The Incredible Adventures of Van Hellsing III is the final game in a trilogy of action adventure games utilizing the isometric view of combat that the Diablo series has perfected. The respect and reverence that Hellsing III holds up Diablo is quite evident with the frequent "homages" and downright borrowings in some places. Besides some rather hot and furious combat in places, the game writers definitely did their best to keep themselves entertained by including a ton of horror/gaming/nerd jokes and Easter Eggs for those amongst us who have to click every imaginable surface or game texture. Myself, I averaged about one third of the available "surprises" in each area.
There are six selectable classes – Bounty Hunter (for those who prefer sniping and distance combat), Constructor (mid-range combatant who uses gunfire and drones to pressure and damage the enemy hordes), Protector (typical Barbarian – all close range, heavy defensive), Elementalist (think wizard, heavy damage/attack from range, can't take a ton of hits), Phlogistoneer (armored combatant, uses explosives and a flamethrower against the enemies), and Umbralist (close range stealth fighter who does maximum damage during sneak-attacks). Needless to say, we can all figure out pretty quickly which character plays to our own personal preferences.
The level designs tend towards the smaller scale (to which is my preference) and each level could realistically be challenged and beaten in the half-hour to hour timeframe with the bulk of the area being pretty thoroughly explored. Completionists will obviously inflate that time, but if knocked off the sight-seeing and just bee-lined to the target every time, I imagine 15 minutes per level would be totally do-able. Each level is pretty self-contained in a theme – early levels are bases or small cities to explore, later levels focus in on the descent into the underworld after your nemesis from the end of the previous game. Boss fights tend to the grandiose in scale – usually a larger enemy with numerous supporting minions, but nothing that hasn't been done before.
The visuals and character design are nothing particular special – the character design was obviously aiming for a magic/steampunk fusion of visual styles which just feels like an arranged marriage. Committing to neither style all-in just means you end up with a mish-mash of ideas thrown at paper that just draws no tie-in for me to my combat avatar. Although the integration of equipment does make a slight variation on my character's appearance, it still does nothing to dispel my complaint. Enemy character designs are the typical monster/horror retreads that we've seen done elsewhere – nothing really innovative or groundbreaking here.
After having played my way through the majority of Van Hellsing III, I was left with one burning thought… how did this franchise make it to 3 games? Finding two game killing bugs during my playthrough before I just said "enough is enough" – I can understand not having enough time to test everything, but the bugs that I found were large and widespread enough that I wasn't the only person suffering. I came into the story cold on the previous games and although the designers did try their best to bring me up to speed, at the end of the day, the exposition dump was just painful to sit through. Compared to another game with higher exposure that gamers are starting with the third game in the series – The Witcher franchise – the use of exposition subtlely was a night and day comparative study.
All in all – the price point should draw some people in the mood for some more Diablo but this is more like getting carob instead of chocolate – not quite as good as the original but some won't mind.
- Tazman
The Good:
- Hack and Slash Diablo clone
The Bad:
- Very uninspired clone
- Found two separate game-killing bugs during my playthough
