Игрок 5617·Не рекомендует·9 ч в игре

Mixed review on this one and I urge any person reading this to look at it as more of a sideways thumb: some positive and some negative. I'm a huge VtM fan and really wanted to love it, and I do in parts. But while I think this game has some great stories to tell, overall I lean towards not recommending it by the metric it sets itself: as an RPG. The Good: The writing is mostly excellent and the art is suitably gothic and skilfully done. The music leans slightly generic but is effectively atmospheric. Aesthetically, this game has a lot going for it. A lot of the stories are fun to read through and understand the assignment of being modern Gothic horror. If I were reviewing this game as a linear visual novel, I'd say that it was great. If I were reviewing it as a book, I'd again say that it's largely fantastic and well worth your time and money. So if you're just looking to play a good vampire-themed narrative experience, I'd absolutely advise you to ignore the thumbs-down at the top of this review and buy this game. As with the rest of the positive reviews on this game (of which there are deservedly very many), I'd say you'll have a blast. The Bad: But this game doesn't advertise itself as a visual novel: it has the loftier ambition of being an RPG. And as an RPG, this game is often extremely frustrating to play. First off, there is very little in terms of clear choice in your starting stats, meaning you need to restart the game a bunch of times, using trial and error, until you've worked out which of the choices in character creation actually give you the stats that you want, and tough ♥♥♥♥ if that clashes with the roleplay fantasy you had in mind. You want to be a former professional sneak thief captured by The Warrior and taught how to 'conduct yourself honourably'? Better enjoy that starting Thief stat of 0, since your choice of Sire apparently has total control over what your entire life pre-vampiric turning taught you. Of course, there *is* a way of honing your skills: you have to use them in checks! A lot of checks. A LOT of checks. And there is no way to grind these skills outside of story moments. And if you're trying to train a skill, the likelihood is that you're not very good at it, which means you either have to constantly choose options that you're bad with and save-scum to avoid completely ruining whatever you were trying to do, or watch your supposed 'professional thief' blunder their way through multiple chapters before you actually get to enjoy the roleplay experience you wanted to start with. And that's assuming that you actually *get* to make progress: certain checks can be failed with no real consequence, while certain checks can completely close off avenues of progress if failed, or even give you a full game over. Also, if you imagine that this game treats all approaches equally and will allow a silver-tongued persuader, a down-and-dirty brawler and a keen-eyed investigator to each have their moments in the sun (so to speak), then forget it. Even a character build with zero detective skill will stumble across the most important information pertinent to a story pretty much every time, but woe betide you if you don't have the skills to handle yourself in a fight, as there will often be no other way out and harsh penalties for losing. So having some kind of combat skill is an ABSOLUTE necessity, but the combat rules themselves are often extremely frustrating and downright silly. As an example: early in the game you can choose to buy a cheap knife, which you'd imagine would be a useful way for non-combat focused builds to offset their lack of combat ability with a weapon. However, the game requires you to have an impossibly-high amount of combat skill *already* to equip it, an amount which, if you possessed, would mean you wouldn't need to buy a weapon in the first place! While I agree that a skilled combatant will probably be able to get more value out of a weapon, acting like you aren't immediately made more potent in a fight just by holding a knife and swinging it around is very silly. As another example, at one point during the game you are followed along a street by a group of children playing Vampire Hunter. Can you talk them down? No. Can you outrun them? Not without going back six hours of playtime and choosing that one very specific power at the start! No: you HAVE to fight these children. You, a grown-up vampire, simply have no choice other than to fight these children. Because this is an RPG where choices matter. Also, the powers are massively unbalanced. Corpsetalking, as far as I can tell so far 7 hours in, is a completely worthless power as all the useful parts of whatever information it provides can be found without its use extremely easily... and most of what it gives you is completely useless. Tenebrous Form, Beast Within and to a lesser extent the power that lets you talk to and control animals (I forget what this game calls it) are much, MUCH, more useful than Corpsetalking and Mesmerism, which can entirely be replaced with (and are pretty much inferior to) basic detective or persuasion skills. This is because Tenebrous Form and Beast Within are the only powers that let you skip combat checks, which are the only real roadblocks to progress in the game, and can sometimes be insurmountable roadblocks. Finally, simply from a personal taste perspective, I dislike the 'vampires are now public knowledge' thing that this game tries to pull. I think it's an incredibly difficult idea to get right, and pretty much every writer who tries misses a load of things that would be inevitably implied or precipitated by such a reveal. 'Vampires as a metaphor for an oppressed minority' isn't infertile narrative soil either, but it's certainly ground that's full of pitfalls. Also, there's a rather dumb joke about confusion over how to say an Irish character's name 'because it's spelled weird', which could be funny at the ignorant party's expense if the Irish lady herself didn't say that she also made the mistake when she was a child... despite apparently growing up in Dublin. Our writer was either indulging in a little English snobbery, or forgot that the majority of our language (and certainly our names) are first learned through sound and speech, not from viewing the word on the page. Possibly both. In summary, sadly, Steam has no rating in-between 'good' and 'bad', so I simply have to give this game the thumbs-down just because in my opinion it fails to be a good example of the thing it advertises itself as: a CRPG. It's not a *bad game*, especially by Steam's standards, and I hope it does well because there's clearly a lot of love and effort put into it, but as an RPG experience it overpromises and underdelivers.

Игрок 7320·Рекомендует·41 ч в игре

I'm not very adept at writing Steam reviews, I've probably done less than a dozen. If you like vampires, check out Nighthawks. It will almost certainly scratch the itch in one way or another. But I felt like I had to write something about this game. I backed it on Kickstarter in 2018, throwing 20 bucks at a neat looking vampire game and then forgetting about it. In 2020 I got really into Vampire: The Masquerade and I've been hooked by that ever since. I'm currently researching Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire so I can be better at worldbuilding for a Dark Ages game I'm planning. Nighthawks absolutely nails the spirit of Vampire: The Masquerade. I've been hooked on this game ever since I booted it up and saw the character creation. I'm only ten hours in at time of writing, maybe a couple hours into Act 2. But I'm already planning other routes through the game, other characters I want to try playing. The world they've built is fascinating, reminiscent of True Blood where vampires have revealed themselves to the world. I cannot wait to see what else this game and its setting has in store for me. I'm writing this now before I boot the game up for my third play session and I'm just itching to get back to it. I love these characters, I want to find out everything I can about them. Not marking this as having received the product for free. I may have paid for it in 2018 but I paid $20 all the same and it is completely worth it so far. I even went and bought the soundtrack so I can listen to it at work, maybe put it on as ambiance for my VTM games.

Игрок 5638·Рекомендует·9 ч в игре

Very well made Vampire interactive fiction. Nothing not to love about this! Maybe they'll make a Narrator Voice Acting DLC? I'd pay a few bucks for the game to read to me.

Игрок 4042·Не рекомендует·4 ч в игре

2/5。作为视觉小说来说几乎没有任何有趣的剧情，和mask of the rose的缺点一样，主线无聊不清晰而且任务很松散。主角在城市里漫无目的乱逛其实破坏了叙事的连贯性，何况这种伪自由度也没什么存在的必要因为实际游玩下来发现游戏的灵活性很低，大部分时候都是相当线性地解决任务。目前倒是没看出什么choices matter。最大的缺点仍然是故事太差，属于一款食之无味弃之也不可惜的作品。 作为rpg来说也没有什么好玩的玩法，而且可自定义的主角居然代入感这么差。开局选的起源几乎对叙事起不到影响，主角也没有任何锚点，所以和剧情本身显得非常割裂。各技能点的判定做得不好，不太直观而且也不像其他很多游戏那样可以通过升级来进行加点，花里胡哨添加了一大堆元素的系统实际上并没有真正增加游玩乐趣。开头感觉技能选mesmerism会好点，这种游戏本来应该各数值平衡且各技能的重要性差不多，但我选了那个和死者对话的技能几乎啥用都没有，完全没有体验感。 各角色都写得很无聊很单薄，就是那种常见的吸血鬼题材作品里必出现的角色，比如童姥、比如靠自己魅力奴役人类的邪教头子、比如经营自己灰产帝国的黑帮老大，也可能是因为我还没打太多内容吧所以没见得这些角色多么复杂深刻，但我真的打不下去了。

Игрок 7168·Рекомендует·25 ч в игре

Like many, I'd waited for this game for a long time. I missed he Kickstarter, unfortunately, so I kept checking the "Nighthawks" page for updates, greedily chomping down on each new missive. I grew skeptical when I saw it was a visual novel, as that type of game doesn't appeal to me. But I'd been weened on V:tM tabletop as a kid and gorged on Bloodlines I when it came out on PC. I wasn't going to miss this when it came out. And after some seven hours in, I'm glad I didn't. Sure, it's not what I'd hoped Bloodlines II would have been, and it lacks the animations of a CRPG or turn-based game that I tend toward. But despite my preferences, "Nighthawks" stands on its own as a strong addition to vampire games and games in general. Get your fill. There's a lot here. Just when I think I've hit a wall with a quest, something new catches my attention. Pretty soon, I've got too many things to do and not enough time in the night to do them. And that's what I want: a plethora of choices. "Nighthawks" delivers in spades. The writing is superb, the characters genuine and the options laid out like a nocturnal banquet. I like how new areas to visit slowly open as quests and time progress, scratching at my curiosity. Currently, I'm on Act II and I know there's a lot more waiting to be discovered. I'm happy to stretch my (bat) wings and fly into a genre of game I usually avoid. If you like that feeling of "just one more night before I log off," you should, too.

Игрок 1255·Рекомендует·33 ч в игре

UPDATE: Have now beaten the game and I stand by everything I said below. This is an excellent game, and deserves your time, attention and money. ORIGINAL REVIEW: I normally only review after I've beaten a game, but this game is special, and I want it to do well, so I'm reviewing this evening on launch day after completing Act 1. I came to Nighthawks relatively late; I was unaware of the Kickstarter and only really stumbled across it with the demo version from a while back. I was immediately captivated by it, though, and knew that the finished product would be something special -- particularly with the dream team of talent (including some excellent voice actors) working on it. I am happy to report that the finished game is everything I hoped it would be. If you've always liked the idea of Vampire: The Masquerade's "undead in modern day" premise, then Nighthawks will definitely appeal. It's not a straight clone of Vampire: The Masquerade, either, in large part due to the fact that there is no "Masquerade"; in the world of Nighthawks, vampires live openly in society, and, just like humans, occupy all the strata in the social pecking order while also having to deal with their own bestial urges and the prejudice of the still-living. This makes for a thoroughly interesting setting with plenty of potential to explore a variety of mature themes. And the game mechanics back this up with a variety of ways to play each situation, too. Depending on your background, skills and choices, you can approach the various problems in your path in a variety of ways, with varying consequences for different approaches -- the 100 available achievements should give you some idea of the range of possibilities on offer, and you won't get them all in one playthrough! As a text-based game, be prepared for a lot of reading (and listening to some excellent voice performances). But you probably knew that. This is a game that respects its audience as adults and doesn't feel the need to cater to people with no attention span -- and that's exactly what a game about the intrigue of vampires living in the modern day should be like, so far as I'm concerned. Top-notch stuff from everyone involved. Having a blast so far and looking forward to seeing how the story develops. And no sign of generative AI anywhere. Bliss.

Игрок 0574·Рекомендует·27 ч в игре

To call this game a vampire themed visual novel would be quite unfair. I would rather call it a tabletop RPG experience. - You can be a hunter in the shadows or prefer to drink in a more civilized manner without hurting others. - Variety of vampiric powers you can use that can provide insight into events. - There are companions that can complement your skills. - Companions interact with each other via events at nightclub or even bringing some companions to other companion's place can start interactions. - Companions have their own storylines. - You can upgrade your nightclub to enhance your playstyle with advantages. - There are lots of story decisions that you would expect to do at a tabletop game. - You can fail forward, yes there are occassional dangerous situations that can beat you up if you are not the brawler type and you can fail checks but they will lead to more interesting interactions. - Well established lore and a unique approach to the vampires since you are now part of the society. It truly has that Vampire the Masquerade charm I was looking for in a vampire game.

Игрок 3734·Не рекомендует·36 ч в игре

It's not a bad game, but I'm left completely ambivalent about it. For all the starting choices you have, there's almost no incentive to replay. You can very easily finish all your companions' stories in a single playthrough. Your starting stats matter some, but you'll still get a mix of easy, even, and impossible checks even if you max out all stats, so improvement doesn't really feel like improving. Your choices don't seem to particularly matter, either. For example, if you save one of your companions at great personal risk, they die anyway later with no fanfare and in such a way that you might completely miss ever finding out about it. You can amass a great deal of community good will that comes up at your trial, but it doesn't matter there and is never referenced again. You can choose your ending from a few options (which don't seem to rely on your earlier actions at all), but otherwise it's hard to spot what in the game is actually determinant enough to want to play through again. I realize this is an odd complaint coming from me, but the game is also just too long for itself and full of sequences that wear out their welcome long before their end. The dollhouse sequence in particular makes me reluctant to replay. It's at least twice as long as it needs to be. Its easiest comparison is to the Ocean House Hotel in VtM: Bloodlines, but that's an excellent piece of level design and genuinely spooky, whereas this is walking back and forth through a small house you've already explored and hearing things as you do. The map just isn't large enough for the story they're trying to pack into it. There's nothing particularly tense about it, it's very long, and, like most of the game, it doesn't really matter that you did it. The entire sequence about what The Mandarin Sacrifice could possibly be for is another big nothingburger, but it doesn't involve quite as much retracing your steps. If it ever does pay off or even come up again though, I didn't see it in my playthrough. If you're looking for a text game about vampires, VtM: The Night Road is worlds better than this. If you're looking for a vampire game in general, there are so many better options that this one doesn't even rank. Play it if you're curious or starved for a vampire story, but there's not much about it I expect I'll remember in a month.