and they focus on exploring various maps similar to metrodvania games. A big factor of souls games is that they have alot of boss battles that 're required to proceed
and the penalty of dying. Compat focusses on recognising attack patterns, timing both attacks and dodge whilst always paying attention to both the environment and stamina of the hero. Furthermore
the heroes can upgrade their equipment and gear near a checkpoint (bonfire) and use only a couple of items to either heal or upgrade themselves. Dying in Souls games respawns the player to the last
checkpoint(Bonefire) whilst their currency is placed to the area where they died and the players will have to recollect them. Famous to the genre are Demon souls (ps3/ps5), Dark Souls 1-3, Bloodborne
and Sekiro.
Code Vein was created by the publisher of the soul series Bandai Namco. The game was higly anticipated as fans from both sides (anime and Soul Games) had something to look foreward to. Once the Demo
dropped people, praised it, however the battle combat felt slow. The studio took in the critisism and on the trailers prior to the release the combat looked polish and ready. The game was available for all
the consoles and had sold one million within it's first five months of release.
The games release was released in the following forms:
Standard
Included the game alone
Deluxe
Included the game, Season Pass(DLC), Alternative Mia Costume, Few cosmeticks
Collectors Edition
Included the game, Original Sountrack (Cd), Artbook,Digital content cosmeticks, Statue of Mia
Story of the Game (No Spoilers)
Important Backstory
The story takes place in a fictional world that sufferes a mysterious Calamity known as the Great collapse. Mysterious monsters began to appear around the world with the soul purpose of killing every single human.
To counter these monsters, the humans created a program known as The Revenants. Revenants are human Corspes who were brought back to life by implementing a special parasite within their hearts. The revenants can
be seen as Vampire fighters with unique abilities. Revenants have two weaknesses:
Their Hearts
Thirst for Blood
As mentioned, a parasite has to enter a corpse heart in order for the corpse to be able to ressurect, this means that if the heart was to be severed damage then the person will definetely die. The second weakness comes with
the trade of being a powerful vampire. Vampires are always thirsty for blood and this is also the case here. Blood acts as healling to them and need it to keep themselves up and strong. If a revenant does not acquire blood they
will enter frenzy mode were they lose control and in most cases their human forms and attack who ever is close to them friend or foe. If a revenant stays frenzy for a while they reach the stage of lost, where they move around the
world without any purpose. The project although succesfull, it reached a point where the monster's alongside the lost's number increased expeditously. The number of humans willing to share their blood with the revenants also
decreased as the over all population saw reduction. The rise of the lost had a direct effect to the revenants, as the lost became able to share a stigma that is transmitted through air and is capable of driving any healthy revenant
to a frenzy monster. A project called Queen was created to remove the drawbacks(weaknesses) from Revenants and made them the perfect soldiers. The project had the parasite injected into people . A young woman named Cruz Silva
was taken for experimentation and was capable to obtain the "perfect status" . The Queen was able to use her blood to make materials to craft better weapons as well as syrums that could purify mistles. Last but not least, the queen was
also able to create the bloodsprings(Glowing trees whose seed is none other than blood.) Once again, human and Revenants saw hope, however the more powerful the queen got, the greater her pain got and she frenzied. The frenzied Queen
went on a rampage murdering everyone she could. A new project was made under the name of Queen slayer. This project had an army of Revenants to stop the Queen's rampage. If this project was to fail, humanity would have fallen.
Humans and revenants joined forces to take down the queen. This project increased the number of of revenants and the lost since more and more Revenants were created as many fell or turned into lost. While project Queen slayer was on there
were Revenants who were observers of Revenats. These were more of support members who welcomed the fallen(Not lost ordeath) Revenants back to life while observing their behavior as they came back to life. The project was made with success,
however with the fall of the queen things were not better. The Queens rampage might ve been over, but the number of lost and their Stigma was still around.To counter the stigma the Revenants wear filtration masks to prevent them from breathing it,
however with the Queen gone the Bloodspreings began to dry off and so blood was mainly achievablle by humans, and simply there are not many humans to feed all the Revenants whenever they need them.
Here comes The Player(spoilers for the first 10-15 mins and then its more of a fade description)
The player seems to be awaken by a mystery girl dressed in white. The player is suffering from amnesia and the girl explains how she also do share the same issue. The girl presents the player to a blood string claimming that they do not produce
blood beads and thus everyone is thirsty. The mysterious girl cuts the player and leaves his blood to drop on the spring. The bloodspring then glew and produce plenty of seeds. The girl feeds the player and allows him to rest stating that he was
the chosen. While the player rests on the girl, some Revenants notice the newly seeded bloodspring and ambush the duo with their weapons. The hero awakens inside a pit and the Revenants who captured them tell him to get up as they will hunt for beads.
Another captured Revenant advises the player to pick a mask as they re important once they go to the surface. The leader of the hunters explains the recruiters that they need beads as the elites will soon come to harvest them and if they don't have enough
to give them,things will be bad, and if they give them their current ammount there won't be enough for them. Before going on a hunt the leader graps the girl in white, and explains the hero's team that they will release her if the team returns with beads.
He also warns them, that hunters were spotted in the area and how they should be careful not to run into them. The hero is joined by three other members, two of them who listen mainly to their leader and a newly listed member Oliver who has been friendly
with the player since their meet up. The two explore the tunnels while Oliver proceeds on explainning as many things as he can to the player such as the concept of lost. while exploring the tunnels they spot another revenant who had an early start on them,
however, he instantly attacked the party as he was frenzied. Oliver was injured and tells the player to proceed alone and he 'll catch up with him soon. The hero ventures alone and comes across another revenant who explains how the area ahead was dangerous and
that he was waiting for any pedestrian to join forces with him to increase their chance of survival. The two join forces and eventually they reach a new bloodspring. The hero cuts himself and uses his blood onthe spring which similar to the one prior grows seeds.
The two travel back with the seeds just to find most of the revenants dead from Oliver who has frenzied after the breaking of his mask from the previous encounter. With the help of the stranger Oliver was taken down . The hero rushes to the girl but they soon heard a voice
comming out from a vestige. The stranger explains that these are dangerous and those who touch itlose their minds. The hero graps the vestige, the stranger screams to let it go whilst the girl says he will be fine. The player then was transfered in an area where he was capable
of seeing everything thats Oliver did, his believes,motives and his last moments. The girl explains how Vestiges are collection of memories left by the lost. The revenant amazed by the hero's ability asks them to join him in a safe place and reveals his identity
as Luis. Luis takes them to his hideout and reveals how after the queens death a red mist apperared and trapped everyone within it, making this is jail. Everyone here is trapped, bound to die,rebirth or becomming lost. He proceeds claimming there is hope as the hero
was capable of reviving dead bloodsprings and also cleanning the miasma within certain areas. As the player becomes familiar with Luis team Luis calls the player and explains him who they are and what their cause is. Bloodsprings dry out as the time goes and eventually there
will be gone, they try to find alternativve solutions but they had nothing up until they met with the player and his ability. With all dais the hero agrees to join their team to recover the springs.
The new team moves around with a mission in mind, events keep happening and evetually the player gets to know more about Luis, his missions, the world, and the fate of humans. Shelters were made where humans can live in safety by donating their blood when asked, some are hiding
and others are beeing taken by other "mean" Revenants and have their blood sucked without permission nor agreements. As the party moves from place to place they happen to come across a Vestige with Luis Memories. These memories showed Luis and the Queen right before she frenzied,
and this acts as a boost for Luis Purpose and dreams. After proceeding deeper into dungeons to find springs, the party comes across the Hunter, who placed a blue vestige in a woman and dissappeared before the party could interact with him. The more the player proceeds with the game
the hero gets more bonding moments with the party. There bonding moment was cut short as a girl name Mia attacked the party to get their beeds. She needed them to feed her little brother who was in the verge of frenzy and Yakumo hands her a few,but the kids symptoms were
not fading away. The girl refuse to stick with the party and leaves making the party to follow her. They arrive late as they see a desperate Mia, the Hunter and ashes on the ground. The party was interupted by another intruder who needed to be executed to proceed. The ashes of the
boy revealed a Vestige that included plenty of memories between the boy and the reaper. The team return to the base with Mia who had a vision of a snowy mountain. She then awakes and discuss with the team her vision as she becomes more friendly with the people.
In a shocking turn of events the next destination have the player discovering his own vestige with his own memories that have him being a warrior in the Queen slayer mission next to the one and onle Jack the hunter. The vestige reveal alot of details about the story as the player gets
to free roam and interact with plenty of people during the mission. It also reveals how he died and got reborn close to where the girl in white known as Io found him. Proceeding from where they left they reah a seal gate where someone who looked like Io tells the hero that he needs
to use his memory dive abilities to help her. The heroes come across a guradian saving a door and attacked it. The heroes take down the guardian and a blue vestige appearred instantly healling and russurecting the guardian stronger than before. With the defeat of the guardian the blue vestige
appeared again and the heroes tried to break it. The hero approaches the vestige remembering the words of the Io look alike. The hero is capable of diving into the memories of the blue vestige. The vestige consisted of memories of the scientist Aurora, Jack(Hunter) and Silva(leader of Queen Slayer project).
Inside the world of memories, Aurora was expecting the heroes full of caution. Aurora explains how the Queens revival was inevitable, however she was a revenant, and as known revenants live, die and rebirth. She was beyond the base revenant so destroying her heart was not enough to kill her thus
her secondcomming was to be expected. The scientist came with a way of sealing her away. Their way was to take pieces of the Queen and place them into relics into humans. Unfortunately as a common concept, every good thing comes to an end, as the guardians of the relics became weaker weaker, causing their
human forms to turn into beasts. She then requests the hero to proceed to the rest of the guardians and release them from their duties as he is the only one who can reach them. The party exists the memory world and learn the answers that lied behind the doors of the guardian. On their way out Jack Ambush the
party and recognises the hero as his fallen friend. Jack was amazed by the power of the hero as he claims that his friends ability is same to the heros but weaker. He asks the hero to join him but the party dissagree and fight.
This ends chapter two and the heroes are ready for chapter three, the release of the guardians.The team's mission now is to travel to where the guardians rest. Their bond becomes even greater the more the players proceed to different guardians. At the same time the players gets more
backstory to all the heroes included in their party. With every encounter with a guardian they learn about what happenned to plenty of important background characters such as the Queen, Silva, the red mist, the world outside the red mist and every single one of the guardians. The ending of the game however
depends of the hero's actions.
Three Endings
The good ending. Upon the first encounter with the fake Io, she revealed to the hero how everyone of the Guardians have their Vestiges lost to them. If the players venture around before entering the boss battle with the guardian, they will most likely find them lying around within the given map. Before
encountering the boss there's always a different IO look-alike who upon interacting will show the players how many of them they discovered abd how many are still missing. Upon defeating the guardians monster form and entering their memory world they will encounter that guardian in their human form. Upon exchanging
dialog the player is given two options. A walk away from the door, or interact with the petrified form of the given guardian. Upon interating with the guardian, their human form will take over, and they will re obtain the control of their guardian form now that the vestige is sleeping. If the all of them are saved, the
player will get what is assumed the good ending that leaves the story open for a sequel. The mediocre ending. The player can only trigger the mediocre ending if he chooses to restore all but one guardian OR save atleast one. Restoring a blue vestige means that the guardian who is possesed awakens and gets control of the relic preventing the queens ressurection . Guardians who failed to re awaken
have the vestige rest within the players character. The mediocre ending have a different ending that is to be expected if the player pays attention to the story. The bad ending. The bad ending can only be triggered if none of the guardians are restored by the time the final boss battle is triggered.
Story thoughts
The story of the game is fascinating. It goes hard when it wants to and knows it's strengths. It's very simple to follow and it's seperated in five chapters that are easy to follow. The prologue, the bloodspring hunt, the heroes origin story, the revenant's quest for guardians and finaly the conclusion of the saga.
Typical to anime it places plenty of anime cutscenes filled with voice acting and extrodinary music. The mystery and character development for most of the party is deep for some, and slightly off with others, however in a magical way it captures the interest of the player to care about them, whether or not they had
an impact to the main story. For a souls like game it manages to make the entire game a unique experience of it's own. If the player wish to relieve the story or certain cutscene there is an option available where the player can viit the hotsprings and relieve a memory. It is not level select or anything, it's only
for the cutscenes.
Gameplay
The game begins by allowing the hero to create his characte. The game's character creator is gigantic and has an option for everything. The game was heavily praised for it's customizable options and should become a go-to for every developer who wishes to create a game with character creator. The player can select
gender first and then the main atire out of six given styles. Then the player can customize the height and weight of their vampire. Then it's fun time, the player can customize the skin color, the type of chin and nose. Following the selection the player has to choose hairstyle, combination of colors, shadow effects and glowing effect.
Once the hair is done the player can customize the eyes. The first option available is the odd eyes, meanning both being different. Then the players can customize the pupils style,size, colors and shape.Along the eyes the player will have to choose eyebrows out of the 300+ available options. Once the face is done, the player can choose
to customize the make up and tattoos of the heroes, if any. Furthermore the players can customize their Masks. Since revenants need to protect themselves from breathing Stigma, they need a mask and a mask placeholder. The last customizable options is the cosmeticks. Theres plenty of them and all of them are available for every location,
bag,hands,face,hair,neck,wrists,legs and plenty of others. It can take hours to make an avatar.(personally spent four hours for all three heroes of mine).
The player moves around in a 3D world. Similar to the soul series, the maps are hidden until the player reaches the bonfire which in this case is the BloodSpring Mistle which will reveal a portion of the map close to its radious. The player can save,upgrade and change code whilst in a mistle. The mistle also acts as a respawn location in case
of the players death. If the player falls, their haze will drop to 0 and the player will have to travel to the area where they ve fallen to regather them. The haze is represented as red flames and as a giant red dot in the map. Collecting them when already gathered new ones on the way will simply add them,on the other hand dying again will
erase them and replace them with the new ones lost despite the number. Unlike the average soul series, the game has a partner system where the player will always have an AI character from the group to join them while freelancing and whilst in combat. The players are free to do whatever they desire as long as they have stamina. The stamina
is consumed when a player sprints, fights and blocks. The stamina refills when the player stays away from action.
Combat
Before mapping the controller, the player can choose between one of four classes. Single weapon, heavy weapon, Spear and a bayonet. Light weapons deal less damage and consume less stamina which is the opposite of the heavy, and bayonet is a build used for range attacks. It is important to state how the hero can hold up to two weapons.
The player moves around with L3 and controls the camera with R3. Tapping L3 will place the target on a certain enemy. Square is used for light attacks that consume less Stamina. Triangle is used for heavy damage and deals more damage, holding it will create a more powerfull attack. Circle is used for dodging. Based on the weapon and armor
the player will have a different dodge. Heavy armor will roll slowly away whilst light equipment will slide away. Circle and attack buttons will dodge and attack upon recover. X is used for special attack. The players have a different special based on their equipment. Attacking with X is known as drain attack. Drainning enemies restores
Blood veil points which are used to use the gifts. Gifts are used with R2. Holding R2 opens a menu with eight buttons, 4 of them are mapped with the keypad whilst the other 4 are X,O etc. The gifts have a certain amount of points locked on them so use them with caution. Gifts can be used for buffs, special and magic casting. Blood veil points
are gathered by dealing damage and blood drain attack. L2 is used for parrying. Perfect timing a parry will trigger an animation that deals plenty of damage. L1 is used for guarding while R1 is used for sprinting. R1 can also be used in compination attacks. R1 square and R1 triangle are base attack, however R1 and X are when used triggers a slight
blood veil attack that helps drain blood for special attacks. Last but not least the keypad is used to manuver in the inventory. Left right is to manuver and down to use. These items can be elemental boosts and healling items. The up arrow is used to swap with the second equiped weapon.
The player dies when their Hp drops zero and the teammate fails to revive the hero and when the player falls of the map, keep in mind this is a souls like gaming so death should be expected and there are no invisible walls to protect the player from falling.
Multiplayer (Co-op)
Code Vein similar to other soul games allows online multiplayer. Whilst on the pause menu the player is allowed to send a distress signal and any player online who currently searches online can come to aid the player. There is an option to play with a friend by specifying a code/password which will allow anyone to find the signal if they type the same
password on their search engine. The players who join will automatically be scaled down so that they will not be over powered. They can still use gifts obtained from blood codes ahead of the story but the damage will not be the same. At the same time the main boss encounters are also scaled up given that instead of fighting two players (Hero & Ai) they
face three. If the player who joins the player who ask for help dies, then the distress signal will be lost as the other player will respawn back to his own crystal on his server.In order for that player to rejoin the room , they will be requested to search again in hope of getting in the same room (given the password was not set.) Helping people online
reward the players with rank points.
Collectables && Post-content
Collectables.
The games collectables are in five main forms. The first type of collectable is the gear and equipment. They re self explanatory as they re basically the swords, armor and healling items such as regen which inreases the amount a player can heal.
The second type of collectable are Valuables that can be given to the party. Maximizing the bond between each of the "new" Friends will allow the player to receive certain gifts. All of the heroes gain points by simply gifting them items however there are some valuables
that will reward way more bond points that a mere gift, also certain heroes value some items more than others. These Valuables can be found while exploring around the areas or by interacting with NPC in the world and doing their Quests. The third type of collectable as
it should have been obvious from the story, it's the vestiges. Blood vestiges are important for two reasons, main story characters and Blood Codes. There are vestiges that do not necessarily interconnect with the main party. The vestiges hold memories of the dead, and
when all of them( of a certain individual) are seeing, their blood Code becomes available. A blood code consists of gifts. Gifts is another word for skills. The players can find the vestiges lying around in different maps, on the hub world interacting with Io allows the
player to dive in. Once the code is complete, the player has to rest on a mistle and choose Gifts. Blood codes come with various effects,classes and gifts. The player is forced to pick the certain blood code and use it. The gifts are acquired by using Haze which is
this worlds currency. By using a gift within it's blood code will master the gift and the player will be able to equip the gift in a different code. For example, think two code, one is better for combat while the other is better for speed ad stamina. The player can equip the code with
regards to speed, master the gifts for stamina and manuver and then use those gifts whilst equiped with the combat code. The last type of collectable is the Depth maps. Depth maps can be used in the hub world whilst interacting with Davis . These are maps where the player can fight certain
boss battles and unlock certain gear items. Depth Maps are also the locations where the players can fight the DLC encounters.
The post game content can mainly by found in the Depth Maps. These maps as explained are decent size maps that require the player to venture around gather keys and unlocked the boss room. On the other hand, another option for the player is to create multiple (at least three) heroes and
play the story again and again to spectate ll three endings and unlocked all blood code. NOTE: Different heroes with different ending wont unlocked the achievements for spectating all three endings and gainning all blood codes. Everything must be done by the same hero. Three
blood codes are unlocked with each ending so in order to get them all the hero in a new game+.
Sum Up
Overall Code Vein is a unique game that combines the Souls Games with the world of anime. The Story of the game is really deep with a lot of details on creating a dark world and interesting characters some with deep development some with less. The entire story can last up to 30-40 hours
and the entire game is fully Voice acted. The music is extremely good and knows what track suits what scene or in-game combat or freelancing. The enemy designs are fantastic and theres plenty of them for any given map. The maps themselves are well design with plenty of secret passages,shortcuts
and secrets to be discovvered. Every single one of them differs with each other making each one feels unique. The punish system is very close to the Soul games where everything kills the player however, it is slightly easier as the companion Ai will most likely always ressurect the player with
the exchange of half of their own life. In most cases the Ai is aggresive and certain heroes are more powerful than others in some aspects while others are better for other resons. The combat of the game is fast and fair. To elaborate the buttons respond to the players input, the stamina meter
is fairly balanced with the classes and their buffs and the enemies have patterns that the players should take notice of. Last but not least, there are no words to describe the Character Creator which is by far one of the most impressive ones out there giving so much options to personalyse a hero.
There are Multiple players, who customise their heroes to look like famous established heroes from either cartoons or anime such as Naruto(from Naruto),Cloud (Final fantasy Vii), Squidward(SpongeBob) and Sora (from Kingdom Hearts.)
