Code Vein II

Publisher: BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment

Developer: BANDAI NAMCO Studios

Platforms: Playstation 5 (Reviewed), Xbox Series X/S, Microsoft Windows

I know this may be hard for some of you to believe depending on how long you've been involved in this hobby...but there was a time when the soulslike genre wasn't completely saturated. But with this lack of saturation came a lack of competition, and with that lack of competition came a relative lack of quality. Then 2019 came around, and with it, the first soulslike that I ever loved: Code Vein. It took home the #3 spot in that year's GOTY list (being beaten out only by Fire Emblem: Three Houses and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice), and up until Lies of P came out, it was my choice for the best soulslike ever made outside of From Software's own work. 

I'll be honest...I never wanted a sequel, nor did I expect one. Code Vein might have had BANDAI NAMCO funding, but it was a AA project for all intents and purposes. I don't think it was any kind of sales behemoth, and I wouldn't have expected the IP to carry any water. But...here we are! 

For those who don't know, Code Vein is essentially anime vampire Dark Souls. It featured a unique class system that I haven't seen replicated to this day, and it also came with an excellent character creator that allowed you to go as anime as you wanted with your character. With Code Vein II, it's kind of a similar story, but we'll get to that.

I'll say this upfront: from a purely objective standpoint, Code Vein II isn't very good...but I still enjoyed it so much that I was sad to see the credits roll. So, let's get into it.

In stark contrast from the original game, in Code Vein II you play as a human, not a revenant (vampire). 100 years ago, there was a massive calamity called "the resurgence", which threatened to destroy the world until a team of 4 heroes sealed it away, giving up their lives in the process. Your character exists in the modern day, where another resurgence is on the horizon. At the start, you're told that in order to save the world, you'll have to defeat the legendary heroes who saved the world before...for some reason.

Anyway, in order to accomplish this, you have to travel back in time to form a strong enough bond with these heroes in the past to be able to wake them from their slumbers in the present. From there, we have our plot.

There's a few too many proper nouns and fantasy terms to make the lore easy to follow, but the characters that the plot revolves around are all lovable. This makes the fact that you have to kill them at some point oddly tragic, which is welcome in a story that is otherwise a little too dense for my liking. 

Before I move on, I have one thing to add to the character discussion. It wouldn't be an anime thing if there weren't questionable attitudes about sexualization of minors. 

The first hero you're likely to come into contact with is Josee. She "marries" you, constantly refers to you as her "beloved," and runs around in basically nothing but her underwear. She also cannot possibly be an adult despite having an adult voice and technically being a vampire (you know, the good old "actually 100 years old" copium). I'd show you what I mean, but I legitimately can't bring myself to find a picture because she's so clearly a minor and she never ever puts on any other clothes. It's creepy as all hell, and I just don't understand why Japanese developers have to be so goddamn weird about children. Anyway...let's move on.

Code Vein II isn't quite so much a soulslike as it is an Elden Ring-like. It takes the standard timing/stamina-based combat of a souls game and combines it with an Elden Ring-esque open world, complete with a predominantly gold color palette. But we'll get more into that in a sec.

I'll be honest, here...I can't say I completely understood 100% of Code Vein II's combat systems. I got through every boss battle, so clearly I could make it work, but this is a system with a whole bunch of funny words and paragraphs and paragraphs of explanations that didn't entirely make sense to me. So, suffice it to say that this largely just plays like a standard soulslike. Light attacks, heavy attacks, dodges, a choice of blocking or parrying as a defensive measure, the works. 

Unlike other soulslikes, however, a major aspect of Code Vein II's combat is "ichor" and special abilities. "Ichor" is essentially your mana meter, but it's represented as a number instead of a bar. You can have four special abilities equipped at a time, and each ability takes up a specific amount of ichor. To recharge your ichor, you have a specific attack that drains it from an enemy/boss. So in addition to the normal back and forth of soulslike combat, you have this smaller combat loop built in. You could always play this without using these special skills, of course...but bosses tend to be pretty tanky, so you'll have a bad time if you do that. 

With that last sentence, it's time to actually get started talking about quality. Soulslike combat is always a good baseline, but that doesn't mean a soulslike's overall gameplay loop is going to be good. As for Code Vein II, that baseline really carries things..because there's a lot wrong here.

Let me get the biggest negative out of the way first: you're going to get knocked down a lot. It isn't every attack that's going to do it, but most of them will, especially in boss fights. There are few things more annoying in gaming than getting knocked down by an attack and having to slowly get back up...and it's going to happen to you frequently in Code Vein II. 

In sort of a similar vein (ha), there's a bit of weirdness around the game's resurrection mechanic. 

Let me back up for a second: when you die, the character accompanying you temporarily vanishes for a bit to bring you back to life. If you survive for long enough after that, the character re-appears. If you die again before that, it's game over. But survive for long enough for the character to come back and the process repeats again the next time you die, albeit with a longer wait time than normal.

Did any of that make sense?

Regardless, when the resurrection happens, there's a bit of downtime in-between when the animation starts and when you can actually start moving again. During this time, it's kind of a coin flip whether or not you'll get invincibility frames before you move. It feels like sometimes you're totally fine, but at other times you'll get knocked out of the animation early and take damage. I could never find any particular rhyme or reason for this, so just be aware that this bit of functionality is a bit finnicky.

In spite of these things, I think it's important to note that Code Vein II is a slightly easier soulslike than normal overall. Yeah. In spite of those things I was talking about. 

Wack. Right?

Don't get me wrong, the negatives will swoop in once in a while to make you red in the face, but I'm talking about overall.

As I said before, this is an Elden Ring-style open world. You have a bunch of legacy dungeons with gear and bosses inside, and out in the world, you'll find scattered upgrades for your healing capabilities. There's a fair amount of variety and interesting locations to be found out in the world, but once you enter one of those legacy dungeons, it's boooooring. Every legacy dungeon you come across is either an underground bunker or a secret laboratory, and I never found the rewards for braving these dungeons worthwhile in the first place. 

Really, the only real reason to enter these dungeons is the fact that the framerate largely tends to stabilize in them. Out in the world, the framerate is like a rollercoaster...at least on PS5. 

And that's sadly not where the technical problems end. 

The first thing I noticed was a bit of fiddliness with the character creator. It's an excellent creator, but when you try to affix one of the many possible accessories to your character, they aren't automatically applied anywhere that makes sense. A bow, for instance, will float noticeably far away from the chest, or a hat will do the same thing with the character's head. From there, you have to adjust the sliders in such a way as to properly get the accessory to stick to you. This was definitely not a problem in the original game, and I know this because I gave the original a limited run right before starting this sequel.

So, you're going to deal with technical problems before the game even starts, and you're going to experience more right when it actually does start. This is because there's no shortage of framerate stutters in cutscenes.

I can hear detractors say I should go into my settings and make graphical adjustments to get more frames out of the game...but I'm on PS5...and even if I wasn't, another problem with Code Vein II is an incredibly hard-to-read UI. Every menu is filled with stuff on every corner of the screen (not all of the placement makes sense), and the font is so small that I had to sit up in my chair to even start reading it. I've noticed game UI fonts getting smaller over the years and thought "I'm getting old," but this example really is just the font being too damn small. 

Then there's another problem that isn't exactly technical, but I couldn't think of anywhere else to put it. This being a soulslike, you're going to die a lot. Well, the developers clearly thought they had a good idea of how to mitigate frustration with this...but they didn't. 

See, when you resurrect at a checkpoint after losing a fight, your companion will do something. Let's be honest...a lot of folks will almost certainly have the character they're most attracted to by their side. The developers understood this. So, in an effort to really play up that lonely weeabo angle, they decided to have your companion say something to the effect of "I'll support you no matter how many times it takes" or "maybe we should take a break." 

In theory, these are words of encouragement from a comforting character meant to keep the player from getting too discouraged. In reality, my sultry doctor lady is one level of implied condescension away from "it's okay, schnookums, there's nothing wrong with sucking at this!" It's amusing the first time. After you've gotten your ass handed to you for the 15th time, though, it gets a little...irritating. 

There are other problems (such as a complete lack of ambient noise in the world and too many actions mapped to R1), but I think I've gotten my point across. 

So, are there any good technical sides to Code Vein II? 

Well, yes! Mainly the soundtrack. The soundtrack was a high point of the original game, and this one is even better. It isn't just that the music itself is better, it's woven into the story in clearer themes as well. Emotional moments towards the end of the plot hit harder than cutscenes at these kinds of framerates ought to just because of the music.

And...well...that's about it in terms of the good technical stuff. 

I've spent a great deal of this review slamming Code Vein II in ways it completely deserves, which might make it surprising that I'm recommending it in the end. I think it all boils down to context. 

What makes Code Vein II a many-asterisked good time is its lovable cast of characters and fun core combat. There's tons of BS involved with that combat, the story and world containing that lovable cast are difficult to penetrate (behave yourself, reader), and the whole technical package is held together with paper clips and rubber bands. But what can I say? A lot of heart can carry me through otherwise bad experiences. 

Make no mistake: Code Vein II is not good...but as I implied in the introduction, I was still sad to see the credits roll.

Let us review:

Weirdness about kids - 1.0

Knockdown factor - 1.0

Other gameplay BS - 1.0

Technical woes - 1.0

The final score for Code Vein II is...

6.0/10 - Above Average