Bandai Namco's anime style Souls-like finally received a sequel after all of these years. Code Vein was a surprisingly entertaining game and while it's considered by many to be "too easy" for a Souls-like, it was a solid entry point to the genre as it's not super challenging but still doing its own thing whilst also keeping the tropes of what makes a souls-like experience.
Rather than repeating the first game's structure, Bandai Namco decided to take inspiration from From Software's Elden Ring and other recent Souls-like games made over the years because
Code Vein II felt like a completely different game compared to the first. Both the previous game's really cool art style that distinguishes itself from the rest and a companion that travels with you during your journey both make their return, but the gameplay had a lot of adjustments and changes in this new instalment.
Rather than having dedicated sections that are isolated from the rest like Nioh 1 & 2 does,
Code Vein II is now open-world with a pretty huge map that you can explore. There will be areas that are cut-off but you can travel to any part of the world if you want, especially as the story progresses. As you explore the world, you will encounter optional mini-dungeon areas that you can fight your way through, some will be pretty difficult at first but as you get stronger it will be easier, and at the end there will be a boss you can fight. Defeating the boss will offer a chest, an item or a special device that will support you in the area with a boost to damage or resistance as an example.
My overall impressions on
Code Vein II at first were pretty mixed. I felt the difficulty was unbalanced and there were a lot of design choices that I wasn't sure about, especially with how your health system was setup. The combat was fairly sluggish, the parry system was flawed and the enemies can be too aggressive and not giving you enough breathing room to recover. Let's talk a bit more about my issues first before we get to the positive stuff.
Parrying is an optional defence in the game as you can also use shields, but in a lot of combat situations it made more sense to parry than block, though dodging was my main method because parrying doesn't always work out. There is a very tight timeframe where parrying can be successful, and when it does work it's very useful in combat. The issue for me is that it's too slow and caused a lot of high failure rates which was rather annoying during the fights. Other games that have parries, for example
Expedition 33, were quick and snappy which I have no problem with timing but here you have to go through an animation of sorts where it's somewhere in the middle where the parry needs to connect to make it work. Long story short, I don't like it and it doesn't always work for every boss battle you encounter.
The health system is a weird one. While I got used to it over time, thanks to the collectible items you acquire upon exploring the world map, it's not my favourite amongst other JRPGs. In a strange move, you have a bar at the bottom which is divided into two parts; yellow is your main health, and blue is your companion helping you, so when you get hurt and need to heal it felt like you only had 50% health than a full bar which definitely wasn't in the first game. I get the idea but it created more problems and unnecessary issues I felt. The collectibles that I mentioned are the Golden Blood Beads which help give you recover more health in one go, and Golden Nectars which add more quantity to the recovery items and you'll need to use them a few times to get a full health bar for context. There's also boosters that you can use to make it more manageable but in most scenarios the enemies will just take away tons of your health in a few hits.
When your character runs out of HP, your companion will come to your aid by offering you their health so they will be out of the battle for a short period of time. This is fine but you don't get a full health bar and every time you lose your HP and repeat the process you receive even less HP to a point where you can start with 1 HP and it's just ridiculous. I don't remember struggling this much on its health system in the first game so I think they were experimenting on something that wasn't broken in the first place.
The open-world aspect of
Code Vein II did feel a bit empty and while its nice to explore and find new things to combat and dungeons to cover, there are a lot of parts that have no save spots so it does end up being a high risk high reward in a number of situations. I do miss the previous game's style though, but I do commend Bandai Namco for trying to change it up. You have a bike at least so you can reach areas pretty fast and teleporting to different parts of the map using the save spots you locate is very quick which is handy.
Now let's get to the positives! Starting with the story as this is one very bleak experience that I didn't anticipate. You start off the game with a simple premise of travelling back and forth through time in order to defeat a couple big opponents in the present day, but over the course of your journey you encounter new characters who have enough development and tag along as companions that makes you feel even more miserable because of how things turn out. Basically if you get too attached, you're going to have a bad time. There are side quests that I recommend you explore because they add more development to the characters you meet and also receive rewards that will help you along the way, especially with the boosters.
The art style is also really good and the character designs were great. I really loved the art style of the first game so I'm glad they kept it here. The characters of the first game were pretty memorable but the new cast here were also very good and honestly I might say they may be even better. The incursions from the previous game also make their return which adds more background to the characters you encounter on your journey. I played the game with the English dub and their performances were also very good too.
Character creation and customisation of your equipment also return, and they're just as complex as you would expect. I made my character fairly simple and didn't over-do it, but I am disappointed they don't speak in general outside of dying which is a shame as I felt that would have added to the experience even more. You have various weapons you can choose from, and I focused on one-handed weapons and two-handed weapons for the most part. You technically only have support to use one weapon at first, but as you progress through the story and side content, you will unlock the ability to wield two weapons. Each weapon you can attach additional customisations of its own to support you during combat, including special attacks and buffers including extra damage or reduced stamina as an example.
Also included in your gear are boosters that you can use to include additional strength, mind, dexterity and more. You also have Jails which are similar to the ones you have in the previous game where you can use it against enemies to recover blood or ichor as it's known in this game. Ichor is needed to perform the support abilities that your weapons have, as well as your Offensive Forma gear which is either a Bow, a Hammer or a Chainsaw Sword. The hammer is very handy as it will allow you to hit multiple enemies in one go upon succession and also slow down time against them. The chainsaw sword has a long process but is good to use against bosses. I didn't bother with the bow as a lot of the fights are close by. The weapons, forma as well as the defensive gear like Parrying and Shields can be upgraded to improve their performance.
Another one to mention in terms of abilities are the blood codes. Blood codes are earned from the characters you interact with and if you reach certain requirements, you can receive additional boosters back at MagMell HQ. Not all blood codes will make progress at first, as it can be story dependant or based on your current build, and if you're not careful enough it may cause a side effect where you end up taking damage upon hitting enemies. You also need to make sure you balance your stats, because certain weapons require the right build otherwise it will make you weaker in combat or reduce the speed of your dodge rolls. You can fix this with using different blood codes and boosters or even using different weapons, but always keep an eye on your stats before jumping into a fight.
Like every other Souls-like game, you earn points that can be used to redeem levels or as currency to purchase new weapons, gear and more. While the weapons are more important when it comes to the battles, I always levelled up so that every little bit counts. I haven't reached a limit so you can probably get to Level 200 if you wanted to. There's also gifts that you can provide to your companions to trade for additional weapons, food or items. I always made sure I used up the points before jumping into a boss fight because if you die, the points are stuck in the location where you were last and it's rather annoying when its in a boss arena that you may not be prepared for.
I played the game for a total of 54 hours after acquiring all of the trophies as well as achieving all three endings of the game. The endings are setup like
NieR Automata so you don't need to replay the entire game to achieve them, but you do need to go through additional story content to unlock them. The final ending route was very similar to
Kingdom Hearts III ReMIND where you can't level up so I recommend you make sure you're well equipped and at a high level before continuing. Even though I didn't Platinum the first game, this game was a lot easier than anticipated especially as the difficulty became more balanced the more I progressed with the story.
The biggest challenge folks will have with the Platinum completion will be the Irreplaceable trophy which requires maximum affinity with a companion. The game doesn't tell you so the data is hidden on how much you've progressed with your companions. From what I read, it's divided between 30% going to Story/Side Quest progression, 30% towards Gifts and 40% for general progression like defeating big bosses, grabbing blue items or locating save points. I managed to get this during the final area of the second ending route, but it can take you hours if you don't plan (killing regular enemies doesn't increase the progression which is where the confusion lies).
Overall,
Code Vein II was not a perfect experience but my impression on the game improved over time with a great cast of characters, a very solid story and combat that was decent. You don't need to play the first
Code Vein as this one is pretty much a reboot with no relation to the previous game or even
GOD EATER which was a surprise. There were some technical issues during my progress, like sound missing from enemies during combat and at one point my weapons turned into the Chainsaw forma which was distracting. The framerate is also inconsistent and the graphics are fine, but these are mainly due to the Unreal Engine they used. There are patches planned to hopefully fix these issues.
I'm on the final DLC though, Blood and Wine so I'm nearly done, but this DLC is huge so I still probably have another 20-30 hours easily left. Absolutely loving the experience though. I was pretty addicted at one point. 
