There’s the saying that no good deed goes unpunished. And nowhere is it more true than in Bandai Namco’s follow up to it’s 2019 Anime Soulslike, Code Vein.
With Code Vein II we’re dropped into the aftermath of an ongoing apocalypse. Many years prior, a great calamity occurred and five brave heroes sacrificed themselves to bind the calamity for all time. But now, in a distant and dying future, those chains are breaking and what’s left of the world is slowly been destroyed one piece at a time. And it’s your job, as a recently revived Hunter, to stop that calamity once and for all and save your world. And how do you do that? By killing the heroes whose sleeping forms make-up those chains. But the path to salvation doesn’t run true or straight and the only way to slay those heroes is to find the keys that open their prisons. And the only way to do that is to travel back in time and befriend those heroes. No good deed indeed. . .
It’s been close to eight years since Code Vein came out and it’s tale of Revenants and Hunters – vampires and humans – threw us into a fun post-apocalyptic Souls-like world to save. And now we’re back in the Code Vein universe, once again watching the uneasy drama between humans and vampires unfold as the world teeters on the brink of annihilation. Despite bearing the Code Vein moniker, Code Vein II is neither a sequel, nor a direct follow-up, to the first game. Instead Code Vein II gives us an entirely new story in a new world while retaining and improving upon the core gameplay mechanics and concepts of the first.
The story is, for me, probably Code Vein II’s greatest strength. From the opening conceit of having to travel through time to save the world, to having to actually kill heroes to do so, I was constantly pushing forward to see what would come next in the journey. The side stories and sub-quests round out the world and its characters in fantastic fashion, especially those that require you to befriend the heroes and travel with them to right some problem in the past. The character writing is particularly strong as you delve deeper into the tragedies that define them, often making me wonder if the end goal was worth the sacrifice.
A New World, Not a Direct Sequel
One of the major things that sets Code Vein II apart from other Souls-likes, is that instead of layering oodles and oodles of ambiguity upon you, it functions as a more traditional action game with straight-forward storytelling. There are no item descriptions to read to detail the worlds lore or cryptic drops of information from which you glean the narrative. No, this is as straight-forward and compelling as storytelling gets, even if I do feel that there were some concepts that weren’t adequately explained.
Playing through Code Vein II reminded me of Remnant: From The Ashes, Darksiders 3 and, From Software’s juggernaut, Elden Ring. And it’s Elden Ring that really provides the bulk of the inspiration and changes to Code Veins universe as the sequel takes us across an open world journey that looks like a cross between Breath of The Wild and The Lands Between, just without the bizarre confluctuations in landscaping geometry.
Open World Design & Exploration
Code Vein II’s world is a large, sprawling, open map – nowhere near as large as The Lands Between mind you – with some areas locked off behind story progression. And what it may lack in bizarre design, it makes up for with a more streamlined approach to how much there is to do in the world and how populated it is. There are small villages to find, weapons to procure and dungeons are neatly marked on the map in gold. Enemies are scattered across the landscape, some roaming, others in place while powerful enemies haunt specific areas of the map.
There’s an abundance of fast travel points and if you tire of footing it across the map, you can summon a fancy motorcycle. You can both jump and glide with the bike, which is a nice extra if you don’t want to take the slow route down from a cliff, but it does have it’s own health bar that you have to pay attention to. Sadly, the bike is nowhere near as manouverable as it could be so I avoided using it unless there were long straights of asphalt before me.
Visual Style & Atmosphere
The visual design, which has anime shaded characters and a modern post-apocalyptic world design, was very striking to me. Like Remnant and Darksiders 3, the modern, industrial environment design – all wrecked city-scapes and crumbling skyscrapers – comes with it’s own charming aesthetic that is a nice change of pace from the usual dark fantasy setting.
Gameplay Systems Explained
Initially, Code Vein II can be very daunting. After plunging through a surprisingly comprehensive character creator, there’s a lot to take in from control mechanics to item screens to character stats. Returning Code Vein players will pick up on returning gameplay mechanics but if you’re new, you may want to take a moment to figure it all out. Boosters, Jails, Blood Codes, Forma and Ichor are just some of the mechanics you’re going to have to master.
Levelling, Haze & Progression
In typical Souls-like fashion, killing enemies gives you Haze – this worlds currency – but levelling is a more straight-forward RPG affair in that each level up raises all of your stats rather than you selecting which stats suite your play-style. Instead that comes down to the aforementioned concepts of Blood Codes and Boosters and which weapons you equip and level up.
Blood Codes & Character Builds
Blood Codes are given to you by each companion, each of which raises specific stats while unlocking passive abilities unique to that code. Playing with a companion whose Code you have equipped levels up that Code and then gives you an enhanced version of it, with each levelled code unlocking more perks.
Boosters, Forma, Jails & Ichor
Boosters are stat boosters, such as plus 20 to defense or attack and are gained from combining the Blood Codes of defeated enemies or when you level up a Companion Code. Forma’s are special weapon attacks that are incredibly powerful and you can equip up to four of them per weapon. Jails are another form of defensive weapon that increases your defense and has a special attack that restores Ichor when used on stunned enemies.
Typically you have light and heavy attacks, dodge rolls and a sprint, all of which is governed by stamina. Special attacks from your Forma and ranged attacks rely on your Ichor level, which is similar to Mana. If you don’t use items or rest at Mistle – this worlds version of Bornfires – then you’ll need your Jail to jack your levels back up in a fight. You can equip two weapons and shield types that come with their own perks, such as blocking all damage or ones that can only parry.
And finally there’s item synthesis, in which you can craft food for stat boosts or transform items or even duplicate Forma to use on more than one weapon. In short, there’s really a lot going on here.
Companion System
One of Code Vein II major departures from the Souls-like genre is in it’s use of companions in that, if you want, you can play through the entire campaign with an AI controlled team mate at your side. This is, quite frankly, a God-send of a system. Not just because it makes the fights more manageable but also because it just makes the game so much more fun while tying into the strength of the character writing as you get to know them as you explore. Of course, if you want to tackle the game solo you can do that or you can fuse with your companions for a stat boost. But their advantages in battle really can’t be ignored. Aside from pulling enemy aggro away from you, they can sacrifice themselves to revive you if you die, multiple times per fight, with a timer for them to respawn that gets longer with each sacrifice. I won’t lie and say that it doesn’t make a game that is already on the easy side for Souls-likes easier, but I honestly wouldn’t want to play it without them.
Combat & Difficulty Balance
As much as I love the RPG side of Code Vein II with it’s compelling narrative, combat is what you’re going to be spending a lot of time doing. For the most part, Code Vein II gets most of it right. Enemies have devastating combos and are really aggressive in a fight and it’s really satisfying to take down an enemy without taking any damage. The combat is a significant improvement from the first but the major drawback is in your characters attack, blocking and dodging speed. Which is to say, they’re too slow for my taste. I’m not sure if that’s input lag or just the character animation speed, but often I’d find myself taking a hit even though I’d blocked before the attack and the shield came up too late to be of any use. It’s an issues across attacking and dodging as well. Don’t get me wrong, while it’s certainly frustrating at moments, it didn’t break my enjoyment of the game at all. I really enjoyed the combat, but the developers do need to take a look at this along with increasing the invulnerability frames during the dodge roll.
Soundtrack & Audio Design
One other misstep that Code Vein II makes is with it’s use of the soundtrack. There’s some really great music here during combat, especially boss fights, but during exploration you’ve only got environmental sound effects to back-up your world traversal. While I don’t think there necessarily needs to be a banger tune playing all the time, some low key, atmospheric music to set the mood wouldn’t be amiss in the open world.
Performance Modes on Xbox
Finally there are two performance modes. One for visual fidelity and one for frame-rate. The difference between them is barely noticeable, to me at least. The visual quality drop in performance is barely noticeable, as is the games overall performance. There feels like there’s a slight speed increase in performance versus quality, but nothing truly noticeable like most games that support a 60fps performance mode versus a 30fps visual mode. Dropping into a 60fps mode in most games is really noticeable but I was hard pressed to find much difference here.
Final Verdict
While not a perfect sequel – few things ever are – Code Vein II certainly improves upon it’s predecessor in just about every way, throwing not only a fun world and combat to play through, but a story that manages to pluck at your heart strings as you delve further into the world and it’s inhabitants.
Code Vein II Overview Trailer / Video Review Coming Soon
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The game was provided to us for the express purpose of reviewing.
The review was written by me and edited by my partner.
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