By Athanasios 28.12.2024
The world of video games: a few timeless classics, many great titles, hundreds upon hundreds of bad ones, and a googolplex of mediocre, boring, forgettable junk - and then there’s the hidden gems. The diamonds in the rough, which are mostly preserved through word of mouth, either from those who like digging a bit deeper, or from genre super-fans, who are most likely to find those lost relics while searching for the next thing to play. If you are a point-and-click aficionado, for example, you are bound to someday bump into A Vampyre Story. Made by a team of ex-LucasArts developers, most notably Bill Tiller of The Curse of the Monkey Island fame, this has players trying to help a cute vampire lady to escape the castle of her captor, in an adventure filled with funny one-liners, and a beautiful, cartoony/gothic aesthetic.
A Vampyre Story follows Mona De Lafitte, a young opera singer from Paris, whose career has met an abrupt end because of a “kiss” by a “hunk” half her height named Shrowdy. The adventure begins with her attempts at escaping the castle of that pathetic excuse of a man, as well as her trying to come to terms with her new dietary habits, which involve 0+ Positive… wine. Ok, so Mona is now a vampire, which means she can fly. However, don’t ask why she doesn’t she use that ability to simply go away. Actually don’t ask anything. The story isn’t exactly concerned with being bullet proof, so be ready for a couple of things that just don’t make sense. Comedy is the name of the game. Each scene, each line of dialogue, each spot searched, involves a joke of some sort. Is the humour at hand any good? Well, it is good, but as comedy is a completely subjective matter, one has to experience it first-hand to draw any conclusions.
As an attempt to give a taste of what’s on offer, this mostly revolves one-liners that heavily revolve around puns, pop-culture, and, strangely enough for such a cartoonish-looking title, many innuendos that will fly over the heads of younger gamers. As this goes for quantity rather than quality, the experience will make you snicker quite a lot, but not really laugh that hard. Most of the comedy here is low effort, without that meaning that it’s bad. The constant barrage of jokes has its downsides, though. Since this is an adventure game, you’ll want to hear every single line of dialogue, but you need to be prepared for hundreds of lines that are basically there to provide laughs, not info.
Generally, if in search for an emotive journey this isn’t it. Mona is extremely cute. Her naivety, as well as her unwillingness to accept her vampiric nature is quite funny, and her bat buddy Froderick is quite likable, although his main purpose seems to be the aforementioned innuendos. You’ll get somewhat immersed to it all, and sort of feel connected to the struggle of the main character, but this is way too concerned with being funny, rather than engrossing. Finally, there aren’t really any interesting characters to talk about. The game also forgets to spend any time on those who are supposed to be important ones, whether that’s the main villain or the human vampire hunters, to the point that you almost forget their very existence!
Sadly, many of the problems at hand stem from the fact that this is incomplete. A Vampyre Story was always meant to be a Part One of a supposed trilogy, with this seven-or-so hour-long journey being divided in two chapters, but due to some major issues with publisher Crimson Cow, Autumn Moon was left to continue without any budget. This review could spend more time explaining the why and the how, and mention the failed attempts at kickstarting the franchise, but the gist of the story is that this is an incomplete experience, with a very bad, cliffhanger ending that leaves a lot of unanswered questions, aggravating the one who spend precious time to reach the finishing line. It basically sets you up for an upcoming adventure that never come, and most likely never will. At least, is the adventure you have on your hands any good? The answer is: yes… no… kinda.
Being a LucasArts “flavoured” point-and-click, Mona is tasked with searching around for key items, which must then be used with the right hotspot to solve a problem, and additionally she’ll need to talk with a variety of characters to gather necessary clues. Clicking on an interactive point opens a menu that lets you TALK, TAKE, SEE, and FLY. Wait, what?! Oh, yeah. Mona is a vampire, and as such she can also use that ability to turn into a bat. She can’t do so anywhere she wants, though, so while a neat trick, it’s nothing that special if you think about it. Froderick is used much more, as he can be sent to specific locations, or be combined with items, like a bit of grease in order to go through some narrow places, or children’s clothing so that he can trick a police officer into following him. Riiight…
A weird mechanic is that Mona can sometimes “note down” an item. This will mark said item in the inventory, and when you find the right spot, Mona will fly to the item, take it, and then return to use it. The point of it all? Well, why would she carry a heavy mace if there’s no reason to? It doesn’t make sense, correct? Err, no. It’s time consuming and adds nothing to the fun factor. Thankfully, almost everything can be skipped. From walking to one side of the room to the other (Mona sure takes here sweat time with that ethereal vampire walk of hers), to the actual dialogue, everything can be skipped. You’ll do that a lot. Like a LOT. It’s basically what separates A Vampyre Story with another, extremely similar, Autumn Moon creation, the even more obscure Ghost Pirates of Vooju Island.
Concerning the whole puzzle-solving deal, the slow pace of it all will annoy you more than the difficulty at hand, because, while definitely not a piece of cake, this won’t really challenge genre veterans. There are a few obstacles with somewhat whacky solutions and a bit of trial-and-error (as is customary), but that’s the bread and butter of point-and-clicks, really. This doesn’t escape the genre’s curse of the annoying, tedious puzzle, with a certain potion-mixing session being able to put most to sleep, but enough clues are provided to work with so that you won’t pull out your hair. Generally, this is an entertaining ride, even if it’s not up to par with classics such as Grim Fandango, and although the journey ends right when it actually begins. The replay value is low, and the bug count high, but as a whole, fans of retro adventures will have fun here.
Finally, it would be unfair to not talk about how good this looks, as the few backdrops that you’ll visit are worthy of being put on an art book and sold separately. Everything takes place during the night, but don’t expect much darkness. This is more like a fairytale nighttime. Gloomy, but more Tim Burton than Bram Stoker. Even the gothic tunes that play along have a neat “creatures of the night… but whimsical” vibe. Characters are in full 3D, but blend perfectly with the hand-painted backgrounds. Most are forgettable, but Mona with her tall, over-exaggerated hourglass figure, and super-cute facial expressions, steals the show, and blends sensuality with an air of nobility, and a little bit of cartoony goofiness thrown in as well. The voice acting is a bit of a mixed bag. Mona’s high-pitched, pseudo French (and unintentionally German) can be annoying, but some will love it. Some will hate that too many characters feel out-of-place as they talk like New Yorkers, some won’t mind. As a whole, though it all leans towards the decent side of the scale despite the room for improvement.
If in search for the next best thing in adventures, A Vampyre Story isn't it. While it has some issues, and an obvious lack of polish at places, it definitely has its moments, and some of these moments are awesome. It's not perfect, but genre fans will enjoy the three or so evenings they'll spend on it, with its humour, likable protagonist, and beautiful vistas being the best things on offer… and the fact that this is basically a Part One of a Part Two that never came (and probably never will) ruining the experience.
6/10
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