
I used a high risk build, equipping Victor with cards that unleashed ice blasts and regenerated my health, but only on critical hits. This makes getting loot a far more interesting process than simply trawling through your new items to sell everything you don’t need. Later in the game, you also have access to transmutation, which allows you to imbue weapons and destiny cards with extra attributes, combining other weapons and destiny cards to do so. Pleasingly, every ability and spell you have equipped is useful, and you can rest assured your ability bar will be neither disappointingly small nor cluttered with very situational powers. This choice is quite significant as the number of spells Victor can have equipped – like his abilities for each weapon – is limited to two. All Victor’s outfits have a cool wide-brimmed hat or hood covering his eyes (I suppose he has astral vision), but where they differ is their effect on how fast you gain overdrive, which allows you to cast spells. Outfits are awarded to you rarely in the game and your choice between the three – tanky, magic-y or balanced-y – strongly effects your strategy.
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Unlike many RPGs, your “class” and abilities are based entirely on your gear, letting you switch up your playstyle at any time, so you’re always free to change tack if one set-up gets boring. Destiny cards let you apply more conservative, passive bonuses to Victor – such as a higher max health – or more tricky ones, such as shrinking your health bar in favor of more damage.

The wide variety of ways to play becomes infinitely more diverse with the introduction of destiny cards. Since both armaments have separate cooldowns for their abilities, you’re encouraged to switch between them quickly to really maximize your killing power – creating your own weapon combo. Within a few level ups, you can equip two weapons at once. The rapier, however, unleashes finer, armor penetrating thrusts, letting you dash through a line of of enemies, providing a handy escape, but not having such strong area effect attacks. Hammers do a lot of damage and can devastate hordes of monsters over a wide area, but force you to commit much more to attacks. Luckily for Zagoravia’s reluctant hero, there’s a vast array of weapons Victor can use, all with their own finely balanced strengths and weaknesses. Thankfully, Victor Vran infuses just the right amount of silly humour to stop it from becoming desolate, without undermining the game’s solid central story about intrigue and regret. One problem I’ve always had with dungeon-crawl focused RPGs is that they become too much of a lonely experience. He’s also there to crowbar in some achingly unsubtle pop culture references, alongside the mercifully occasional appearance of gangnam style dancing zombies. Victor is accompanied on his journey by “The Voice”, a constant spirit companion whose job it is to make wry observations about Victor’s exploits and provide cryptic clues as to his past. The people you meet there are also key to unravelling scowly Victor’s mysterious past (TM). The royal palace acts as your quest hub from which you can travel to any previously explored location in Zagoravia.

The survivors have holed up in the royal palace, conveniently having amassed a vast inventory of goodies to sell to adventurers first. The ever-so-slight problem with his plan, is that the city has become over-run with marauding skeletons, zombies, giant spiders, ghosts and ghouls of every description. Victor Vran is a story about a demon hunter on a mission to find a friend lost in the psuedo-Russian steampunkish city of Zagoravia. With Victor Vran, I’m smiling as I blow up a hundred skeletons with a mortar that fires chickens. It’s the joyless lack of fun that puts me off most ARPGs: I’m forever trying to make numbers go up and waiting for ability cooldowns to fade. Most importantly, they both have an infectious undercurrent of fun to them. Both games also place primacy on skill, rewarding hair-trigger reactions and creativity. Though gravelly-voiced protagonist Victor might not be able to pull off a skintight catsuit and gun-heels like everyone’s favorite voluptuous witch, both of them are hugely versatile heroes who can smoothly dodge into and out of combat while stringing together devastating combos.

However, when actually playing the game, I found it a lot more reminiscent of Bayonetta. When looking at a screenshot of Victor Vran, the first thought I had was: “Oh, it’s another isometric Action RPG that’s a bit like Diablo – where you grind levels and loot continuously while the precious flower of your youth withers on the vine.”. Victor Vran: the awesomely alliterative demon destroyer!
