Code Vein II Review – Bigger Isn’t Always Better

As one of the original Dark Souls clones, the first Code Vein was an anime-inspired action game with a story revolving around vampires. With the passage of time being its central theme, it distinguished itself from its inspiration by introducing an AI partner system to the Soulslike formula. 

You were never alone, and so the atmosphere of the game completely shifted from isolation to discovery. While the game garnered a loyal fanbase, it never developed into a full series until now. With Code Vein II, Bandai Namco EU aimed to use Elden Ring as the blueprint for building the sequel. 

With a renewed focus on open-world exploration and time-travel as its central theme, does Code Vein II stand on its own two feet? With Soulslike games becoming a dominant genre, is there anything new here that we haven’t seen before?

TL;DR

Code Vein II prioritizes scale over consistency and fails to replicate the success of its inspirations. With an unoriginal story, distracting fanservice, and unstable technical performance, it’s unfortunately no more than a passable Soulslike. In many ways, it abandons what made the first game unique for a more derivative experience.

Story – Bridging the Past and Present

Code Vein II takes place in the distant future, where the world is in ruins. You play as an unnamed protagonist with a blank slate, waking up as a Revenant (a vampire of this world). You’re told you’ve already passed once, and that this is your second chance at life, by a mysterious girl who gave half her heart to you. 

As such, she is your link to this world and your primary companion throughout the story. Code Vein II utilizes time travel to have you go back and forth between different time periods, revisiting the same areas to progress the story. Unfortunately, this is mostly used to pad out the game and reuse assets without having to commit to creating fully original maps and dungeons.

You’ll come across various NPCs whose fates have been sealed at one time as you go through the story. Thanks to time travel, you’ll be able to intervene and change their fates, unlocking them as companions and opening up various parts of the map as a result. While not revolutionary, it’ll keep you engaged for the duration of its 40-hour runtime.

Gameplay – We Have Elden Ring at Home

Code Vein II plays like your typical open-world Soulslike game. After a brief tutorial in a closed dungeon, you’ll enter the open world and have the freedom to explore it to a certain extent. The game will still bar you from entering high-level areas and guide you to the optimal maps and dungeons for you to explore. 

As a Revenant, or a vampire, you have a few unique abilities compared to your traditional Soulslike game. You can syphon energy from enemies and use Blood Codes to enhance your abilities. Code Vein II doesn’t have a traditional leveling system that allows you to allocate points to your statistics. 

Instead, you’ll simply level up, and the game will handle the rest. Blood Codes are the primary way for you to enhance certain abilities beyond their standard numbers, and you’ll unlock these by gaining new companions and equipping their Blood Codes.

Reintroducing the Partner System

Code Vein’s partner system is the main gameplay mechanic that distinguishes it from other Soulslikes. As these games pride themselves on being harder than most action games, being isolated and on your own is a selling point. In Code Vein II, you’ll rarely be alone. 

Even if you choose not to use your companions in combat, you’ll still have them with you, and they’ll constantly engage in dialogue with you. You can either use them as passive abilities once equipped or as active combat participants. In any case, they’ll also take lethal damage for you and save you from certain death once per life. 

This is a flawed system, as you can still take damage while reviving, causing you to simply die again without having a second chance to recover. However, this does make Code Vein II a good choice for people who never played Soulslike games and would like to give them a try without the stress of having to fight enemies and bosses alone.

Simplistic Map Design

The sense of discovery you get when you explore Soulslike maps is one of the most attractive parts of the genre. The first Dark Souls redefined how action games handle exploration, with areas you previously thought unconnected suddenly opening up and connecting in meaningful, organic ways. None of that is present in Code Vein II, unfortunately. 

The dungeon design is the biggest offender here, as the maps are simplistic with very little in terms of exploration or secrets to uncover. The generic enemy design doesn’t help either, as the game tries its best to hide any facial features or mouth movements to keep the budget under control. Code Vein II prioritizes the quantity of content instead of a select series of environments that would elevate the experience. Just like the first game did, despite its equally low-budget development.

Visuals – Uneven and Uninspired

While it does feel unfair to compare Code Vein II to other games when assessing its visuals, we have to take the ‘2’ in the title into consideration. The original game featured a corridor design, with linear areas you explored on your way to the next dungeon. This allowed the developers better control over environmental design and technical optimization, making the game look good and play well as a result. 

Code Vein II abandons that in favor of open areas that feel empty and sad to look at, especially on the current generation of consoles. Environmental interaction is minimal, and map layouts feel copy-pasted, with reused assets appearing everywhere you go. Character designs are colorful but physically disproportionate in uncanny ways. 

It’s also important to note that fanservice is rampant throughout the game, but no character ever addresses it in typical anime fashion. Instead, a fairly serious story is filled with half-naked characters that feature huge cleavages but ask you to take the game very seriously. It’s a strange mix of elements that pulls you out of the world.

Unacceptable Technical Performance for a Soulslike

The first thing a Soulslike game has to nail is the blocking and parrying of attacks during combat. The second one is steady performance. Code Vein II fails at the latter in spectacular ways, which really hurts its longevity. The game features two graphics modes, one prioritizing visuals, the other performance. 

Both modes run below 30 FPS on the base PlayStation 5, with boss fights and intense combat encounters tanking the framerate to below 15 FPS. For a game that looks like an early PlayStation 4 title, this performance is unacceptable, especially in a game that requires precise input and split-second decisions. The game only keeps a steady framerate during interactive cutscenes and closed, empty environments without much in terms of NPCs or objects. 

The open world also struggles to maintain a stable framerate, which would be fine in a good-looking game. However, constant pop-in, aliasing, and visual artefacts make this an unpleasant gaming experience, to say the least. When compared to the original Code Vein, it looks and performs worse in almost every way.

Audio – Anemic and Forgettable

In terms of audio, Code Vein II suffers just as much as with its visual presentation. While many Soulslike games feature minimalistic soundtracks that allow you to focus on the moment-to-moment combat, this game takes it to the extreme. There are very few tracks that play either during boss fights or during specific cutscenes, and that’s about it. 

The game is eerily silent most of the time, and the absence of music only accentuates the bland audio design. Stock sound effects you’ve heard in other games play during exploration and combat, making the game feel like a budget title instead of a major AAA release, as it markets itself. 

Voice acting also rarely matches how someone actually looks, with characters having deep, adult voices despite looking like high schoolers or pre-teen children. Overall, it’s an uneven combination that doesn’t elevate the overall experience. 

Conclusion – Should You Play Code Vein II?

Code Vein II comes at a time when players have dozens of options when it comes to Soulslikes. With titles like Hell Is Us and even Lords of the Fallen available at a fraction of the asking price, what makes Code Vein II the better choice? 

It’s a game built for the fans of the first one, but it abandons its story, world, and characters almost entirely for a ‘fresh’ experience. Its performance also isn’t helping, as the visuals don’t justify the unstable FPS and mostly empty open-world design. 

And as a full-priced title with a Season Pass, cosmetics, and other DLC items, Code Vein II had to do better than that. Unfortunately, it stands as a testament that expanding the scale of the original game doesn’t always result in a better experience. The game is now available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.

Big thanks to Bandai Namco EU for providing us with the review key!