At some presentation, the guys from Friv2Online admitted that they are fans of the World of Darkness universe. Unfortunately, love alone was not enough to make the friv game worthy of such a big name as Vampire: The Masquerade - Swansong. We share our impressions of the role-playing adventure game created by the authors of The Council.
The plot of Vampire: The Masquerade - Swansong revolves around the Boston court of the Camarilla, which is currently ruled by the ambitious Prince Hazel Iversen of the Ventrue clan. Kindred, close to the ruling elite, and members of the Primogen Council are drawn to Hazel's domain due to a crisis situation: someone announced a "red" code in the city - a special vampire protocol that signals an extreme level of threat.
Among the colorful guests of the Prince, there are three main characters whose interests the players will look after: the rebellious star Emem Luis from the Toreador clan, the founder of one of the main jazz clubs in the city; Camarilla protector Galeb Bazori of the Ventrue clan, devoted to the ideals of Hazel; and the Prince's court soothsayer Leisha with her daughter Halsey, both of the Malkavian clan.
Shortly before the events of the game, a reception was to be held in the Kindred Loft to celebrate the unification of Boston and Hartford Chapel, which would allow Hazel to put the Boston court at the head of the blood market, significantly strengthening his influence in the region, and along with the position of the Prince at court.
But something did not go according to plan, communication with the participants of the meeting was suddenly cut off, and then the unknown person announced a general alarm. The Prince then mobilized all her remaining resources to ascertain the truth and analyze the gravity of the situation.
Everything would be much simpler if it were not for the behind the scenes characteristic of the World of Darkness. Hazel has a difficult relationship with the Primogens, who don't even try to hide their distaste for the Prince, who doesn't want to be the council's puppet. Among them are Berel Underwood, a child of Galeb corrupted by power, ready to do anything for the sake of influence; former lover Emem and her sire Hilda, who will not let go of the past; a suspicious but seemingly loyal New Orleans occultist, Dayan.
Galeb Bazori has a ghoul, a talented Silicon Valley start-up girl who is pushing for the blue economy. Galeb promised her Becoming, which irritates Berel very much, who harbors a grudge against the sire. Mistress Emem, who was responsible for organizing the reception, is suspected of treason. And Leisha is generally a child of the moon, suffering from loss of memories. She periodically "covers" with visions, which is why she is forced to return to the Institute and undergo therapy in separation from her daughter. And this is only a small part of the characters presented in Swansong.
The Prince sends Emem to negotiate with the Warlocks, who may consider what happened in the loft a provocation; Galeb checks out to the apartments of Jason Moore, the man who handles the vampires' financial transactions during the daytime, when the court's security chief finds out that it was he who announced the "red" code; and Leisha, as the most inconspicuous, is tasked with conducting an investigation at the scene, and at the same time finding her psychiatrist Dunham and child Hazel, who disappeared from the radar on that ill-fated night.
Who attacked the Boston domain - the warlocks from Hartford Chapel or the damned anarchs? Could it be that the Tremere isolationists from the Salem Domain set it all up and Diane is somehow involved in this? But what if the mysterious organization Crimson Oaks, whose members participated in several assassination attempts on the Prince, is to blame? The player will have to figure out this and many other things.
Vampire: The Masquerade - Swansong is similar in essence to Big Bad Wolf's previous work - episodic adventure The Council. If you were hoping that you would wander the city at night, hunt mortals and fight anarchs while observing a masquerade, you are in Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodhunt, (but Bloodlines is still better).
By the way, the creation of the World of Darkness universe is attributed to the American role-playing game designer Mark Rein-Hagen, who developed the first tabletop Vampire: The Masquerade as part of the White Wolf team, and Swansong released a team called Big Bad Wolf. Not that it means anything, just a fun fact.
The gameplay of Swansong is based on the exploration of linear locations using vampire abilities and communication with mortals or vampires, where the skills of rhetoric characteristic of Kindred are used. The role element is provided with the ability to influence the development of events and the characters themselves.
To turn the tide of a conversation, glean more information, or defend against an opponent's attacks, vampires can use special conversational skills that the friv game compares with the opponent's skills to determine the winner. Under equal conditions, the outcome of the conflict is decided by a die roll, and the percentage of the probability of victory or defeat is determined by the effects, characteristics and penalties affecting the character.
If there is an opportunity in dialogue to resort to, say, persuasion, but the level of the vampire’s skill is not high enough, the player can temporarily increase it, which will cause a response, and the opponent is very likely to resort to strengthening as well - the more aggressively you act, the more desperately your opponent defends.
Each hero has special abilities, inherited along with the curse of the clan. In Swansong they are called disciplines or conversational disciplines if they are applicable in conversations. Emem, for example, can turn on the charisma inherent in bullfighters, and Caleb can use a mental shield from influences. Unlike skills, disciplines cannot be strengthened during conversations.
In some episodes, players will have to engage in confrontations, a particularly important form of story dialogue. Confrontations can be divided into stages and give players the right to a certain number of mistakes, but in the end it is very desirable to remain the winner, since their outcome will directly affect the further development of the plot.
Skills and disciplines cost willpower or food points. The former are replenished with consumables, while the latter will require fresh blood. It is very important for players to monitor the level of hunger of the wards - the closer it is to a critical value, the higher the chance that the vampire will break loose and break the masquerade.
Exploring the locations, the player will find safe, hidden from prying eyes rooms in which you can carefully lure a potential victim to satisfy your hunger. The vampire may drain the vessel dry or stop in time to avoid arousing suspicion. According to the law of the World of Darkness, the blood of some mortals has resonances. In Swansong, they give the vampire extra experience at the end of the scene.
At any time, even during the cut-scene, the player can access the friv game menu, which consists of several important sections. Thus, in the Boston section, the personal histories and characteristics of all the characters are detailed, including the dates of their Formation, descendants and sires, and the Codex explains many concepts from the World of Darkness.
In particular, players here will find descriptions of many of the clans that exist in the universe, their principles and attitude. What is Masquerade and diablerie, how are the “links” of vampire generations considered and blood bonds are formed, what is the difference between the concepts of “lackey”, “vessel” and “ghoul”, what vampires call the Call and the inner Beast, etc.
I strongly recommend that you read these sections as soon as the game makes them available, as Swansong throws the player into the thick of things without preamble - it will be easier to understand the motivations of the characters, analyze their actions and think over your own actions.
Vampire: The Masquerade - Swansong is divided into stages called scenes and consists of several episodes of the unlife of your wards. Before the beginning of each scene, the player is allowed to allocate experience points on the character sheet, and after it is completed, to study all the actions he has performed, classified as successes, alternatives, and failures.
Vampire skills and disciplines are developed through experience points and are strengthened through a talent system that works on the principle of "the more often you use, the stronger you get." A separate section in talents is devoted to nutrition, where the hero's favorite diet acquires additional properties.
Traits are negative and positive effects that are revealed as a result of choices made by the player. And in an unpredictable way. For example, a vampire might learn from defeat in an argument and gain a permanent buff to some conversational skill.
The level of satiety and the level of suspicion (the degree of trust of relatives in your person) as they change also give traits, though temporary. All these in total are modifiers that affect the chance of success on checks in dialogues and situations that require the use of skills.
At the very beginning, for each of the protégés, the player chooses one of the ready-made profiles or distributes experience points between skills, disciplines and characteristics at his discretion. Dialogue skills are responsible for rhetoric, research skills include the ability to open locks and hack systems, and knowledge skills are responsible for the ability to analyze and understand the vampire in the sciences - these will come in handy both in dialogues and while exploring locations.
Physical, social and mental characteristics enhance skills and discipline. In particular, they increase the likelihood of winning a verbal duel. In the list of disciplines, which looks like a small skill-tree, skills inherited from clans are developed.
Emem, Galeb, and Leisha all have at least one key trait that other characters don't have. So, the bullfighter has the swiftness that allows her to slow down the perception of time, the Malkavian can disappear and change appearances, and the Ventrue feels the manifestations of the supernatural, and also endures physical and mental damage.
Their abilities are, in fact, the only mechanics in the game that diversify the gameplay for different characters at least a little. But at this point, the developers decided on conventions, which, perhaps, should have been avoided. So, as far as I managed to study the World of Darkness, the ability to hide in plain sight is rather inherent in Nosferatu, and the prophetic gift is characteristic of the Malkavians, but not of the bullfighters, and yet Emem somehow has the discipline of clairvoyance.
With the exception of one or two unique abilities, most of the disciplines of vampires are the same. Providence, as I noted above, Emem and Leisha have, Galeb has the same charisma as Emem, and Leisha is strong in the manipulations characteristic of Galeb. Seems to me something went wrong here.
But the main claim I have, oddly enough, to the visual range. In Vampire: The Masquerade - Swansong, in general, good graphics and model detail, but the failure of the facial animations and body language of the characters looks all the more contrasting.
They got a very funny walk, rubbery gestures and ridiculous facial expressions, and many heroes also got surprised bulging eyes, as if they saw something incredibly shocking, and they still can’t unsee it. Oh, how difficult it is to put up with such hack work in a game where the atmosphere is everything.
So I will say: Vampire: The Masquerade - Swansong is quite remarkable, but only in terms of the plot. Rough animations significantly spoil the visuals and all the scenes in general, the mechanics are secondary and controversial, and the management of spirit and blood points resembles a lottery: you just spend them wherever you can, and you almost never understand in advance whether the friv game is worth the candle.
Most of the time, the player either wanders around small, polished locations and feels all the oncoming objects, forced to patiently wait for the hero to comment on what he saw, because he does not know how to reason on the go, or participate in dialogues, some of which are worked carelessly: it’s sad to watch how sometimes when using the charisma skill, instead of eloquent phrases and logic, the hero gives out a set of primitive cliches.
The player has to keep in mind a huge number of details and fail over and over again during conversations and exploration of the world, because again something is not pumped. Probably, Big Bad Wolf expected that in this case we would replay scenes, and even allowed us to redistribute points upon restart, but why then the dialogues and cut-scenes that make up the entire Swansong cannot be skipped or at least squandered when restarting the mission?
Even the voice actors responsible for the English language are inexcusably hacky in places, and the music is as inexpressive as it can be. And only the plot, at first very complicated due to the piling up of details, the abundance of actors and rapidly developing events, is still great addictive, it’s worth delving a little into what is happening.
The question arises: is the big name of the title and only one good plot with a powerful atmosphere-forming base in the form of the World of Darkness enough to sell the game? Perhaps only if the buyer turns out to be a devoted fan of World of Darkness. Of those that hunt for any thematic trophies. Well, or a person like me who has a secret passion for the vampire universe and is looking for convenient entry points.