Welcome to Save State, where our blood code is Morse and our Idris mask is a replica of Idris Elba.
Editor’s note: Vincent Mahoney is working through some real-life matters, including moving his family to a new home base, so Neal Sayatovich will be covering Save State for the next couple of weeks.
The theme for this week’s column will be Bandai Namco’s Code Vein series. I got the opportunity to review Code Vein II by accident, as I had a “no soulslike” policy as a reviewer. Yet I ended up really enjoying it even though I told everyone I would not pick up another soulslike.
Well, I needed to write this column, so I tried the original Code Vein on PC. I got about 15 hours in before my cats decided to knock my only functioning PC controller off the table. Before then, I got to play my first pure soulslike since Dark Souls. By a pure soulslike, I am referring to titles like Dark Souls, Bloodborne, and Lies of P (as opposed to something like Elden Ring, which is a large open world with nonlinear exploration).
Despite my love of Code Vein II, I still entered the first Code Vein with trepidation. The mechanics, such as blood codes, were mostly the same, but they were just weird enough that I had to adjust my frame of mind. I went back and forth with myself on whether I enjoyed the experience or not. The combat itself was fine, and it was still tighter and more responsive than Dark Souls. There were times where I just zoned out and didn’t even remember what I was doing.
I was expecting the boss battles to be ungodly difficult, forcing me to struggle against them. Instead, most of those battles were beaten within one attempt, and all were beaten within two attempts. Honestly, I died three times to the environment for every one time I died to a boss or enemy. Once I hit the snow area, my patience was waning. The enemies suddenly became damage sponges because there were random blue pixels that dropped me into instant death (and other annoyances also started piling up). This was about the time my controller took a swan dive from the end table.
Back to Code Vein II. The Mask of Idris DLC launched, and I was super excited because it gave me a reason to hop back into the Code Vein universe. To activate the DLC, I had to beat the final ultimate boss again. I am so, so happy I had maxed out my healing items and weapons because it was a rough learning curve. I managed to beat it, then came the odyssey of actually trying to use the DLC. I had to look at Reddit to figure out how to go back through three timelines to get to where the portal to the new future is.
The future story is really cool. It shows how the world improves from your work and provides closure to the characters. It is a nice way to engage with the cast and a positive palate cleanser from the depressing main story.
There are apparently two new characters, and there’s a whole parallel story too. But that part of the DLC is broken for me. I was told to talk to Valentin to launch a cutscene. I talked to Valentin, but no cutscene launched. I hope to report back to you all once it gets fixed on my PlayStation 5 (as the last two patches have not yet fixed it).
While my column may not be as deep and involved as Vincent’s usually are, this is the best you get with a substitute teacher. Now, like all of my substitute teachers in high school, I will fill the rest of my time by making you all watch Forrest Gump.
And I will also see you all again for my normal Fresh Look column next week. See you then!
