Premise:
Take control of the son of Van Helsing who is tasked with investigating the troubles brewing in the fictional world of Borgovia where steampunk meets Slavic folklore.
Good:
Weirdly enough, it reminded me a little bit of Torchlight 1. The game has a nearly immortal ghost companion that follows you, similar to the TL1 dog. She heals herself at low health, attacks for you and regenerates health when she is “killed”. Similar to the dog, she can go to town to sell items for you. The art direction, steampunk setting and in some cases the writing style are also similar. TL1 is still better imo but anyone will immediately notice the similarities.
Not open world. You have a hub and from there you transport to various locations. This is not as bad as it sounds because most (if not all) maps are well-designed, aren’t designed linearly (except for the final few ones towards the end), and most importantly exploration is rewarded.
The ghost companion has her own skill tree. That was fun to play around with. It’s more fun and felt more thought out than your own skill tree.
The voice acting for your character and your companion is very good. Also, the banter between your character and your companion is entertaining. The voice acting for NPCs is also pretty decent.
Lots of side quests and secrets to explore. You can go to any corner of a map and expect to find some side quest, secret or something interesting.
The world is interesting. A good chunk of it is based on Slavic mythology and folklore.
The game is pretty short. Event w/ all the exploration it took me about 40h.
Neutral/Bad:
The game has missions that require you to play tower defense, but these are purely optional. I personally skipped them so can’t comment on how good they are, but know that NeoCore developed a dedicated TD game because of how well received those sequences were amongst fans.
The story is serviceable but nothing groundbreaking.
The skill system and passive system aren’t deep enough.
Itemization is also not great.
Story bosses are a slog.
Final bit of the game (basically Van Helsing 3) is a tad too linear and the enemy design gets a little stale at that stage.
All in all, it was a fun mindless experience. The **Final Cut** version combines all 3 Van Helsing games together. So, playing this is enough. I didn't comment on the endgame since I didn't explore it but apparently they do have some kind of [endgame](https://steamcommunity.com/app/400170/discussions/0/490125103636652310/).
Nice review, pretty much describes my own I experience with Van Helsing.
I played through this game with a friend in co-op, and I agree it’s a fun game indeed. The Torchlight comparison is fair, although I found Van Helsing to be better than TL1, maybe even better than TL2 since Van Helsing is a bit more memorable, if only for Lady Katarina.
She’s your ghost companion and one of the best aspects of the game. I was sceptical at first, thinking she’s gonna be annoying and/or cringe (I was still a bit traumatized after playing Diablo 3) but no, the dialogue was surprisingly enjoyable.
Glad that’s the case, since she plays an essential part in your character’s build. She has her own little skill trees for different support roles that you can use to accommodate your preferred playstyle (eg. if you play a ranged caster you can spec her into a melee tank).
She is not immortal though. She slowly regenerates lost health, and automatically uses health potions at a configurable treshold.
I don’t remember the bosses being a slog, maybe they were easier to kill in co-op.
But I do remember the skills and items being nothing too exciting. That Grim-Dawn-feeling of “wow this item looks great for another build, I have to start a fresh char so I can try it out” never really came up.
My friend and I never really delved into endgame either, but we played a Tower Defense game mode at some point, and also an Arena mode kinda like GD’s crucible. It took us about 50 hours to play through all the content. Although for us the replay value was minimal, we still had much fun with Van Helsing, it was a nice casual experience.
They were essentially health sponges. At first, they seemed somewhat interesting. Like the worm boss or the werewolf in the cave or heck even Fulmigati. But, the Dryad Queen + General boss + Final Boss just felt boring.
I prefer TL1 over TL2 and Van Helsing for its simplicity and succinct plot. I can see Van Helsing being more enjoyable for many as well. It was a fun experience, start to finish. Also, agreed Katarina was an absolute amazing addition.
Poorly phrased on my part. I’ll edit that bit to make it clearer.
Agreed on the part about items. That’s exactly how I felt.
Also, I skipped the TD sequences, that’s why I forgot to mention it in the original post.
