Just so we're all on the same page, I can't say I loved the original Code Vein. I found its combat somewhat stilted, its level design a little contrived, and its cutscenes so outrageously verbose and long-winded, I can only presume subtlety is off quietly sobbing in a corner somewhere.

But pitchforks down for a second—I'm well aware of the cult following the game has, and I'm certainly not here to dispute that. Sure, the Cathedral of the Sacred Blood is perhaps the single worst thing that's ever happened to soulslike level design, but the place sure looked nice! Mastering a Blood Code and unlocking its skills was always far more laborious than it needed to be, but the ideas behind the build systems were all excellent. And, while it sure was challenging to sit through vestige memories without first flirting with a lethal dose of amphetamines, in the end, the stories they told usually made up for how agonisingly long they were... mostly. What I'm trying to say is: Code Vein may not have had a particularly graceful landing, but the series clearly still had a lot more to offer.

Covering the past is important, though, because I'm not too sure Code Vein II ever left it. It's a touch more fluid now, but compared to the average contemporary action game, II's combat feels about as clunky as Code Vein was to the average back in 2019. The shift to an open world has a fair bit going for it, but a lot of its details still feel quite forced and utilitarian. And, come to think of it, I could've sworn I just saw a good Samaritan desperately attempting to talk a now utterly mortified subtlety down from the edge of a cliff. Not for nothing, somewhere between the further refined build systems and genuinely fantastic cast, Code Vein's follow-up is unmistakably a bigger and better game, but it's tricky to imagine its appeal extending too far beyond those already smitten with the series.

For more on the open world at the end and the best reading experience, please consider checking out the full, uncut version of the review on the Summit Reviews website.[summitreviews.biz]

100 years ago, a band of heroes successfully sealed an apocalyptic cataclysm, consigned to protect the world with their very life force from within impenetrable cocoons. These heroes, however, are beginning to give out, and as they do, so too does everything that surrounds them, prompting your custom character to bust each cocoon open and end their inhabitants before they overload. This, as I'm sure you've noticed, has absolutely nothing to do with its predecessor and, outside of still concerning itself with blood-sucking Revenants with special powers, is entirely standalone, set in an entirely new universe to boot.

New universe, same ridiculous disregard for the space between the lines, I'm afraid. Once again, Code Vein II assumes even its most empathetic players possess the emotional intelligence of a weathered doorknob, and it's truly difficult to overstate just how ready every character is to tell you exactly what's on their mind at any given moment.

https://testx-steam.c5game.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3681287604

It's a pity because Code Vein II's narrative is really quite excellent. To breach a cocoon, you'll need an item of importance to the corresponding hero—something you'll have to travel back in time to fetch as you aid and bond with your mark, irrevocably altering the present should you assist them enough. The intriguing conceit aside, the heroes are just impossibly charming and well-voiced, their stories are so tragic and moving, and the amount of time you'll spend focused on each one provides the space to explore these characters in ways you'd never normally expect from a soulslike of all things.

Granted, Code Vein's latest entry loves a good bit of characterisation by way of unsolicited, multi-minute trauma dumps at the most hilariously inappropriate times; however, a fundamentally compelling story is compelling regardless of how it's told, and while it's never pleasant to piece something together, only for some gormless bystander to immediately spell it out in torturous detail, it would sting a lot worse amidst a lesser tale.

https://testx-steam.c5game.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3681285638

But you're not exactly here for the narrative, are you? Even if you really ought to be. The soulslike fundamentals have seen some minor improvements, but that's really as much slack as I can offer—like before, you've got a backstab that never seems to work, a parry I still can't figure out how to properly time, a bunch of animations that lock you up for far longer than you'd expect, and the ones that don't (as of a recent patch) now feel awkwardly sped up in relation to how sluggish the rest of your capabilities can feel. It's rough, to say the least, but given how generally simple and easy combat is, it's also somewhat a means to an end—a victory lap of sorts for the real battle: menuing.

Unlike most soulslikes, a Code Vein protagonist's stats are defined by their equipped Blood Code—if a big bonk stick takes your fancy, then you'll march off into battle with the corresponding big bonk Blood Code that emphasises strength and little else. Shifting away from implementing those stats as vague letter-graded scalings, however, II's are defined by exact numerical values, and with that comes a lot of added nuance.

For starters, anything you equip will burden your six primary stats by varying amounts, and should the burden of a specific stat exceed the total value given by your Blood Code, you'll be saddled with both a potent buff and debuff to work around. Moreover, overburdening too many stats results in a hit to your mobility, keeping your burden below half across the board puts a spring in your step, and fulfilling more specific burden requirements activates various traits attached to Blood Codes and a couple of your other customisation options.

https://testx-steam.c5game.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3681285534

There's an awful lot to digest, but the main takeaways are the extra consideration that goes into strengthening your character, the constraints you have to work within, and the general inability to just make the numbers bigger, so to speak. Weapons have a burden system of their own, dictating what kind of active skills, supportive buffs, and magic you can wield at once, and altogether, optimisation is almost like a puzzle—repeatedly asking what you can and can't live without, and culminating in a good deal of satisfaction as a unique build suited to your tastes finally comes together.

But it does come back around to the idea of combat itself feeling a little incidental, with a focus more on flexing your carefully constructed setup than precise controls and difficult encounters. Whether that's a good thing for a soulslike? Eye of the beholder, really.


Facing many of the same issues, it's not particularly insightful or convincing of me to write all this just to tell you that the difference between the first and second Code Vein is the extent of the problems, yet that really is the crux of the comparison. Code Vein's horrendous heavy-handedness was the pillow smothering its poor narrative's face, but the sheer likeability of II's cast narrowly averts the same fate. And while the first game's combat was crippled by Blood Codes so restrictive and grindy I'd hate to ever engage with them, the vastly increased modularity and complexity of the sequel's allows those build systems to inject some much-needed life into battle. In truth, I don't think there's a huge audience for a soulslike I'd recommend primarily for its story and characters, but for those few, I'd still recommend Code Vein II all the same, however muted that endorsement may be.

A copy of Code Vein II was provided to Summit Reviews for the purposes of this coverage.

I'll focus more on responding to the things other reviews say from my perspective.

1) "The game is a downgrade of Code Vein 1": This is complicated. If you played the original game and liked the story, the gothic aesthetic, and the level design, I can understand why you might not like this one. I feel like the combat is more or less the same. People who say the game is difficult haven't progressed much, in my opinion. If you play the normal game and follow the story, you level up so quickly that I feel like you're a bit overpowered in health beforehand.

If you're expecting a direct sequel with the same aesthetic, this game isn't for you. Is the game worse than the original? Personally, I don't think so.

2) "The open world is empty": Yes, the game suffers from having an open map that doesn't have much content. I feel a serious mistake was that all the NPCs are in the same place and aren't spread out across the map. The map is beautiful, and I feel that most of the areas have personality; it leaves me with mixed feelings.

3) "The game performs poorly on PC": I'm playing at 1440p with everything maxed out on Linux (by the way, the game runs perfectly on Linux). The game is far from the poor launch of Monster Hunter Wilds. If you don't have a potato, 1080p should be enough to play.

4) "The characters are hypersexualized; you have a harem": I think this is said specifically about two characters (I won't give spoilers). Personally, both characters have good backstories and are relatively charismatic, so I don't consider it a major issue.

5) "The music is bad": In general, yes, there are some good tracks, but the music leaves much to be desired.

In conclusion: The open world doesn't reach the levels of Elder Ring and in some ways it might seem empty, but I feel the game did a decent job. People who complain about the difficulty are wrong; the story is quite good and, above all, the game is fun.

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD (They will be censored)

Let me preface this by saying, I really wanted to enjoy this game. I gave it every chance I could and played it through to near 100%. I got all endings, all Steam achievements, and completed every single quest in the game - but one, which is really tedious and time consuming and requires like double my playtime.

And even after all of that, I'm just... Disappointed.

It pales in comparison to the original Code Vein in nearly every single way, which is heart-breaking.
So, let me start with the bad and the ugly, before moving on to the good, because I hate ending on a negative.

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Unfortunately, I've got a lot to complain about regarding the game, but I'll try and keep it brief, but give you enough reason for why I feel this way:

• The music - The first thing I noticed about this game was the music - or lack thereof. During most of the overworld exploration, there is literally no music. The only time there is music is if you're exploring a cave, which it's then the same 30 second, grating track looped infinitely, or combat music, which suffers to nearly the same effect. The overworld area of the game that does have music, for some reason, is The Undead Forest. And again, that's the same 10 seconds of music just looped indefinitely. It sucks!! The original tracks that ARE in this game had SO MUCH potential.
  
• The open world - Sounds counterintuitive, but I think this game would've benefitted immensely from just not becoming open world. It's so vast, but so empty. The lack of music doesn't help with this. And most of the time you're forced to explore it in this frustratingly linear fashion anyways, which kind of renders it useless. There's barely any incentive for exploring because you'll just find items you can craft, and all important collectibles (like health upgrades) are marked on the map anyways. Plus, it just feels like a crude asset bash. There's the same few houses over and over just dotted obscurely across the map and it sucks.
  
• The plot - The plot was disappointing. There was absolutely nothing in common with the first and second game plotline, despite the name suggesting there would be. Revenants looked completely different, and are now gilded for some reason. I was hoping for a continuation of what happened in the first game, but it's not the end of the world. The plot is probably the least of the problems (mostly).
  
• The hypers*xualisation - I personally cannot stand the way two of the main characters are written in this game. They're INTEGRAL to the plot, but the whole time, they're just THROWING themselves at you, and it's just gross. It feels like the creator's poorly disguised f*tish, and I wanted no part of it. It just annoys me you don't even get a say in it. You're essentially forced into marriage with a l*li which is insane in its own right. At first I thought it was just a bit - a convenient excuse, which was fine. But they never dropped it, and eventually had it evolve into a genuine core plot point. Which could have been cute, I guess? If not for the fact you're never given a choice, and also that you commit ad*ltery on her with a second character introduced later in the game. Genuinely what is going on with that?? Insane?? And it's SO sad because it feels like the male characters don't suffer from this at all. They're written WAY better and more convincingly than the female characters ever will be. And don't get me started on the stupid height differences.
  
• The combat - The combat in this game just feels like artificial difficulty, and it's really disappointing. All enemies hit like trucks, and attack so fast and so consistently, you basically never have a safe window to attack. It felt like the only way around it was to just build yourself so tanky, with high damage, you essentially become a human sponge and just soak up all the damage so you can get some hits in back and outdamage their damage. But if you do it like that, the game becomes so awkwardly easy that you can beat every boss on nearly the first try? It's such an awkward balance and I feel like they really dropped the ball with that one.

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I know I complained a lot, but I do actually have a couple nice things to say about the game.

• The character creator - THIS was so much better than the first game. There were a lot more options, and the overall designs just looked a lot nicer. Big improvements overall - and I LOVE the body sliders so much. It's great being able to make characters of completely different body types, and something I wish games did more often.
  
• Zenon Gryfgote - I love this guy so much. He's a much needed goofy tension break in the game, and really made the final stretch of the game a lot more enjoyable for me. He just really really loves his wife, so it was nice and refreshing compared to the absolute horrors of unwanted attention from the women I was subjected to. Love my big himbo dude fr.
  
• The endings - I liked the endings of the game a lot. I think that was where it really started to reconnect with the original feel of the first game. I also liked how you had to obtain each of the endings. Rather than making you replay the entire game again, it was like a continuation. Additional story and segments to get better endings. It was a nice way of handling it, and I think a genuine improvement from the first game of needing to replay it over and over to get different endings. Although - that being said, if I loved this game as much as I loved Code Vein - I'd happily play it through over and over to get those endings. But unfortunately, I just don't.

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I lied, I couldn't keep it brief. I just couldn't contain my disappointment and vitriol for the way this game was handled, and couldn't help myself but to word vomit about it.

Basically, it's nothing like the original Code Vein - feels vast and empty, the lack of music doesn't help, and the hypers*xualisation of the female characters was really frustrating. Give your characters goon-worthy designs, I don't really care, but for the love of god don't force me into weird relationships with them.

I give this like a 3.5/10, only saved by the character creator, Zenon, and the endings. I beg just go and play Elden Ring instead, you won't regret it.