Vampire's Fall: Origins

Review

When starting a new game, the first thing you’ll do is to create your character. You have the choice of being Male or Female along with various options for types of Face, Hairstyle, Hair Colour, Skin Colour and Eye Colour. You can also Name your character.  After deciding how your character looks, the next thing is to choose one of four Human Lineages. The four bloodlines on offer are Nosferatu, Magistrav, Ranjeni and Equides. Each lineage has a brief bit of information about them, along with a bonus for playing with that bloodline. The Nosferatu bonus gives eight percent Gold Drop, whereas the Magistrav bonus has a two percent Item Drop bonus. Ranjeni’s bonus gives two percent Dodge and Equides has five percent Experience Points bonus. Once you’ve decided which to play, the game will start.

After a short introduction you find yourself at the village of Vamp’Ire where you’re greeted by Walter the Town Elder. After years of peace throughout the land, rumours of an evil army is spreading south towards Vamp’Ire under the leadership of The Witchmaster. The village of Vamp’Ire is looking to the community for recruits to help defend the village against the encroaching army. Walter tasks the recruits with orders; your task is to visit Captain Angmar and follow his orders, so you head off to find the Captain.

Captain Angmar is a lovely man with a hint of sarcasm as he speaks with you. As a new recruit you have no weapon, so the Captain has a few you can chose from for purchase. After gaining a weapon, the Captain will give you a few tasks to complete. Then the village is surrounded by The Witchmaster and his army.  The Witchmaster states that he will leave your village alone if the village sends out its strongest warrior and defeats him in battle. If no-one comes out, then he’ll burn and destroy everything and everyone in the village. Walter turns to Captain Angmar and says,
“You’re our best warrior - get out there and defeat him!” Suddenly the Captain isn’t so sarcastic, and instead starts complaining of a sore back and legs. The Captain proclaims that “You” are the best warrior, and Walter agrees, so you’re sent to confront The Witchmaster with the safety of the village on your shoulders alone.

As you can imagine, things didn’t go very well for you.  When you come to, you find the village in ruins with bloodied bodies everywhere. You're alive but you have this craving for blood; it’s so intense that you can’t think clearly. Do you drink the blood of the rat or from the body which lies before you to quench your thirst? Whatever you decide, this is where your story beginnings.

Looking at your world map you find Vamp’Ire in the south-western corner; the map is covered by a thick fog. This fog will dissipate as you move through the regions. The main game follows a path which has you wanting to find and defeat The Witchmaster. This path is indicated on the world map as Origins.  You can find out what the current task is by visiting the Quests Tab. You can also interact with other characters as you progress through the lands. They may give you other tasks or jobs to complete which will help bring in some lovely gold, experience points, armour and weapons etcetera. All active quests can be found in the Quests tab in the top middle of the screen or by pressing the “Q” button. While some of these active quests will be displayed on your world map, others won’t, and you’ll have to search for the locations of those quests.

With the quests window open you can also open other tabs from ther: Inventory, Character, Blood Lines and Abilities. Inventory is where you can assign armour, weapons, rings and amulets along with potions to custom your character. You will gain new weapons etcetera from battle, chests or you can buy them from various traders throughout the lands. Having better equipment may just help you survive that little bit longer. There is a weight limit for the equipment and weapons that you can wear.

Selecting the Character tab will display details on your character’s Level, Current Experience Points/ Experience Points to Next Level. Also the character’s Focus (what they start with and the maximum Focus they currently have), and Regeneration Rate.  You’ll see details on your Combat and Defensive status, indicated by the crossed swords and shield above your level indicator. The amount of Gold and Blood Stones you have are also displayed here.

Blood Lines is where you’ll use Skill Points you have earned from leveling up your character. There are three sections where you can upgrade your character: Anger, Vitality and Deceit. Anger will allow you to improve your Damage for different weapon types; Piercing, Blunt, Slashing and Critical Hit percentage are just a few. Vitality deals with your Health, Armour and Focus bonuses. Deceit allows you to increase your chances to Block Attacks, Increase your Equipment Limit, gain more Gold from enemies and more. Which ones you improve upon is down to you and your game style.

You gain Four Skill Points for each time you level up your character, as well as One Ability Point. You can use the Ability Points in three categories: Control, Instinct and Might. The Control and Instinct each have Four abilities which you’ll have to unlock by reaching a certain level with your character. You can upgrade these abilities multiple times and then you can use these abilities along with your weapons in combat. Might has six abilities, however you won’t be able to unlock these with Ability Points. To unlock these, you’ll have to complete a quest which requires you to stand inside a circle, and in doing so you’ll upgrade your character and unlock one of the six abilities. You can manually set which ability you want to use.

In combat you’ll be able to cause damage with your weapon, and you can also use Control and Instinct abilities. You can only use these though when you have enough Focus Points. You will gain some focus points with each turn; depending on your character, you will start combat with so much focus. There is also a limit as to how many focus points you can have; these limits can be increased through upgrades in the Abilities. When your Focus is full you can then take advantage of a Combo Turn. This will allow you to choose multiple attacks, Instinct and Control abilities if you have enough Focus to make a Combo. If yours or the enemy’s health reaches zero then you’ll die; you will respawn in the last village you visited, and it will cost you a few gold coins. If you are successful in combat then you’ll gain some experience points, gold and maybe some items such as weapons, armour, rings etcetera.

You can also craft Potions and Blood Stones, although you can only craft these while in villages and not in the wild. Potions and Blood Stones are not created instantly and instead will take time to craft, depending on what you want. Blood Stones take forty minutes to craft and you’ll be granted with two stones once they have been created. You can then use the blood stones to upgrade your weapons, armour, items. You will have to visit a blacksmith and use his Anvil to add blood stones to your equipment. It’s not quite that simple, there is a percentage chance of successfully upgrading your equipment with a blood stone. It’ll be up to you if you think it’s worth wasting forty minutes of crafting for a fifty percent chance of upgrading. You can unbind blood stones from equipment and weapons so when you do get your grubby mitts on some decent stuff you can reuse those blood stones.

In the settings you’ll find options for Music and Sound Effects volume sliders, Resolution and Language (English, Filipino, French, German, Hindi, Indonesian, Italian, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Thai and Ukrainian)

I’ve enjoyed playing Vampire's Fall: Origins so far, and I know there’s still lots more to come in the game. There are plenty of quests and main story to keep you busy, as well as lots of different styles of weapons and equipment. It can be frustrating at times with some of the random encounters when you only have three hundred health and they have fifteen hundred and then they nail you with an attack for three hundred plus damage. However, it’s still an enjoyable game, Thumbs Up!

Review written by Piston Smashed™ for Zeepond.com!