Code Vein

CODE Vein has a lot of ideas and things going for it that I think makes it have the potential to be one of the best soulslike games out there. The main letdowns are the clunky gameplay, companion implementation, area design, and ability/weapon variety.

The best thing about this game is easily it's style. A lot of people tend to dislike an anime aesthetic whether that's because of prejudice or genuinely their taste, but if you don't like it, there's not much it can offer. The character design, artstyle, and character creation especially are fantastic. I really cannot undersell how incredible the creation is and you can make just about any character you want come to life in it, and you can make fantastic-looking original characters. I would go so far as to say its the best character creation in video game history if we're just talking about aesthetics. This strength also translates to the characters in the game, as well as their armor. A lot of anime characters tend to end up looking very similar, but Code Vein has a large cast of unique characters both in personality and design. The clothing and armor design looks great in this game as well, and many of the bosses look fantastic.

Having a more narrative-focused story in this game is really amazing, and while it certainly stumbles in some areas, the plot and characters do a good job of getting you to care and progress through the game. The soundtrack has some misses for sure, but has a large handful of tracks that are fantastic, the main standout being Memory of the Lost, although you will hear it far more times than you need to because of how many damn flashbacks you're forced to play through.

The gameplay in this game can be rough a lot of the time. Backstabbing is rough, and a lot of enemies have huge arcing attacks that seem to encourage backstabbing, but a lot of the time it just doesn't work. Parrying also is pretty bad, with it sometimes feeling like it comes out at random times, but with all blood codes it seems to be relatively similar timing, and you're actively shown your window for a parry which is really nice. My first 3 playthroughs of this game were with companions, and my latest was solo, and man did they want you to use companions because this game is incredibly unforgiving in solo mode. Lost invasions, in particular, are challenging as hell with a companion, but borderline fucking embarrassing in solo mode, and you are just pelted with enemies far tankier than they have any right to be constantly, especially in the awful anor londo ripoff area which just might burn white into your retinas because of how long and monotonous it is.

Boss fights are also pretty rough with a small movepool and some bosses having super challenging attacks that have the idea that you can always be revived by a companion as an excuse for its laziness. When they want to, bosses in this game can have some of the best telegraphing outside of fromsoft games you'll see, and can be really rewarding.

The basic weapons are really fun with some very responsive dodges and attacks, but it seriously lacks in the variety department with its weapons, and even the stat differences tend to be minor so there will just be 4 or 5 of what is basically the same exact weapon just with a different name and coloration. The abilities are what I think might be the biggest letdown in the entire game. Half of the options are useless, and just trying to choose an ability to buy is obnoxious- requiring to dive through a lot of menus for it. The mastery system is fantastic, and I generally think that the ability system is the most exciting feature of this game in a perfect world.

Overall, if you like the anime style, and you like soulslike games, I think picking this game up- at least when it's on sale- is a no-brainer, as a lot of the best aspects of this game will likely resonate with you. I have a pretty strong emotional connection to this game despite it's faults, and am eagerly awaiting its sequel, but because of it's many shortcomings, I'll have to leave it at like a 45/100 (I'm an absolute asshole with ratings I know, but this basically means I spent roughly half of the game just frustrated at it, especially in my later playthroughs).

I don't usually do this, but this review is going to be split into a good/bad format because that's just how I naturally typed it up.

So let's start with the good!

The combat is the best thing about the game. It's fast, stylish and super polished. You have your basics like the light and heavy attacks, parry, dodge roll and tons of spells, but also plenty of special anime styled attacks called 'gifts' which you can chain together and do combos with. Also the Blood Code system is very nice and being able to switch codes on a whim and make different builds for each code instead of being stuck with one build the entire game is a cool gimmick, not gonna lie

The character creator is also INCREDIBLE, legit one of the best I've seen in any game and I've played 1000s of games lol. Infinite options for creating your own edgy anime power fantasy or dream waifu/husbando, also if you're creative enough you can make a lot of characters from other games and series, I've seen some super impressive stuff.

The OST doesn't seem like anything special at first, but it grew on me, especially the boss themes which were very epic and reminded me of Castlevania with all the harpsichords, organs and other baroque instrumentation, very fitting of the Victorian Gothic style of the game.

Some characters are pretty interesting and have cool backstories

Now for the bad....

THE LEVEL DESIGN IS GOD AWFUL. Not even exaggerating when I say it's some of the worst I've seen in any game ever. What could be more worse than one abstract labyrinthine level? TWO ABSTRACT LABYRINTHINE LEVELS! Not to mention even the levels that aren't overly complex just look bland and uninspired as fuck, where everything looks the fucking same. It's all so bad and made me almost drop the game because it makes it such a slog and chore to even playthrough the game despite the combat being so much fun

The enemy design isn't much better than level design, there's a couple bosses that look really cool and a few basic enemies that do too, but it's undermined by the fact there is very little enemy variety and most of the more challenging late game enemies are just color reskins of earlier enemies

The game despite being very fun and polished is insultingly easy. I don't know if it's just because I'm so adept at Souls styled games now or what, but most bosses I killed in 1-3 attempts and hardly any mobs beat me either. Just waves of enemies before reaching a mistle (This game's bonfire) my shitty platforming skills ad being knocked off of cliffs is what caused most of my deaths

The story, not that it's bad per se, but it's pretty generic, predictable and filled with many anime tropes and takes itself WAY too serious, there were some scenes that were supposed to be emotional and I honestly laughed because of how overly dramatic and serious it tried to be

All in all the game was very solid, but the level design almost completely killed it for me and the uninteresting story and enemies didn't exactly make me more driven to keep playing. I'd only recommend it to the most die-hard Souls fans who have to play anything remotely similar to Souls or big fans of story driven anime games, who knows, you might enjoy it more than me, but even then I'd say wait for a sale because $60 for this game is a bit too much.

Final verdict: a light 7/10