A Vampyre Story (2008) Review

As far as point & click games go, this one is rather standard in terms of gameplay and mechanics. Easy enough to understand and move Mona around the castle she lives in. Though instead of gathering items and placing them in bottomless pockets, they’re placed in a bottomless coffin. An appropriate twist. In addition to what Mona carries, she also makes notes of items she wants to save for later, and the ‘ghosts’ of those items appear in the coffin as well. When the need arises, she can teleport to one of those objects and use them. An interesting concept I hadn’t seen before. For a game made in 2008, A Vampyre Story had quite a few things going for it story-wise. I can also appreciate the details of all the backgrounds in and outside of the castle. These include a chandelier hanging over a long table in the dining room, stained glass windows in the library, and a snow-covered bridge against a moonlit sky. I’m reminded of old 2D Disney movies where the backgrounds are stagnant but beautiful.

Now here’s something you don’t see every day: Mona, a turned-against-her-will vampire, is in heavy denial that she even IS one. Not only does she call the blood she drinks wine, but she also calls her coffin a bed and thinks her affliction is a curse or a spell. Never mind that she thinks the sun is too bright and can easily turn into a bat. It’s amazing what a trauma response can do to a person. Personally, I think Mona knows subconsciously she’s a vampire but is unwilling to admit it. This is due to the fact that her sire, Shrowdy, covered a mirror with a poorly drawn image of her and she was afraid to remove it. Since vampires don’t have reflections, that would’ve confirmed everything. A Vampyre Story is the only media I’ve seen to have an in-denial vampire, and it’s a shame the concept hasn’t been used more.

The humor in this game was a bit of a hit or miss for me. There was some toilet humor that made me uncomfortable (unexpected from a female-led game). Like, really, a river of green demon snot? Disgusting. However, some of the sex jokes were kinda funny, especially when poking fun at a constable who, for lack of better words, was both insecure and needed to get laid. This game was a lot more adult than I expected. I also enjoyed the meta humor, usually from Mona and her talking bat, Froderick. From breaking the fourth wall to sarcastic quips and pop culture references, they never failed to make me laugh at least a little. I could almost forgive the ‘where are your organs’ female designs. But that’s just a personal grievance.

If there was anything negative to say about A Vampyre Story, it’s that there’s quite a lot of talking. I know basically all point & click adventure games have a lot of dialogue trees, but it just seems like there was a lot more talking than usual in this game. This was mostly stemming from reading instructions on how to make items. Additionally, quite a few puzzles were far more difficult than they should’ve been. And with very few hints to go on, they were much more frustrating than they should’ve been too. Some people say they don’t need hints, but I personally appreciate them. If there were just a few more hints to point players in the right direction, maybe things wouldn’t have been so bad. There’s also the unfortunate mention of the G-word (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, just look at my Haunted review) but thankfully it’s a seldom occurrence.

Overall, A Vampyre Story surprised me in more ways than one and I actually rather enjoyed it. It’s a shame there hasn’t been a sequel to this game yet, as I’m sure one would improve upon this game’s moderate setbacks. Since Metacritic doesn’t allow user reviews for this game, my score is a solid 8/10. Honestly, I highly recommend it.