Vigil: the Longest Night

Vorph

Vorph

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Anyone else give this a shot? It's a metroidvania/souls hybrid and as far as the genre goes I'd say it's better than Blasphemous, but it isn't quite as polished as Salt and Sanctuary. I like the art/graphics here the best of the three, but the localization (Taiwanese studio iirc) is really rough at times in both dialogue and item descriptions.

I bought the Switch version on a whim, and I wouldn't really recommend it over the PC version at this point unless you have a really strong desire to play it handheld. Initial load takes 2 minutes, and every transition (even into and then back out of small houses) takes 20-30 seconds. Reloading the save after death takes at least that long too. And there's even more bizarre spots where the game pauses to load too--like 20-30 seconds where the game completely freezes when you equip a new piece of armor, or the 1-2 second hitch the first time you swap to a different weapon. All stuff that should get fixed in a patch, but at the moment it's kind of obnoxious.

World design and bosses seem pretty good so far though. I like all three melee weapon types and the bow enough that it's been really hard to decide what to invest skill points in. Combat is pretty solid, though I have noticed that just spamming light attacks is often enough to stunlock trash mobs to death.

Worth noting that there's no recover-souls type mechanic at all. You can save at owl statues which otherwise behave just like bonfires (you get healed, world respawns, etc.) but when you die it just loads the last savegame and there's never any need for a corpse run. I guess they decided to go with the metroidvania side there.

Edit: Saw a twitter post from devs regarding the Switch issues, they suggest installing to internal memory instead of SD card while they work to fix the issues. Going to give that a shot and see if it helps.
 
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Intrinsic

Intrinsic

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Added this to my wishlist hoping to catch a sale. For some reason $21.99 seems like an odd price, probably because most the other recent Metroidvania/Souls Hybrids have been less than that or they've been EA, 15%/20% off.
 
Vorph

Vorph

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It was -10% on Steam (but not Switch of course) for a while post-release, but yeah, I can definitely see waiting for a sale. It's a pretty good game already, but a few patches certainly will help to polish the game up, and they've already started addressing stuff like the glaringly bad parts of their English localization.
 
j00t

j00t

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yeah, there's definitely some grammar problems. but the gameplay is engaging enough. it's a fun little game
 
Kaige

Kaige

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They had a patch earlier this year to improve the English grammar, although there's a couple dialogue windows they missed.

Decent game, but definitely would still consider picking it up on sale since it didn't feel very long. 12-15 hours maybe?
 
Hateyou

Hateyou

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This is 40% off and had some large DLC added to it so I finally picked it up. Fell off my radar for a long time. So far this is scratching the itch that Grime didn’t. I’ll check out Grime after they patched it up some more, they’re making steady progress on it. Anyways, this games cool, looks like a ton of weapons and armor. I want to try all the weapons too but not sure if you get enough points to do that so I’m just going with axe for now.
 
Intrinsic

Intrinsic

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Hateyou said:
This is 40% off and had some large DLC added to it so I finally picked it up. Fell off my radar for a long time. So far this is scratching the itch that Grime didn’t. I’ll check out Grime after they patched it up some more, they’re making steady progress on it. Anyways, this games cool, looks like a ton of weapons and armor. I want to try all the weapons too but not sure if you get enough points to do that so I’m just going with axe for now.
Click to expand...

Man I just reinstalled Bloodstained. Guess I’ll do this one. There was another game released yesterday “Song of Iron” and while there’s a lot of praise for the one dude making a game alone there’s also a lot of reviews saying it is trash.

*edit: Also, I've continued to trudge along in Grime and it never gets any better. One day I'll finish it.
 
Hateyou

Hateyou

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Intrinsic said:
Man I just reinstalled Bloodstained. Guess I’ll do this one. There was another game released yesterday “Song of Iron” and while there’s a lot of praise for the one dude making a game alone there’s also a lot of reviews saying it is trash.

*edit: Also, I've continued to trudge along in Grime and it never gets any better. One day I'll finish it.
Click to expand...
This game feels closest to Bloodstained out of all the metroidvanias I’ve played. It is definitely not as deep (so far at least, I’m three hours in) due to not having tons of enemy skills like Bloodstained does. I really like all the gear that’s in this one, that’s similar. All the platforming and secret areas is cool.

Bloodstained is the gold standard for me so far, I’m hoping there’s a sequel or successor some day.
 
Caliane

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oh is it?

This was on my list for a while. I kindof started to write it off. too many "soulslike" metroidvanias. I like metroid, castlevania, bloodstained style ones. I got the impression this one was more in the salt and sanctuary, etc, "souls like" direction.
 
Intrinsic

Intrinsic

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Caliane said:
oh is it?

This was on my list for a while. I kindof started to write it off. too many "soulslike" metroidvanias. I like metroid, castlevania, bloodstained style ones. I got the impression this one was more in the salt and sanctuary, etc, "souls like" direction.
Click to expand...

Combat seems more similar to a Bloodstained than a Soulslike. Equipment and weapons have stats and other differences so I would say it is more RPGish than anything. Same with leveling and abilities, buying, selling. Upgrading and +1ing your stuff is soulsish but not unique to that game or genre.

The only real death mechanic is that if you die you lose all gained progress so Owls (bonfires) act more like actual save points rather than checkpoints or purely respawn points. It is similar to, was it the one with the bugs and stuff… where you die and lose all map progress. Can’t think of it. Anyways there’s no soul retrieval system or soul management. You simply kill for xp and allocate skill points. Monsters drop gold and items.

There’s a quest system that keeps track of your current tasks via a notes system. Village screens for talking to townsfolk and merchants to open new quest lines and side quests.

A lot I like so far and some things I dislike. But those are for another post.
 
Intrinsic

Intrinsic

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Kind of losing interest in this. It isn't bad but the dialogue has just taken me out. After one specific part you interact with two characters and their banter is just, "Fuck you!" "No, fuck you!" It is just bad. Maybe I'm being overly critical.

It also has a distinctly "unity" engine feel? That probably sounds dumb since there are a million Unity engine games, not sure... anyways, interest is waning.
 
Hateyou

Hateyou

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Intrinsic said:
Kind of losing interest in this. It isn't bad but the dialogue has just taken me out. After one specific part you interact with two characters and their banter is just, "Fuck you!" "No, fuck you!" It is just bad. Maybe I'm being overly critical.

It also has a distinctly "unity" engine feel? That probably sounds dumb since there are a million Unity engine games, not sure... anyways, interest is waning.
Click to expand...
Those two characters dialogue were definitely out of nowhere, but it was the only part like that. I don’t really care for the towns portion of the game but the platforming, combat, etc have kept my interest. The quest tracker could be better. Not really sure how I’d make it better it just feels bare bones. Definitely like all of the weapons, armor, etc. finally got some good magic too so have started putting points towards that. The magic that grabs the mob and stuns it is sweet.
 
Intrinsic

Intrinsic

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Hateyou said:
Those two characters dialogue were definitely out of nowhere, but it was the only part like that. I don’t really care for the towns portion of the game but the platforming, combat, etc have kept my interest. The quest tracker could be better. Not really sure how I’d make it better it just feels bare bones. Definitely like all of the weapons, armor, etc. finally got some good magic too so have started putting points towards that. The magic that grabs the mob and stuns it is sweet.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I got that one really early and it felt overpowered to have it. The feather shooter one seems extremely weak compared.

I'm guessing from the quest tracker and the couple with Red X it means there are missable quests. It is super bare bones though like you said.
 
Caliane

Caliane

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yeah, got to this. not done yet. Liking it quite a bit.

started good. after the first timeskip/point of no return, my enjoyment dropped a ton. But, picked back up over time. At first, I thought the game was much smaller, and had little metroidvania crossovers/etc. but, as the map kept expanding, I was enjoying it more again. There still isn't quite intricate overlaping of maps, with new movement skills.

Gear is interesting. new gear largely doesn't have better stats. just different stats. So, like all the axes have about 70-100 attack. 100-150 poise damage. plus some other special effect.
Fought poison option boss, and had to equip poison resist gear.

game has alot of monster drop items, which need to be farmed. (don't think any are game progression, just gear.) said, poison boss didnt drop any for me, you need to farm said boss..

There are missable quests. the (prologue) is big in this. Finish everything, before using the ocarina. (technically you can go back, before killing the boss, after using it) Do isabella's quests before finishing the secret trail. after the main prologue,talk to the homeless guy three times, before/after each boss fight. don't give the 3 cubics to the doctor.
 
Soygen

Soygen

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I got this on sale a couple weeks ago and beat it recently. I really enjoyed. Nice little indie souls-vania kind of thing. I really dug the atmosphere/lore stuff as well. I have too much stuff in my backlog to grind all the crafted weapons and shit, though.
 
Caliane

Caliane

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there 3 endings. a special one, for doing the bonus bosses, and getting the right special items.
 
Caliane

Caliane

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Apparently the Taiwanese dev studio is having problems with there Chinese publisher.

 
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