The only downside is that the Nintendo Switch seems to struggle with a critical mass of enemies ever so slightly, ever so rarely I had a noticeable frame rate drop in a few places not enough to inhibit the flow of the game, but something I don’t remember from a PlayStation 4 playthrough a year or so ago.
#VICTOR VRAN BOUNTY PC#
Even on the Nintendo Switch’s relatively small screen (relative to TV or PC monitor, I mean), the fireworks in annihilating 20 or 30 enemies at once is genuinely impressive. You’ll also get to do that frequently, because the next horde of enemies is never far away, and the cooldowns for the special abilities are rapid to a generous degree. Just about every special attack is designed to do damage to everything within a perimeter, and there’s nothing quite like wading into the middle of a horde before unleashing a special attack that destroys a wide ring of enemies. Of course, the reason to have hordes is so that Victor’s special attacks can pack a visual punch. Even bosses are weaker than you might expect in themselves, but when they’re surrounded by plenty of little allies, they can be more than a headache. Loot drops are frequent and scaled nicely, so with every new environment you wander into, you wander back out with all kinds of shiny new things to play with. Mechanically, this is an action RPG in the Diablo vein, through and through. It’s well written, often very funny, and is a narrative feature that does just enough to ensure that this game has a comedic tone that Diablo generally lacks they might look the same, but Victor Vran has a personality all to itself. This mocking voice isn’t constant through the adventure – that would be maddening – but it kicks in at just the right points to offer a bit of sarcastic wisdom, through to outright mockery of Victor and his situation. If there’s any doubt about whether it’s a satire or not, you’ll be set straight almost immediately a narrator’s voice kicks in. That grim fight against the odds (and the lack of friendly faces and help) made for a very different tone of adventure to most of what Dungeons & Dragons offers, and it’s this tone, setting and aesthetic that Victor Vran really plays up. One of my favourite adventures from Ravenloft had the party of heroes coming across a village that was besieged on all angles by a host of the dead, with only a tiny few people left, barricaded within the one tiny section of the village that still hadn’t been toppled. For me, it immediately reminded me of the old Dungeons & Dragons Ravenloft setting, which took every popular monster and gothic tale and turned it into a gameplay opportunity. The setting is so overbearingly cliched that it works. Victor himself comes to town following the trail of a hunter friend who he lost contact with, and finds himself unwillingly embroiled in the desperate fight against evil. Environments, enemies and structure will be immediately familiar to anyone who is familiar with classical gothic horror there’s a city that has been over-run by hellspawn and undead, and it attracts bounty hunter heroes who attempt to stem the tide and save the few remaining citizens that hang on for dear life. Victor Vran is an interesting blend of homage and satire to the gothic nightmare that has been Diablo’s hallmark.
With that in mind I do hope people give Victor Vran a shot, because it’s so much more than a staid clone.
Most players will be happy sticking to Diablo. Diablo has barely missed a step since its original release, so many years ago now, and with Diablo 3 going from strength to strength, it takes something really special to catch the eye of any but the most dedicated genre fan. One of the problems that “Diablo clones” face is that their genre is named for competition that’s almost impossible to beat.
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