In our Swansong review we explore how the next installment from the creators of The Council, set in the absorbing world of Vampire: The Masquerade, has turned out. A deeply narrative game that tries to apply the rules of the role-playing game, avoiding action as much as possible. Gets it?
Swansong could have been the best vampire video game and yes, I say that having played it around the time Bloodlines and Redemption came out. Admiring the personality and unique approach of the first and having an immense affection for the second that makes me even forgive the many flaws I would see if I went back to him. But Vampire: The Masquerade – Swansong is incredibly well documented. I actually think there are two ways to play it. If you ignore the codex, you will have a vampire title that takes a long time to boot. If you read the entire codec, the rhythm directly goes out the window, but in return it gives you the experience of reading the role-playing book of Vampire: The Masquerade, immersing yourself in the rules and the rich background of the license.
It’s not just the depth, but how well you understand your concepts. The Malkavians, for example, are a much more appealing race than in the other games mentioned, as it expands their weirdness into something more than just rambling wackos. The sons of Malkav have here a justification for their actions and it turns this race into one of the most interesting vampire psychological profiles that has been seen in a video game about this myth, whether it is from the White Wolf license or not. So, what has gone wrong, at least for my taste? What I already saw in Big Bad Wolf’s previous work with The Council: They can’t keep up the pace and they create systems and scenes that are capable of giving you the best and the worst. Very worked and interesting moments and others that are boring and do not add anything to the narrative.
If in The Council the start was fast-paced and then it faded, in Vampire: The Masquerade – Swansong it’s just the opposite. The tutorial-like prologue is slow in all aspects of the word. Redundant conversations, a plot that doesn’t go far enough, and an explanation of the systems that makes the explanations so messy that you’ll learn as you go and, sometimes, having to accept the failures in the consequences of the chapters by trial and error.
vampire detective
And what is Swansong about? The game introduces us to the Boston clique, in the shoes of three vampires from the Ventrue, Toreador and Malkavian clans, who must investigate a conspiracy that may affect the masquerade and the power of the Prince in the city. The game begins after the alarm of the activation of a red code, having to find those responsible and investigate who may be benefiting from it. The game not only focuses on the plot, but seeks to explore the personal dilemmas of the three main characters, Emem, Galeb, and Leysha. A task that, unfortunately, does not always meet the same success in all chapters.
He doesn’t always succeed in making us feel like a vampireThe idea, on paper, is unbeatable. Swansong flees from the action as from sunlight. Big Bad Wolf has set out to create narrative systems that don’t rely on combat mechanics and are more than just a handful of cutscenes. Thus, a table of our character is organized that offers different traits, abilities and characteristics. Suffice it to say, for you to discover, that we can take these profiles to a more direct way of playing, extracting information in conversations, hacking and breaking device security, or investigating the scenario and deducing. Faced with this daring, I can only stand up and applaud. But, before his execution, I have to take my seat again.
Swansong turns all the vampire disciplines and abilities into dialectical struggles, strengths, dice rolls and probabilities emulating the role-playing game, but it doesn’t always make it fun. Again, the reason is the abuse of dialogue and boring scenes, the poor explanations of the tutorial and an investigation and exploration system that, although it is varied and interesting, does not always hit what should be the ultimate goal of a video game. this guy: sure enough, make us feel like a vampire.
Too often he settles for the most basic and least stimulating detective work that a common human would do and not a son of Cain. There is, however, a correlation between discipline and craving points that form an interesting system, which we will have to constantly balance in order to control the Beast (our irrational bloodthirsty side) and make the most of each situation.
As we stop making mistakes, everything that the studio has prepared is more enjoyable. Unfortunately, it can come too late, leaving you with the feeling that the good game would be the second one, when you already have all the practical knowledge to master its systems and not sin by not knowing its rules.
Swansong is one of those examples of wanting to enjoy a game that doesn’t seem to let go. Its interface is strange and it doesn’t always make the best decisions. I even had to replay the prologue because a button that looked like a checkpoint reset button, placed below the “continue” button, wiped my game completely and put me back in the game from the beginning. Oh, and no option to skip any dialogue. I have found bugs of all kinds that even ended up preventing him from playing with a controller because he would go crazy. The first few times you bite into a human for food, the minigame is so fast-paced and unrefined that you can make mistakes unintentionally.
And then there is the matter of animations. While Swansong is humble and understandably recreating somewhat limited environments, the same thing we once blamed on Life is Strange happens here. In games where faces are so important, animations need to match or they take away too much from the experience. The same thing happens with the exploration parts, in which our character unfolds roughly on stage.
A weird and obtuse game, that sometimes takes you awayDespite being a bit of a tragedy, doubly so in fact, because this could have been a wonderful vampire game and a good example of how to make interesting and playable works without resorting to action; I do encourage fans of the vampire myth, and not just those of the Vampire: The Masquerade brand, to approach him sooner or later. They will discover a strange and obtuse game, which sometimes distances you, but also seduces you when you appreciate the sinister world that it builds in each chapter and in each new page of the codex. For me it has been almost a reunion with the World of Darkness in the video game, after being locked in a coffin for so long, like the crusader Christof Romuald waking up five hundred years later in London at the end of the century. We have woken up with a thirst for blood and Swansong does not completely satisfy us. Multiplayers like Bloodhunt, even less so. We want more to placate the Beast.
