V:tM - Bloodlines ! with Happy End?

"I tried so hard and got so far
But in the end it doesn't even matter"

Linkin Park - In the End


_______________________________________________________
As this series of posts runs through the entire length of the classic computer role-playing game Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, assume spoilers.
_______________________________________________________


Bloodlines earned its "classic" status via its pacing, atmosphere, characters, XP/leveling scheme and viscerally immersive roleplaying choices. You'll almost never hear anyone praise its buggy and simplistic combat system. Its ending falls somewhere in between, cited, if ever, far behind earlier quests on most fans' lists of high points. Partly, the requisite climactic battles were hampered by that buggy and simplistic combat system.

When I set out on this little vampiric jaunt down memory lane two years ago I declared I'd try to do it the stupid way by banking on firearms, and I stuck to my guns. Literally.

However, by the end-game with 9/10 ranged combat points (auspex bonus included) even the best shotgun and assault rifle could barely drop human mooks with an entire clip. My fire-and-forget "vision of death" Malkavimagic spell interspersed with the occasional feeding proved much more effective. For boss fights, guns were moderately effective, mostly because it's possible to glitch out both bosses' AI or get them stuck in repetitive loops navigating around columns and staircases.

As impressive as The Sheriff looks with his big fucking sword, it's a dull first half of the fight once you realize he never took the "stair climbing" discipline and thus only teleports predictably between levels, allowing himself to be potshotted from harmless distance. At least he provided a use for the flamethrower, a weapon with an otherwise impractically small ammunition capacity. Since his Chiropteran Behemoth form can get knocked out of the air by damage, the DoT effect from even one pulse of the flamethrower causes him to rubber-band back down the instant he attempts to take off, never attacking you. Nice gimmick but still, that's entirely too gimmicky a victory for a final boss fight.

As for Ming Xiao, it's a close-quarters fight with knockbacks, which makes it both unsatisfyingly restrained and annoy-...
and...
oh, shit!

She's got nipples! Why in the name of everloving fuck does a giant tentacled worm have glowing nipples? And how did I never notice that before?
... disturbing...

Aside from disappointing boss fights, I'd guess most players hated being denied both a final fight against LaCroix himself and their macguffin to boot. You adventure in mookdom ends with you still a mook, ping-ponged around in the conflict between the city's factions. And you know what? I'm fine with that.

Here I have to defend Troika's decision. For all the frustration of discovering there had never been a macguffin to begin with, the ending scene of Smiling Jack laughing it up on the beach watching the fireworks is as memorable as any in computer games. It also better fits White Wolf's V:tM setting as I understand it from my outside vantage point. It should, after all, be a game less about brute force or the accumulation of magical artifacts than about outliving the machinations of one's fellow bloodsuckers. "-the politics, kid. That's what'll kill ya." It's also one of the few RPGs explicitly letting you ride off into the sunset by yourself instead of becoming a lord or king or demigod or otherwise saddled with the world's cares.

Anyway, it's not all bad. The not-quite-reveal of the mysterious cab driver is greatly sweetened by playing a Malkavian and watching my character completely lose his shit and descend into incoherent panic at intuiting the dark stranger's nature. As you ascend Ventrue Tower you pass a window with a view of the street you've walked so many times over the course of your campaign. In a stroke of brilliance, just to tie everything up in a neat little bow, just to drive home the pure circuitous circularity of power games, there's the suicide bomber LaCroix throws at you.

When killed, he drops his explosive satchel. It's the Astrolite. It might be any batch of Astrolite, but we all know it's not. It sets you back to your own first mission, delivering Astrolite for LaCroix to prove your worth, never mentioned again. Until now. Was it worth it?

 

The encapsulation of Bloodlines' brilliance: making you kick yourself every step of your moonlit way.

 

 

 

__________________________________

 

edit 2020/12/09

Rewrote the penultimate sentence, inadvertently made to sound too literal originally. My kingdom for a proofreading / editing department.