Vindictus: Defying Fate | Pre-Alpha Impressions/Preview!
what is up Supreme Team back with another video and vindictus defying Fate has just had its pre-alpha that ran for a few days last weekend if you're not sure what it is it is an action RPG developed and published by Korean Behemoth Nexon based on the vindictus MMO back in 2010 that is still active today actually but instead of going the MMO route it has now gone action RPG the pre-alpha play test was fairly small it consisted of you picking between two different characters Fiona a sword and board class or a dual welding dagger class called lan you started off in a grassland area with various enemy encampments and ruins scattered throughout the area you'll also find a lot of bonfire like checkpoints what you'd see in their souls like that would heal you and also enemies would respawn around the area and just when you traveling around the area You' be running into a lot of beastmen type enemies there was four bosses throughout the grasslands area and if you do happen to beat the bosses in that area you could then go to a snow cave area that had two more additional bosses the play test was definitely focused at showing combat with abilities already being available to you no options to swap out equipment there were some chests there but they were marked with coming soon which I thought was uh was pretty cool but yeah combat was the main activity focus of the play test it was fairly small you could get through the play test in maybe a few hours depending on your skill level with the boss fights cuz some of them were quite difficult it was a bit of a difficulty Spike but there were surprising amount of bosses in the play test which is pretty cool not just one or two there was about six in total which is pretty good now that's what the play test consisted of so this is my impressions of it the first thing I noticed is the game looks stunning they walking around these areas look fantastic the environment looks great yeah they're definitely going all out with some of the character models as you'll see in a we bit the game is being made in Unreal Engine 5 so that's why it looks as good as it does they're definitely taking advantage of their engine some environments did look fairly standard and what you would see in other action RPGs such as this but this is an early play test so of course they can iterate on the environment and make it more of their own uh but it still look great anyway in terms of moving around the world in combat it all felt very smooth so I barely noticed any frame dips throughout my time playing with the play test going around the world during combat during boss fights it all felt very fluid moving around just felt great to control the characters so next the big focus of the play test is the combat so let's get into it each character had a light attack a strong attack and various abilities that are unique to each character you have your Dodge that has the I frames but you also have combos in combat that when string together do more damage or provide more stun to opponents like for example you could do light attack light attack and strong attack which would do more damage and more stun to your opponents another thing I did notice is there's no stamina system at all so it allows you to string combos together quickly almost spam like and you can also throw in your abilities as well and so pretty much just do a Non-Stop onslaught of attacks your four abilities on the left do have a cool down so you can't constantly spam those but you can with the combos so that's one thing I did notice that there is no stamina system and you could go quite quite quick in terms of your offensive with your abilities and the combo moves along with with this you also have your potions to heal you that refill when resting at campfires so the gameplay and structure immediately feel very familiar to that of a Souls likee that people are used to but also on the verge of souls like combat is mixed with a slightly more arcade feel with its quicker almost spam like combos when chain together uh so it is a interesting mix um but is a mix that worked pretty good so I played with both characters but it did feel like Fiona's move set was more complete a lot of L's moves did feel good and flashy and quite quick but Fiona's moves just felt more versatile she had a shield bash that I felt was quite good at stunning whereas land just felt like they were um all doing the same kind of thing um I didn't feel just I didn't feel as impactful using land compared to Fiona Fiona did have a dedicated block button because she has a shield which I could use at any point but the block would reduce in Effectiveness the longer I blocked there was also a Parry where you could time that to take advantage of enemies and do more damage L didn't have a block button due to him having no Shield of course but instead he did feel a bit quicker in his moves and he had the ability to do a double dodge which is full and getting out of harms way faster so it's good to see the uniqueness between the two different classes uh different characters showing the differences and the equipment and just the abilities that they have available to them so it's good that it's not going to be all characters feeling the same which was definitely not the case in this play test so combat in this play test it just felt good it feels it feels like it's mostly there uh I'd say probably about 3/4 of the way there um which is very good for a pre-alpha play test it felt good moving around in combat combat mostly felt responsive some moves did feel like they packed a bit more of a punch compared to other moves the different character abilities felt good and meaningful and utilizing them effectively help stun and take down enemies quicker probably my only issue with the combat system that was a big deal was the AI tracking did feel a bit [ __ ] the arrows from certain enemies so I'd be fighting some enemies and they'd be facing a certain direction and I'd be over there and then the arrow would fly out at a very odd angle that you wouldn't expect a arrow to fly out and then it would some somehow hit me anyway um which I thought was complete [ __ ] um but generally apart from the odd trekking at times combat felt pretty good the bosses were definitely a highlight apart from this arrow shooting son of a [ __ ] bosses without fear and usually when I did die it was because I was getting too greedy or if I was trying to get too many hits in before they would come flying back at me sound design throughout the game felt fine uh background music seemed to be only present during boss fights some hits during combat had more of a uh lighter tone to them but based off the combat having a slightly arcade feel to it that may be the sounds they're going for I just reckon they could have some more variety in their sound design feedback but of course this is a pre Alpha play test so they already doing quite well in the sound design outside of combat there was the odd cut scene between boss fights which also looked good such as one of human soldiers being ambushed by the beastmen uh although there wasn't too much other the cut scenes it's too early to tell what they're going to be doing with that but from what I saw it it was good there was also the option to swap out costumes for your player which I assume is just available in the play test just to show the different variety of costumes you can wear obviously You' be able to pick up items and chests and buy them buy the equipment in the full game uh so some costumes were more revealing than others as you would have seen in this video so far I also probably need to mention the jiggle physics as you probably would have seen throughout the video two big reasons right there that's probably what's going to pull a lot of people in to this uh to this game I guess a highlight is I haven't seen physics so focus on that uh compared to other games that we've been playing uh but there you go for for people out there anyway moving on the UI and the menu looked fine uh just looked standard for now some parts did feel a bit unresponsive especially when going to settings and the map involving me to hit certain buttons twice uh but not a big deal just just general things that would definitely be tightened up closer to the release not much to say outside of the combat cuz that was generally the focus of this play test that and for players to get a general look and feel of how the game is going to look so overall a good play test I enjoyed my time with it I was more surprised than anything at how how the game looks uh how it feels it feels it felt good running around it felt good being in combat and I was also surprised at just how good the combat was considering it is a Early Access play test could do with some work as I said before just in regards to the AI tracking differently and maybe more of a hit feedback but I think they're still trying to figure out the system that they if it's going to be halfway between fully realistic kind of souls likey combat or more going to for an arcade Fu um I guess this still going to work out that but it was still a very good play test in terms of the combat I'm definitely putting this game on my radar to see how they progress with it I'm definitely happy with what I saw so far it'll be good to see what they can do to set themselves apart in terms of the combat because so like combat and just this action RPG type of game is definitely getting a bit overcrowded at the moment but I think with its looks uh the jigle physics and costumes and just um the approach to certain design aspects uh they're going to definitely pull in some players so I think they're going to find an audience I don't think they're going to have problem with that in terms of the game they definitely have something solid to build on which is good but of course this was a pre-alpha play test so a lot more development to come did you check out the play test let me know what you think down below and be sure to hit this like button if you enjoyed And subscribe for more videos like this I'll definitely keep tabs on this game in the future that's all for me thanks guys for watching and I'll see you in the next one