combat; at other times they’ve died
hopelessly within seconds and then
it’s over for you too.
Hey suckers
Your hub area between missions is
the coolest of vampire cribs. A gang
of likeable fellow Revenants hang
out here – some can be co-opted as
AI partners, others are merchants.
You can listen to music, talk to your
vampire buddies, access side-
dungeons and training areas. You can
also check that you’re looking full-on
anime-sexy and tweak your look. Code
Vein boasts a very comprehensive
character creator; while faces and
bodies have only a handful of anime
looks, the options for accessories and
hair are crazily extensive. Hanging with
your fang-club is also when you’ll get
the best chance to tweak your build.
Trust us, you’ll be doing this a lot, to
better go out and tackle those long
stretches of punishing combat topped
off with an insane boss battle.
Unlike most Revenants who have
a specific skillset encoded into their
blood, your Revenant is special and
can unlock all ‘Codes’ – giving you
the excuse to chop and change
your character build as you go, with
Revenants that you meet gifting you
their perks. Eventually you may settle,
but changing up your build becomes
a tactic early on, borne out of trial
and error, and failure. Each build is
extensively furnished with powers and
perks, though they generally adhere to
typical dungeon-crawler classes such
as spell-caster, tank, ranger etc.
While there’s a smorgasbord of
ideas in Code Vein, there’s quite a lot
of style over actual content, a shame
because this really is a cool concept
with some great ideas and deep,
at times moving, story beats. The
customisation, compelling setting,
imaginative enemies and relateable
allies help build an interesting world,
but the core combat falls short of
what’s needed to compare favourablywith Dark Souls. At times it’s positively
janky, and less connected and weighty
than a good melee game should
be, while the stylised, oversized
weapons don’t help – in fact the
collision detection is way off and their
ludicrous size in the game’s many
confined battle areas means you’re
trailing them through walls half the
time. But while it’s not perfect, there’s
a lot to like about this ambitious
anime-styled action RPG, and it will
surely resonate with a lot of gamers
and fans of both RPGs and JRPGs. QPURPLE HAZE
Are you experienced?
You’ll need to be, as
soon as possible,
such is the difficulty
curve in Code Vein’s
combat. When you
die, you drop all your
Haze, aka XP, which is
a pain if you’ve got a
long way into an area
before dying. With
that need to rank up,
in one particularly
gruelling area, we
even adopted a tactic
of dodge-rolling our
way through 90 per
cent of the area to
fetch our Haze, then
rolling back to the
Mistle checkpoint
again to level up and
try again, because it
was just too difficult
to live through all that
fighting until we
levelled up a bit.“The world is
cloaked in a
miasma of blood,
called the Gaol
Of The Mists”
ABOVE There’s
something
horrible behind
that door,
trust us.
LEFT The
Souls-like
combat is
punishing, but
rewarding once
you master it.OXM VERDICT
A cool, stylish
vamp that, if you
can allow for its
imperfections,
definitely has bite.8
FAR LEFT The
world is unique
and the twisted
vistas are
pretty awe-
inspiring.More Xbox news at gamesradar.com/oxm THE OFFICIAL XBOX MAGAZINE 081