Vampire: The Masquerade – Redemption Retrospective Review

There’s a retrospective review of Nihilistic’s Vampire: The Masquerade – Redemption over at CRPG Revisited, where they’ve concluded the article with a score of 24 out of what appears to be a total of 50.  Here is what they had to say about the title’s character development and overall gameplay:

I like the system used in this game for character advancement. There are no levels as is traditional in RPGs. You accumulate experience points for enemies slained and as long as you could return to your haven you could use them regardless of how many XP you have aquired. That means you could either save them to buy some skill that is more expensive or buy inexpensive skills in areas you don´t know much about. The same goes for you attributes. The less proficient you are in some attribute the cheaper it is to buy. This system gives more flexibility because you could save your XP (As I normally do) and use them up on a particular skill or discipline when you feel you need it strongly and with good proficiency.

…

In the beginning I was strongly hooked since everything was new but I lack secrets areas, puzzles, optional sub quests, more NPCs, more varying combats, more equipment, better looting etc. A major breakdown of the game is the lack of good equipment to buy. Looting is totally broken in the modern world. You will never get anything worthwhile. Since London, I only played the game for the sake of completing it without much enjoyment.

Another problem I have with the game is the lack of control of your other party members. As I´ve said before I would like some sort of detailed settings to control how much – if any – blood they should use or which disciplines they should prioritize. If I don’t control them directly you could never be sure of what will be cast during combat.