The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing: Final Cut

Even though the The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing III was just released this past May, the developers have already put together a “Final Cut” of the whole series, uniting the entire trilogy in one title, allowing players to play all the way through the story of Van Helsing’s son in one single game. Sounds great in theory, but keep reading to find out how it works in practice. Also, as a nice heads-up to their fans, NeocoreGames is offering the Final Cut free to anyone who’s already purchased all three games.

Vantastic?

I should probably start by saying that The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing is what you call a Diablo clone. If you played any of the games in that series, you should have no problem finding your way around in Van Helsing. The look and feel of the game is about as Diablo as a Horadric Cube. You play from a top-down “isometric” perspective using keyboard and mouse, though you can also do without the keyboard if you want, since all the menu boxes are accessible via unobtrusive buttons at the bottom of the screen. There are enough differences between Van Helsing and the mother of all hack-and-slash games to make it worth your while though.

The son of Van Helsing hacks and slashes his through the fictional realm of Borgovia, which is more than just a little reminiscent of the Carpathian region of Central Europe. He is accompanied by a ghost known as Lady Katharina, since we know how well ghosts and humans can work together in a game, thanks in no small part to the Blackwell graphic adventure series. Van Helsing gives you the chance to cut down werewolves, roaming spirits, and other Halloween creatures in droves. You can play the main character himself as one of six standard RPG classes that allow you to concentrate on melee combat, ranged combat, magic, summoning, etc. While 2013’s The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing only had three character classes, this lack of diversity has been dealt with in the new version.

You a Van Yet?

One of the special things about Van Helsing are “essences”, which you can apply to weapons and gear to make them better. This works a little bit differently from Diablo’s system of gems and runes, but only a little bit. The trade interface is really great, and one feature I really like is how you can buy or sell items and then equip them then and there without having to close the window and reopen your own inventory, which is in any event very well integrated into the merchant menu. Even AAA titles like The Witcher 3 could learn a thing or two from the way NeocoreGames did this aspect of the game. In addition to various perks, there are also different “auras” you can level up, though it doesn’t make much of a difference. There’s no need to carry around a hundred healing potions – just one that refills itself, which tidies up your inventory significantly.

Single-player mode allows you to select which story campaign you want to play, as well as the map you want to play it on, though if you want to play with other monster hunters, you can switch over to multiplayer. Quests are pretty typical for the genre – most are of the “find this, kill that” variety. But the story does blend in with the action really well rnough to keep things from getting boring.

What’s Your Vantasy?

Van Helsing’s steampunk atmosphere is kept pretty dark for the most part, as if there’s always a sort of shroud hanging over the screen. This gives it a feel not unlike some older RPGs, though technically up to date, of course – the game supports DirectX 9 and 11, as well as OpenGL. In any event, the graphics seem to lie somewhere between Diablo II and Diablo III overall, are and easily scalable. Still, it kind of makes you wonder how much they’re actually using DirectX 11 – Van Helsing doesn’t feature the over-the-top physical effects seen in Diablo III, nor does it allow for super-high-res graphics, either.

The thing that really stands out is the game’s unique sense of humor. Despite her rather pallid appearance, Lady Katharina’s got a rather cheerful nature, and loves to bicker with Van Helsing in her Central European accent. The game makes light of the RPG genre and its various clichés, and it even includes its fair share of pop culture references, but never gets to the point where it’s just too silly. Sometimes you have to really pay attention, or you might miss some of the more subtle jokes and references, which can be as innocuous as a two-headed cow.

So what’s not to like? Really only one thing bothered me: the camera is fixed and cannot be rotated freely, leading to an entirely static game world, which can sometimes get really frustrating. Lots of treasure chests can only be discovered using secret passages, and finding the entrance to some of them can be an adventure in itself thanks to the fixed camera angle. You can easily end up getting caught in the trees as you’re trying to get your hands on the gold hidden behind them. I’ve also got a minor beef with the music, though after having played the Diablo series I’m probably a bit spoiled. The soundtrack in the Final Cut doesn’t live up to the epic quality heard in the original, but instead has a sort of patchwork feel that comes off a bit too arbitrary and unstructured.