Throughout the many hours of play with Code Vein, it has never been possible to dispel a certain feeling that there is a certain halo of Tales of this RPG. I shouldn't miss much, knowing that the two are from Bandai Namco. Although its aesthetic is much darker and bloodier than Tales of Vesperia, for example, the way in which we are told the story and how we interact with the environment can remind us vaguely of that other franchise.
Not in vain we are also facing an action-RPG with a marked touch of style typically manganime, reflected in his drawing kinematics or that characterization for his Japanese characters. It is, in turn, much more accessible for the player and puts less barriers, such as when resting in the hot springs to remember all the events experienced in history, in case we forgot some detail after taking days without to play.
The first minutes of Code Vein are learning and adaptation. Your tutorial (which we can omit) will help you discover all its techniques and its main differences compared to the games that are governed under the Souls style. His greatest success lies in the codes of blood, because he distances himself from the standard classes of role-playing characters, being able to specialize in different branches and acquire his different gifts globally.
It is curious, because there is some influence of Mega Man, since many of those blood codes will be obtained from bosses or characters that we will discover, so we will have much to choose from to define our own style of play. There will be restrictions, of course, both in relation to the basic parameters for using certain skills and for the equipment we want to use, even when unlocking all the skills (active or passive) of a new blood code.
With regard to the development of the game itself, it highlights how extremely slow the confrontations are, with some enemies that, with some exceptions, take their time to do anything, something that in most cases we can use to interrupt their offenses based on blows or, failing that, remove us from the middle.
And be careful, since I am not particularly agile, nor when using the fastest weapons, so it will take us a long time to recover from our animations before we can start the next one, something that we have to keep in mind at all times if we do not want to eat extra blows for not being able to dodge or block on time.
Code Vein is a game that has disappointed me greatly and that suffers from a multitude of problems, with inexplicable design errors, badly executed good ideas, a poor narrative, badly raised levels and bosses that are anything but exciting.
However, despite everything, they manage to keep us entertained and distracted by exploring their scenarios, dodging their predictable traps and fighting the countless enemies that stalk us in every corner. It is far from being a great game, but if you fancy a much more simplified and accessible adventure style and anime aesthetic, and lower your expectations, maybe here you will find a title to give it a chance.
