Vindictus: Defying Fate Preview
I’m a big fan of action RPGs. Brilliant or awful, I’m down for giving them a try. I just finished a bit of time with the demo of Vindictus: Defying Fate, and while I have lots of questions about Nexon’s new game as a whole, I can sense quite a bit of potential.
Unclear Motivation
Although its UI was translated into English, Vindictus: Defying Fate’s spoken dialogue was still all untranslated Korean, so I’m a little unclear about the narrative and characters. Here’s what I do know: There’s a bucolic home village from which the player character departs to fight monsters and bosses. Beyond that, I’m not sure what’s going on or whose fate is being defied. To be fair, that could be the approximate same description of every Monster Hunter game and most Soulslikes.
Characters and environments are all attractively rendered courtesy of Unreal Engine 5. There are four starting classes with some added cosmetic customization, which are gender locked, unfortunately. I went with the sword and board class for my first play-through. Other classes include a twin-bladed fighter and a tanky boy who carries around a stone pillar as a weapon. Later in the game, you can team up with an AI version of one of the other classes. Your silent partner is useful for pulling aggro from bosses, but not exactly capable of turning the tide of battle.
At least in the slice of the game I played, the world is detailed and interesting but generally empty except for monsters, humanoid enemies and the occasional group of allies. It’s also essentially one long corridor with a few side paths. Invisible barriers block off most of the scenery from exploration.
Where It Gets Good
Action RPGs live or die through their combat. It’s in this area that Vindictus: Defying Fate scores some early points. Melee combat felt good, punchy, and solid. Characters have the standard light and heavy attacks and an array of combo-based special attacks. There are two upgrade paths, one for general stats and the other for class-based special attacks and abilities. Even untranslated, everything made sense. Perfect parries were particularly satisfying to pull off, with a reasonably forgiving parry window.
On regular difficulty, bosses weren’t incredibly challenging and shared a lot — maybe too many — of the same moves. Still, the boss fights were a decent step up from enemies in the field.
However, there are a few early development wobbles. For one thing, consuming a healing item or reviving an NPC comes with painfully slow and easily interrupted animations. Inputs tend to be a little laggy and there’s quite a bit of jank around locking on. Right now, treasure chests and hidden goodies are limited to a few item types. In other words, this is not a hack-and-slash game with an inventory overflowing with weapons and gear. It feels unfinished, which of course it is.
All those invisible walls were kind of a bummer, too, as the world cries out to be more interactive. There are some breakable barrels — a requisite in action RPGs — and a bit of verticality to add interest but everything else is pretty but static.
So Much More to learn
Sometimes demos are big, juicy slices of a game and full-on complete experiences. In this case, the demo was really just that, a teaser for a game that has a bit of a journey still to go before release. Vindictus: Defying Fate has some serious competition in the action RPG genre but what I played suggests it has the basics dialed in. I’m looking forward to playing something closer to the full game in the coming months.
***PC code provided by the publisher for preview***
