Victor Vran Released on Early Access, Impressions

While the game was only announced at the beginning of this month, action-RPG Victor Vran, developed by Haemimont Games, is already available on on Steam Early Access for $14.99/€14,99/£11.99.

If you want to know whether the game is shaping up well or even if it’s worth spending some money on right now, you might want to read Rock, Paper, Shotgun’s impressions:

The point being, what the game takes away for not having elaborate loot drops and armour balancing, it gains in how you tailor your setup. After a while you have two Power slots to fill, extra slots to play Destiny Cards, and room for that second potion. Which all means it fits extremely neatly onto a 360 controller.

HERESY! you cry. And gosh, yes, I’d be with you if I hadn’t been playing for so long. Hack-n-slash RPGs are for wearing out your mouse! But Victor Vran (blimey, it’s such a bad name, isn’t it?) has you move about in a way far more reminiscent of a third-person action game. You can even jump! You can even wall-jump! And yet, despite this, it still feels defiantly like an action RPG. Powers go on the triggers, potions on the d-pad, weapon swap is on the shoulders, and attacks on the face buttons. Move on the right trigger, and shock-of-shocks, rotate the screen on the left! (You can of course play with the mouse and keyboard, and the menus are far more easily negotiated this way, but I’m really surprised how much I liked playing on the gamepad.)

Of course, this is still early access, and there’s an awful lot of work left to be done. It needs a good dose of balancing, and I hope they’ve had the sense to riddle this thing with Steamworks so they can see where players are getting killed too often, or (more likely) breezing through too simply. And while I am surprised to not miss the inventory Tetris of looting hats and shoes so much, and despite all those elements mentioned above, it needs even more personalisation.