Code Vein - Ashes to ashes, blood to blood

i suppose its just a sign of the time that the first thing you noticed about the character was they were female first instead of actually a character.

Honestly kinda wish people would look at the character first and stop looking to see if they have boobs or a penis as the first thing.

I'm not? Like, this presumes that anyone who criticizes or even notices patterns or recurring themes has some deeply problematic goal or worldview, when in reality they're just noticing connections between things that exist. The reality is that the characters are designed and written in a way that makes gender incredibly unnecessarily salience by leaning a bit absurdly into the male gaze and

Let's go case by case though.
Nikola: The point isn't that Nikola's protecting the world by being a successor, but specifically making that harder on himself by maintaining a clone with Mia specifically to protect her. This 'protection' matches up to his theme as a mechanized knight. By contrast, the clearest female successor with direct paralells is instead treated as a victim. Note that while Yakumo was a 'big brother' he was also a fellow soldier, and the two were of the same age. By contrast, Mia was literally Nikola's big sister. Again, it's telling that, given the clearest parallels, Mia's arc is realizing she was being protected while Yakumo's is framed as atoning for his failure to protect.

There's no ill intent here in universe, just extremely iffy writing (note, that Carmilla's vestige specifically goes into detail on Mia stealing blood beads for Nikola, who we find out gets nothing from them, so this ends up being pretty horrifying in universe, particularly given how little examination it gets.)

Murasame is a 16 year old girl who we're introduced to as being incredibly strong and competent, enough that it's logical she'd be placed in charge of an elite unit, but who is immediately revealed to be A: substantially less competent than her soldiers as she panicked in the first big crisis they had, couldn't find a way out and got KOed quietly by her own men who then solved the issue. The issue of this isn't whether Murasame the character was in-universe good enough to handle this, but that the authors, outside of the story, went to lengths to draft an arc where she wasn't capable of handling this, and where the resolution ends up very literally being she thought she was a tough drill sergeant but all her soldiers just saw her as a little girl they had to take care of.

Again, the critique isn't that any of these are inefectual or unreasonable in universe, nor that some of them don't even work on their own merits individually, but that when literally all of the female characters in your universe have an arc that falls back into such gendered iconography both visually and narratively, that the surrounding context and monotany of the arcs compounds these issues.

The issue isn't choosing to see the characters as females before they were written as human, it's that they were very much written by authors who seem to think that way.

cool you do you point still remains there was more to the story than what was bitched about.

And again, I enjoyed the game overall, and even a lot of its writing as much cheese as there is. No one's saying there wasn't, literally everyone who signalled any kind of agreement with me has also mentioned positive things about the game, as have I.

It's kind of like how we can say "The camera's inability to deal with enemies positioned higher than you without hiding a number of tells from a number of ground-based attacks, in a game where most bosses have a center of mass taller than you, and some can jump very high as part of major attacks you need to dodge kinda sucks." without that meaning "I hate this game."
 
ok cool i can now actually see where you're coming from and can agree with you. I appreciate you taking the time to expand on your position. though i really need to watch those memories again.


To be honest the game kinda feels like their throwing a bunch of mediocre ideas at a wall and seeing what sticks.
 
I do enjoy the double meaning behind the lyrics in "Memory of the Lost". Between that and having actual characters to talk to; I feel like I understand what Revenants go through far more than Undead in Darksouls. It's a really fun setting element. I hope to see some Code Vein fanfic at some point in the future.
 

Just finished my 3rd play-through. Managed a perfect ending first run, felt like a jerk the 2nd run (worst ending), and well...sorry Aurora, didn't like your creepy near yandere vibes, so you got ashed, for my 3rd neutral ending run. So I've gotten all three endings (perfect also had the Io bonus scene, because she's a cinnamon roll), and seen pretty much all there is to the game at the moment until the DLCs start appearing.

So, anyone else playing it at the moment? And if so, thoughts on it? On its own merits AND when compared to Dark Souls, Bloodborne, and/or Sekiro. I haven't played Nioh, so I can't talk there.

Outside of the bosses? That character creation screen can/will suck up 2+ hours of your time, as some of the stuff you can do with it is hilarious. Want an outfit made completely of stetsons, including your pants? You can do it. Want to look like a Yeti in need of a bath? You can do it. Want to look like Toy Story's Woody, but possessed by Marilyn Manson? You can do it. Want to be the Michelin Man? You can do it. Want to look like a living Porcelain Doll, with cracks all over the place hinting at unholy eldritch glowing stuff just under your skin and more nails in your head than Pinhead? YOU. CAN. DO. IT.

Opinions on the Bosses:

First run through, as usual, is murder. First two bosses, if you do it in the order you're supposed to (Oliver & Butterfly), aren't exactly really interesting.​
Oliver is 'me hammer, me hulk smash' tutorial boss, so, meh. If you get hit by him even once, that's your fault, as guys identical to him become mook tier later on. And start showing up in pairs.​
Butterfly (more like ButterButt, for those who've played it, will know what I mean) is the poison spewer, but she's got huge tells that telegraph every attack.​
Executioner, she of the vampiric pole-dancer, is where we actually start truly punishing any button mashers. Her back-to-back lunges that cover nearly the entire arena are not fun to get the timing down for due to all else going on, but its still a warmup for the later bosses (Mido & Skullking, I'm looking at you).​
Tyrant is, depending on if you focus solely on him, or juggle your focus, either easy, or really really annoying. If he starts his summoning, and you're well away from him, you're going to get mobbed by a clone of him. If up close, almost any horizontal attack will one-shot the summoning crystal AND hit him at the same time. Then its just a matter of his second phase.​
Cathedral is a boss unto itself, considering its THREE FREAKING TIMES the size of Anor Londo. Yes, the map itself is a goddamn boss, and the last quarter of it will make you scream murder as you find yourself lost. Also, F**K those two Lost Invasion trigger locations. F**K 'em. Oh, and how big is it? It has two bosses, and gives you the option of a third by opening up another area that is required to beat if you want the best ending.​
Cathedral Boss #1: Here, have the tutorial boss, now in white, only we upped his speed by 4x on everything, and you'll have the fight inside a broom closet. We call him Good Doggo.​
And right on Doggo's heels you open the optional map, which gives you BACKSTORY! *gasp* And a boss that looks like Iron Maiden's Eddie mixed with a bat and a molerat, and sword that is METAL as hell. Oh and he's an aerial teleporting little POS.​
Cathedral (True) Boss #2: Naked Wolf Lady is likely a deliberate let down, simply so you can get the hell out of the Cathedral level, and regain some SAN points. Yes, the level is just that annoying.​
Yay, finally, next area! Rocket Moose is where the fun actually begins, especially if you're soloing. I've deliberately not saved, reset the game, and used him as a dodging exercise. Good practice for later. Some say they don't feel too bad about leaving him for the bad/neutral ending, due to him being a 'try hard', but YMMV. I personally felt like a jerk on my bad ending run.​
And then we get to the one guy that has stopped the most 1st timers from getting past him, Gilded Hunter. Honestly, I'm not sure why people are screaming about him on a few of the forums, but then again on my fist playthrough he got hung-up on what had to be a glitched part of the wall, and reamed him in the process as he never left that spot. By the time I got back to him in a later playthrough I'd leveled enough, plus had more gifts (spells/abilities) that it was a case of dodge, left, left, hit once, right, circle behind, combo attack, repeat until dead. But then I'm running a quick build. So expect major YMMV if you fight him, as everyone else screams about him being a rat bastard to fight.​
Flaming Pu...nope, I'd get banned for that. Hot Skitty (no Wailord) is a bit of a let down. Has a far larger tendency to AOE, with a lot of knockdown distance, but we revert to the long telegraph animation that clues one in to any of her other attacks. On the other hand, you WILL feel like scum if you don't fix her memories first.​
Mr. Sand(wo)man, dream me a nightmare. Almost all 360 AOEs, but the timing is either really fast, or the animation makes it very hard to tell, and some of them last long enough she can overlap them, which means you're nearly blind as to what she's about to do. Her underground hands attack is very annoying as you have an extremely small window to dodge. You'll feel even more like scum if you don't find all her stuff first before the fight.​
Provisional Fortress Climb, the other Anor Londo. Vertical Edition. If you have vertigo issues, you're not going to like this. Especially as, unlike Cathedral, nobody told the designers to add handrails to keep you from going off the edge, so they cut those. Oh and one Lost Invasion you CAN avoid (go hard right), but if you didn't know that, good luck with multiple Hunters chasing you and a few of the big fatties, at the same time. There's another room that you'll find that is almost as nasty: A hunter facing you (with the key item you need to grab), in a very small + shaped room, with bottomless pits, two mooks on either side, and two snipers outside the room. Good luck dodging (here's a hint: Ignore everyone saying Yakumo is GodBro. Switch to Io, our precious cinnamon roll of MEGADEATH AT RANGE).​
When did Ornstein get Weiss Schnee as his sister? And when did Smough start loving fire, like, a lot? And then who gave them three hits of speed, a line of coke, and a pack of red bull? Each. Because that's what you're getting here. Oh and each of them has an attack that ignores/goes right through the four pillars you normally might use as cover. And if that isn't bad enough, there's an optional version in the side-quest maps that goes the full DS 'super buff' route. Good luck, try not to throw a controller into a wall, because they are the 2nd of the make or break (literally) bosses.​
And immediately, and I do mean immediately, after them is the sole guy I've yet to beat without co-op help for at least part of the fight. F**K this guy Mido. Yes, you've got a sword that one-ups Cloud's a third of the way through the fight, but when you start pulling off blood whips with it that can reach 2/3 of the arena, and getting your S&M on with it, that's just flat wrong. Oh and just before him, you get [MASSIVE UNIVERSE SPOILER CUTSCENE] which explains the pre-order bonus gear. On one hand, if you haven't cheated and watched it/read about, you won't see it coming. On the other hand, oh hell the F**K yes they better make THAT game.​
Then suddenly we're back at the optional level, no longer optional & 10+ years later, which is now even more in need of urban renewal than previously. Oh and Bat-molerat returns for round two, only he's even more of a teleporting little POS, plus he decides to troll you by putting up an aura that wipes all your buffs if you attack him for the entire second half of the fight.​
And our second to last, but not before optionally facing Good Doggo again, is FABULOUS GENDO as a contender for worst dad of the year. Only he's a dog now. With dogs for shoulders. Hmm, how did I not see that coming considering his organization is called 'Cerberus'? Oh, and he goes full Kirito, but with dual golden zweihanders. That fire blood lasers. I'm sensing someone was listening to a bit too much Metal.​
Lastly is 'WTF of Course that's a Virgin, Even a Paper Bag Wouldn't Help'....vampiric leech xenomorph dad-daughter/daughter-dad....thing. Because Lore. Someone was definitely on a Metal trip for designing this thing. Which, funnily enough, if you've played DS3, is Nameless King's first phase, just twice as fast. Also, it occasionally launches danmaku at you, while hovering out of reach, so if you start swearing in Touhou, its forgivable & understandable.​
 
I'm on the Cathedral level now, and attempting to get to the first Boss fight, but I need to lower a ladder. Problem is, I can't find the blasted lever, and I think I searched all over the damn map. Am I just missing something?

PS: Knocking Lost off the ledges they just climbed up to ambush you with a fire barrage? Never gets old.
 
I'm on the Cathedral level now, and attempting to get to the first Boss fight, but I need to lower a ladder. Problem is, I can't find the blasted lever, and I think I searched all over the damn map. Am I just missing something?

PS: Knocking Lost off the ledges they just climbed up to ambush you with a fire barrage? Never gets old.

Its the Cathedral, the answer to "am I missing something" is always yes.

And then we get to the one guy that has stopped the most 1st timers from getting past him, Gilded Hunter. Honestly, I'm not sure why people are screaming about him on a few of the forums, but then again on my fist playthrough he got hung-up on what had to be a glitched part of the wall, and reamed him in the process as he never left that spot. By the time I got back to him in a later playthrough I'd leveled enough, plus had more gifts (spells/abilities) that it was a case of dodge, left, left, hit once, right, circle behind, combo attack, repeat until dead. But then I'm running a quick build. So expect major YMMV if you fight him, as everyone else screams about him being a rat bastard to fight.​

I mean, you were either overlevelled or using a bug, of couse it was easy. But the thing that gets a lot of people is that they don't realize its a back and forth of damage race followed by pure defensive action. The guy's aggressive enough with his buff up that you don't have time to heal, and your attacks do almost no damage.
 
So, anyone else playing it at the moment? And if so, thoughts on it? On its own merits AND when compared to Dark Souls, Bloodborne, and/or Sekiro. I haven't played Nioh, so I can't talk there.
I've almost 100%, just need to farm the last however many Marks for 400. That number is set way too high.

Think it's an interesting entrant to the genre with VERY forgiving mechanics. I don't want to call it Baby's First Souls-like but there are some very player friendly mechanics with automatic companions that bail your ass out and not getting locked into a stat build and being able to play everything on a single character.

The writing is kinda naff, though. The gender depictions are...problematic.
 
I've almost 100%, just need to farm the last however many Marks for 400. That number is set way too high.

Think it's an interesting entrant to the genre with VERY forgiving mechanics. I don't want to call it Baby's First Souls-like but there are some very player friendly mechanics with automatic companions that bail your ass out and not getting locked into a stat build and being able to play everything on a single character.

The writing is kinda naff, though. The gender depictions are...problematic.
Its Baby's first Dark Souls....until you hit NG+ and add the increased difficulty. I'm currently at lvl188, and on my first 3 playthroughs I didn't up the difficulty. The starting level guys went down in 2 hits.

4th playthrough? When I finally upped the difficulty? Tutorial level guys take FIVE hits, and even at 2800HP, the tutorial grade halberd carrying ones can one-shot you. That is me still at lvl188. 90% of Oliver's, the 1st boss', attacks will knock off 45% of your HP, per hit, and his AOE will knock off 80-85%.

It seems they went for the idea that the 1st playthrough, so you can enjoy the scenery/story, is deliberately made easy. NG+ however is oh so definitely pure Dark Souls/Bloodborne difficulty levels. I'd actually say CV's NG+1 is equal to DS3's NG+2 or BB's NG+3. It spikes that hard.

NG+4 and higher is one-shot land for anyone not using a tanky zweihander build. Ninja Gaiden Black kinda thing.

-=-

As a funny, I did NOT know (whoooops) that holding R1 on my PS4 allowed me to run, until my 4th playthrough. Outside of that embarassment at not reading instructions....remember this: I beat it 3 times on one character (my main), and once on an alt, WITHOUT running once. Including going through Cathedral. And that includes doing all the depth maps on my main...

-=-

Mia's writing is fine. Big sis, for all that she is, mentally/physically, locked into 16 forever, trying to keep her little brother alive, and then what happens after everything goes wrong. Her leaning on the Protag is understandable considering she has no one else, and just lost her family.

Eva is both cliche 'damsel in distress' and battered woman syndrome in one. Jack, after saving her, is well aware of it, as he did tell her NOT to become a Revenant, and stayed away until she forced things. To his credit, he honestly cared.

Karen, for what little we see of her, is the classic empathic nurse with an excellent bedside attitude. Its so realistic it seems cliche, but its real.

Aurora is the true odd one out, as her lines make it come across as her almost, almost, stalking Karen, and could easily hit yandere levels. That or 'I wish my beloved to be happy' type of thing...which is still creepy.

Io is deliberately made to be odd, as she isn't even fully human/a real revenant to begin with, but is a partial clone of both Karen (look at Io's hair & Karen's) AND Cruz/the Queen. Same for the other attendants.
 
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Mia is a problem because her entire reason for continuing on (and making the world worse because she's consuming and stealing blood beads to survive) is completely and hilarious invalidated by the truth of Nicola.

Contrast against Emily who at least actually accomplishes something...and then completely fucking wastes the atmosphere on juvenile romcom bullshit because she just cannot spit it out, nevermind even the Good Ending with Yakumo.

And then both Coco and Carmilla are overlapping and token one note "tough woman actually driven by maternal tendencies".

And the ridiculous of Rin. Martinet not taking seriously by her command even once, decision making taken out of her hand.

I can't decide if Naomi is fine or not.
 
Personally I like the game, but damn whoever programmed the cannoneer should be spit, those damn mines are unfair. There is supposed to be a warning sound of them, but personally with everything that goes on the screen I haven't heard it once and when you get a visual warning of it you've got like half a second to dodge. Also one mine targets you even when an NPC is aggroing him, so you aren't safe even if you are successfully dividing the bosses' attention. and the asshole has got the HP of a wall and whenever he gets stunned the Blade Bearer charges with murder in her eyes, so the entire bossfight consists in me cursing like a sailor trying to take him out with an hell of fire and ice exploding all around.

Also does anyone have any suggestion to dodge the Virgin Reborn thorns attack? The only thing I could find is running and rolling arond the map hoping for the best or going behind her feet, but both method work only sometimes.

Also since it is a big point of the game I would have like more interactions with the NPCs.
 
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Gotta love the Protagonist stamp going ... and not saying a thing.

Personally I like the game, but damn whoever programmed the cannoneer should be spit, those damn mines are unfair. There is supposed to be a warning sound of them, but personally with everything that goes on the screen I haven't heard it once and when you get a visual warning of it you've got like half a second to dodge. Also one mine targets you even when an NPC is aggroing him, so you aren't safe even if you are successfully dividing the bosses' attention. and the asshole has got the HP of a wall and whenever he gets stunned the Blade Bearer charges with murder in her eyes, so the entire bossfight consists in me cursing like a sailor trying to take him out with an hell of fire and ice exploding all around.

Also does anyone have any suggestion to dodge the Virgin Reborn thorns attack? The only thing I could find is running and rolling arond the map hoping for the best or going behind her feet, but both method work only sometimes.

Also since it is a big point of the game I would have like more interactions with the NPCs.
VB's thorn attack dodge is simple:
Hug any wall that isn't behind it. It'll miss every time.

Also, if you think the duo is nasty as it is, wait til you fight them in the depths and they go the FULL Dark Souls 'my boss partner died, so I get a free power-up' utter bullshit.
 
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Picked this up during the Steam autumn sale, and just completed my first run! Had a total blast with it; it's my first Soulslike, and it was definitely decently challenging, but also forgiving enough that I never felt really frustrated beyond one or two moments. The partner is such a huge safety net too, as well as build customization making it very easy to get very OP to compensate. All in all, $40 well spent, and I'm looking forward to whenever the DLC comes out, and hopefully a sequel.
 
Picked it up during the winter sale and finally started playing it. Liking it quite a bit so far.

Oliver was easy, then I bumbled my way directly to the executioner who bodied me quite a few times and after finishing her the butterfly and despot were fairly easy again.

I'm currently at the cathedral and it is one of the most annoying areas I've seen in a game in quite a while. I suspect part of it is that I'm a dumbass and managed to fall into the same hole twice in a row, but the whole place is just one gigantic confusing mess. I don't think I really missed anything so far and finally made it to the boss, but stopped playing before challenging it.

I'd say it's definitly more forgiving than other Soulslikes so far and allowing you to play around with all kinds of builds without having to restart is great. The partners took me some time getting used to especially in the beginning, as Yakumo bulldozed through enemies while I barely killed anything before thinking about my build a bit more. I've come to like the system quite a bit as it allows you to play a bit risky in new areas, since your partner can bail you out if things go wrong.
 
Oliver was easy, then I bumbled my way directly to the executioner who bodied me quite a few times and after finishing her the butterfly and despot were fairly easy again.
That's because you're supposed to fight Butterfly and Despot before going for Executioner, which is something I've learned after doing the same thing as you.

Also, because I have a hard time finding my way around the map, I keep walking in circles, healing at a mistle, and killing everything again, so I'm suspecting that I managed to over-level myself by accident :V
 
That's because you're supposed to fight Butterfly and Despot before going for Executioner, which is something I've learned after doing the same thing as you.

Also, because I have a hard time finding my way around the map, I keep walking in circles, healing at a mistle, and killing everything again, so I'm suspecting that I managed to over-level myself by accident :V
I kinda figured that out after the executioner two or one shot me a few times and the butterfly and despot only scratched me when I fought them later on. Part of why the executioner was so difficult for me is also that I still expect hammers and greatswords to have more range than they actually do for some reason, so I end up missing with my attacks more often then I'd like, but that's slowly getting better.

Is there any downside to leveling up? Enemies give you so much Haze and the stuff I can buy form stores is pretty cheap that I'm already level 50 or so. No idea if that's overleveled for the cathedral.
 
I kinda figured that out after the executioner two or one shot me a few times and the butterfly and despot only scratched me when I fought them later on. Part of why the executioner was so difficult for me is also that I still expect hammers and greatswords to have more range than they actually do for some reason, so I end up missing with my attacks more often then I'd like, but that's slowly getting better.

Is there any downside to leveling up? Enemies give you so much Haze and the stuff I can buy form stores is pretty cheap that I'm already level 50 or so. No idea if that's overleveled for the cathedral.
When I finally found the boss, Yakumo more or less defeated the Butterfly by himself.

My problem with accidentally overleveling is that I don't want to make the game too easy. I'd rather enjoy it at a pace set by the developers.

On another note, there's one place in the Cathedral with a hole on the floor that instantly kills you, and I've fell for it far too many times to have any pride left.
 
I kinda figured that out after the executioner two or one shot me a few times and the butterfly and despot only scratched me when I fought them later on. Part of why the executioner was so difficult for me is also that I still expect hammers and greatswords to have more range than they actually do for some reason, so I end up missing with my attacks more often then I'd like, but that's slowly getting better.

Is there any downside to leveling up? Enemies give you so much Haze and the stuff I can buy form stores is pretty cheap that I'm already level 50 or so. No idea if that's overleveled for the cathedral.
If you overlevel too much you reduce your skill xp for the various code skills (potentially down to 0). Of course, you can also just buy the xp with cash and materials (though some of the later skills require materials that you won't be able to reliably get until the second last main area) so if you still have an out if you managed to overlevel for the entire game.

My way of telling if I'm overleveled for the Cathedral was if I could complete the first invasion (up and right from the first "bonfire") without panicing and losing control of the situation. First playthrough I died on that invasion more than any of the bosses in the game.

Also, the Cathedral is the place where you can start locking yourself out of endings, so you should probably 100% explore it (easier said than done, the Cathedral is a MC Escher-esque nightmare maze that I hate having to go through once the initial "ooooohhh pretty" first impression has gone) so you can keep all your options open.
 
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On another note, there's one place in the Cathedral with a hole on the floor that instantly kills you, and I've fell for it far too many times to have any pride left.
I think I know that hole. Is it fairly close to the beginning and later on you loop around to get to it from the other side? If it is that one I also fell in a few times.
My way of telling if I'm overleveled for the Cathedral was if I could complete the first invasion (up and right from the first "bonfire") without panicing and losing control of the situation. First playthrough I died on that invasion more than any of the bosses in the game.
I think I'm still good then. The first invasion was horrible. Every time I thought I'd defeated all enemies some more showed up.
 
I think I know that hole. Is it fairly close to the beginning and later on you loop around to get to it from the other side? If it is that one I also fell in a few times.
Yes.

I'm always sprinting forward, so I never notice the hole before it's too late. Also, as a result of this habit, I have Yakumo's "don't run off to far" line stuck on repeat in my brain.
 
Finished Ashen Cavern. After my run in with the executioner I managed to beat all other bosses on the first try so far, even if some of them were really close. Some of the boss attack hitboxes were somewhat hard to read or lingered longer than I expected but aside from that I liked the bosses so far. That said I've been running around with a partner the whole time which certainly helps a lot. The worst enemy has actually been the tanky ice claw monster things on the mountain.

One thing I've been wondering is if the player's vestige you find after the first cathedral boss will ever be brought up? I was expecting it to be kind of a big deal, but none of your companions react to it and so far the only one who said anything about it at all was Jack. Does the game just assume that the player won't tell anybody else what they saw in that memory?
 
Made it to the duo fight in the Crypt Spire. The way through the spire was perfectly fine and I had no trouble with it, since I took my time with the obvious ambushes and even managed to beat the invasion. Then you get to the boss and man, what a shitshow.

I mostly figured out their attacks by now but with all the effects flying around it can be pretty hard to actually see what's going on and the screen effect when you get to low health certainly doesn't help with that. Aside from that I die in a few hits and do piss poor damage, so I guess I actually have to start thinking seriously about my build and maybe use some of the items from now on. I also haven't leveled up at all since the Cathedral, so maybe I should do that now.
 
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