

The game's transparent about all this, tells you what the stakes are and what you can expect if you set your difficulty to casual or hard - the outfits all alter how you play the game and if you have a particular style of play they're usually suited to that style. Non-hardcore characters take no penalties from dying, and you guessed it, hardcore characters do.

Once you've dived into the tutorial, learnt all there is to know about movement and fighting in the game, it's time to choose your outfit, difficulty and type of character, hardcore or not. Especially when you find a sweet loot chest and usually a badass monster guarding it. You can navigate around the maps easily, thanks to a solid mini-map and Victor's movement controls which also include not only a jump, but also a wall-jump that lets the demon slayer leap to higher areas or over seemingly impossible barriers to get at the hidden goodies beyond.īetween the main map and mini-map, navigation is a cinch and the whole experience of exploring is rewarding and fun. This is vital because many of the game's secrets and secret areas are sneakily tucked away in the various maps, often hidden by walls and so forth. Victor Vran has a full 3d camera that can be rotated 360 degrees, unlike say Diablo 3 where you're locked into the same perspective. There's gravitas, humour and some pretty dark overtones to the overall script and Doug does a bang-up job as per usual. You'd be correct, since the grumble-tones of Doug Cockle are pretty unmistakable here as Doug lends his voice to yet another monster slayer.

If you stop a moment, listen to him, you might think he reminds you of the hero of the Witcher series - Geralt of Rivia. Victor Vran is the hero of the piece, a gravel-voiced narrative demon slayer by trade. If you love Diablo 3 and those kinds of games then honestly, Victor Vran is a good addition to the action-adventure Diablo genre. Good news, I've enjoyed my time with it immensely and it adds a few things here and there I really like - so that's a great sign. So when we got a code for Victor Vran, thanks to both the publisher and the gorgeous folks Xbox it was time to dive back into the worlds of monsters and demons to see just what this Diablo-like game was really, well, like. What with Vikings: Wolves of Midgard, the upcoming Warhammer 40K Diablo-like game and the near-release of the Necromancer for Diablo 3 - Diablo-clones are appearing all over the place.
