Soulslikes tend to be dark, depressing, and regularly tell hopeless stories. Very rarely do we get one that starts and provides one with hope or camaraderie. That’s where Vindictus Defying Fate, for now, fits into the picture. Created by Nexon, this follow-up to the 2010 MMO, Vindictus, narrows the world to a single-player action RPG that promises gripping combat and engaging characters. But what this alpha showed was an oversimplified game with live-service elements.
For this demo of Vindictus Defying Fate, you’ll play as one of four heroes who save Colhen Village’s oracle from her demise. As such, you’re welcomed to the village with open arms. Plus, your hero wants to join the local division to protect the village and its inhabitants from the Gnoll threat. With your help, the guild finds a far grander threat than they could have imagined, the Gnolls uniting under one front to attack the humans. And so you, and your fellow heroes, go to not only save the town, but also uncover a greater threat.
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It’s hard to talk about an Alpha’s story when it is only a taste of what’s to come. Yet, for the most part, this story is hard to care about. The oracle and Colhen’s inhabitants are hard to connect with. That may be because the prologue is not yet available after finishing the tutorial. Maybe this tidbit of a story will help bring the first five to ten hours of the game together.
But what is impressive is Vindictus Defying Fate’s environments.
The three available in this alpha are, simply put, breathtaking. They are basically photorealistic and will, from time to time, have you take a breath and take in the world. Notably, the second area, a snowy, cold cave system, has several portions that peek into the outside world, giving you a glimpse of either bleakness with its lighting or warmth.
Yet even the details sometimes get carried over to the characters and the enemy’s design. That is, until you pay a little closer attention. Each of the four heroes in Vindictus Defying Fate is distinct in design and playstyle. Picking which one to play is really picking which playstyle you prefer. There’s Lana, the swordsman who dual-wields swords and attacks quickly; Karok, who uses a giant pillar like a club; Fiona, who plays like a classic sword and shield warrior who can easily defend against big attacks or land massive counters; And Delia, a bastard sword wielder.
Each hero uses their specific weapons and has unique abilities that play into their different playstyles. Plus, a really fun aspect of Vindictus Defying Fate is dressing up each hero. Through in-game earned currency, you can unlock new costumes, mix and match different parts of the costumes, and change the color palettes to create a wholly unique look for each person.
Vindictus Defying Fate, in its current state, is way too simple, from its leveling system to its combat.
But that is my biggest complaint about Vindictus Defying Fate. It sometimes feels like a welcoming entry into soulslike Action RPGs, but others make the game feel like it doesn’t get it. Starting with the combat, there is no stamina bar. You can dodge and hack-and-slash away at foes until they’re dead. Instead, you have a slowly charging gauge that, when any of the four segments fill, you can use an empowered charge attack or add onto some combos with an additional hit. The use of this gauge was very inconsistent with pulling off these extra moves.
But that also plays into how Vindictus Defying Fate relies on combos more than strategy to deal damage quickly. For my playthrough, I primarily used Delia. The following examples of combos and ability usage come from familiarity with Delia’s gameplay. Delia’s use of a big sword fits what I like to do in action RPGs. Her combos were initially presented with three to four different ones, which are executed by a mix of light and heavy attacks. One quickly outshone the other in how its execution led to more damage being dealt and was the fastest to pull off.
Similarly, Vindictus Defying Fate’s abilities feel like a leftover of the MMO days. Abilities are easy to execute, being tied to a two-button combination, but their cooldowns are ridiculously long. One, for instance, took over 100 seconds to recharge. No combos, damage dealt, and nothing sped that up. Only skill points reduced the cooldown by ten to fifteen seconds at a time. And there are only one to two skill points to unlock per these big abilities.
Cooldowns in Vindictus Defying Fate felt like an eternity.
The associated attacks did deal good damage. Speaking of skill points, surprisingly, the leveling system doesn’t offer new skill points. But the battle-pass-like system, Kalbram Supplies, and exploration did. Leveling actually didn’t seem to matter all that much. Each battle awards experience, not enemy-by-enemy. Dying doesn’t take anything away. And once you level up, you’re automatically awarded a boost in health, attack, and defense. There’s no stat allocation.
Skill points, on the other hand, are found in chests scattered throughout each of the areas or by leveling up the Kalbram Supplies award system. Experience for that is awarded by completing daily or weekly objectives, and can give cosmetic to in-game rewards like skill points, rarer crystals needed to unlock higher level skill points, and various currencies, like the one to unlock cosmetics. It’s all just an odd mess of a leveling system that feels too complex. Especially when it downplays its namesake, leveling up.
Even gear itself isn’t really tied to stats. It’s all cosmetic. There is a weapon crafting system, but that is primarily to level up your overall weapon effectiveness. Finding and unlocking new weapon patterns only unlocks the next ranks of weapon proficiency and a new weapon cosmetic. Gear is, again, only cosmetic as well.
But that leads to my biggest issue with Vindictus Defying Fate. The whole package, particularly its story, throws many unremarkable fights at you. In the first area, there are at least four to five different Gnoll bosses. I could not tell you how each differs regarding their looks and attack patterns. Plus, the fights felt arbitrarily long, given how much health they each had. Leveling and gearing barely felt like they sped up the fights when re-doing them later for the daily Kalbram Supply levels.
In its current state, Vindictus Defying Fate is unsure what type of game it is.
The only interesting fights were the last boss of the second area and the two hidden bosses. But that’s primarily from their sheer difficulty and having a second phase. Not from attack patterns. Even bringing along an NPC ally from time to time didn’t seem to have too much of an effect on the overall pace, besides just having someone to distract a boss for a little bit, so I could charge up my four-gauge-charge attack.
But there are some good things about the minute-to-minute gameplay in Vindictus Defying Fate. Even while feeling overly forced to replay encounters for Kalbram Supply levels. Having bosses be replayable from the jump is a nice touch. Being able to fast travel from rest point to rest point is even better. But again, there is a downside to all this. There are cooldowns on when you can re-fight a boss. Why? It’s a single-player game. Let me re-fight a boss as many times as I want.
Being in alpha gives Vindictus Defying Fate a good opportunity to grow and learn. Not from itself, but from the grander ever-expanding action RPG market. The combat is too simplistic to connect with those who enjoy action RPGs. But many of my complaints can be addressed before the game officially launches. There are sparks of greatness here. Let’s hope that Nexon can harness them and create a great action RPG for fans old and new, because its approach to having a more hopeful story is one we need nowadays, particularly in this genre.
There is currently no release date for Vindictus Defying Fate, but the Alpha will be available on PC from June 8th to 16th.
