Building on the formula established by Darkest Dungeon, Vambrace hikes up the difficulty even more whilst providing a surprisingly decent story to boot.

I want to clear the air first before I get going. I hate Darkest Dungeon. Like, adamantly. With all my heart. I would rather choke down three undercooked bricks, followed by a litre of sparkling petrol before I ever play that game again. Thing is, Darkest Dungeon is a really good game. I can understand why so many people have fallen in love with the grim, punishing rogue-like. It features a bold aesthetic with an interesting world and some fresh mechanics that constantly switch things up.

Yet the loop of gathering your party, venturing into randomised dungeons, coming out with whoever survived and trading your hard-won loot never grew on me. I found it tedious and repetitive to run the same dungeons over and over again and replace dead party members with new ones. After all the time I put into it, it never felt rewarding.

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So if you’re a fan of Darkest Dungeon, I’ve got great news for you. Vambrace: Cold Shoulder is basically the same game but with the challenge cranked up even higher. I really don’t like comparing titles to other games during reviews but I’m afraid it’s rather unavoidable in the case of Vambrace. Nearly all of Darkest Dungeon’s features are here: The four-party system that tasks you with strategic positioning, the turn-based combat system that works largely on the roll of a virtual dice, permadeath for party members, randomised dungeons and perhaps the most important similarity:

They’re both total bullshit.

As I straighten my tie after such an unseemly outburst, I’ll say that I don’t want to focus too much on how this game is like Darkest Dungeon. We know what that game is about, it’s been available since 2016. Rather, let’s focus on what this game does differently. Firstly, the addition of new gauges to constantly worry about. Alongside each character’s health bar, that functions as one would expect, players also have to keep track of character’s vigour and the Geistmeter. The Geistmeter is essentially the torch from Darkest Dungeon: Once it surpasses a certain threshold, all the enemies in the dungeon become way tougher to kill. There’s no way to prolong this meter and it consistently increases when entering a new room. Vigour, on the other hand, is how cold your character is. Vambrace is set in the cursed and frosty city of Icenaire, so the longer you stay out in the cold the more your characters’ vigour will decrease. When it hits zero, they die. That’s it. Find a new party member and pray the random recruitment board has a healer because you’re gonna need one.

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So characters not only die when they are killed (lol) they also die after spending prolonged time exploring. You can raise vigour and health during an expedition…if the benevolent roll of a dice provides your dungeon with a camping ground. You think you can apply bandages in any old room? Nope, you’re gonna need to find special campsites to heal up. And even then you’re not ensured to receive those buffs because the person your place as overwatch of the camp might get unlucky and heal no one. And even if they do succeed, you sacrifice the Geistmeter going up by five notches, which in the moment, is a great deal.

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So yeah, this game can be a bastard. It’s a long and tough challenge to even reach the boss of the first expedition alive, let alone defeat them. Let me make it clear that I’m not hating on this game because it’s difficult. I hardly want to start up that debate again although it remains an important one. The reason I didn’t enjoy Vambrace is that it was boring. I’ve said this before in some review somewhere in the past but what I enjoy in a rogue-like is speed.

Dying should be a setback but never so much that it feels like a chore. A good rogue-like should have you die and back in action for a second try in moments, but Vambrace takes its time forcing you to run around an overworld and gather your party and purchase supplies and sleep to heal and then go craft some things and can I go back to the dungeons now? There should also be a good enough variety of options available to play with to make every run feel different.

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Vambrace does have variety, don’t misunderstand. Randomly recruiting from 5 races and 10 classes of characters can lead to some really interesting character types. Yet most of my runs started feeling really similar very quickly not because my party were being killed off and I needed to restart, but because it was just easier to escape and try again. Why go through the effort of hoping to find a successful team build when you can just find the one that works? Because when you do land on the winning combination, you’re almost unbeatable; the only thing worth worrying about is vigour and if you can’t boost that up, your only options are to leave or have your characters die.

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Look, I guess the above complaint is quite specific. But this smallish aspect of the game had a huge impact on my enjoyment. Combat started to just blend into one samey experience, the loot I found just looked like the same assortment of junk and twine. Which is a pity because Vambrace does have a really interesting world underneath the gameplay. My best times I had with this game were finding the numerous scattered Codex entries that explained more about this detailed and mysterious world and I’d be lying if I wasn’t drawn in by the magic and grim reality of different races forced to coincide in the walls of an icy city within which they were imprisoned. There’s some great writing on display but I fear I’ll never see the end of it.

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I plugged roughly 15 hours in Vambrace: Cold Soul and even now I haven’t defeated the boss of the first expedition. Honestly, I’m loathe to continue trying. There’s a really deep and intriguing world within this game and players who enjoy this style of dungeon crawler will no doubt happily spend double the amount of I time I did grinding away too eventually prevail. But it just wasn’t for me. The repetitive grind ruined the story’s pacing, bored me to death and despite the game having a gorgeous art style, there’s only so far a pretty cave can carry you. I just couldn’t do it any longer.

Good luck to you if you try.

Last Updated: May 31, 2019

Vambrace: Cold Soul
Vambrace is a successful evolution of the mechanics that made Darkest Dungeon such a hit, but despite its beautiful art style and interesting setting, the repetitive gameplay and lack of meaningful achievements make the experience for more tiresome than challenging.
6.5
Vambrace: Cold Soul was reviewed on PC
59 / 100

27 Comments

  1. Admiral Chief

    May 31, 2019 at 15:09

    • Brad Lang

      May 31, 2019 at 15:51

      It was late and I just spent 15 hours playing this…game to write this!

      Reply

      • Admiral Chief

        June 3, 2019 at 08:36

        Unacceptable, I expect more of you!
        1/10 spelling

        Reply

  2. Umar

    May 31, 2019 at 15:09

    Interesting. I kind of felt the same way about DD and I couldn’t understand why so many of my friends loved it. Thing is, party members are kind of expendable items, and I just couldn’t wrap my head around that. You cannot and should not bank on one team because they will die, so you have to start thinking about them as tools rather than living characters. Never got behind that, so I probably won’t dig this game either….but damn, to have put that amount of time in and not get to the first boss is harsh. Think you need something colorful next to wash away the pain :p

    Reply

    • Admiral Chief

      May 31, 2019 at 15:09

      Yeah, same with me and XCOM, I’d reload and try the same mission over and over if a squad-mate dies

      Reply

      • Umar

        May 31, 2019 at 15:21

        Though in XCOM, you can kind of survive with a preset team for quite some time. Darkest Dungeon however, jou span gaan vrek baie gou

        Reply

        • Pariah

          May 31, 2019 at 15:41

          Oh. Yeah you also want to expand your roster as much as possible so that you can take different teams on different missions. Sticking to just 4 or 5 is literal suicide in DD. You want options, especially with stress and such.

          Ps, I’m pretty sure this isn’t going to change your mind at all. We enjoy what we enjoy. But yeah, it’s important to note that focusing on just a few in DD is BAD. But losing one is just as bad.

          Reply

          • Umar

            May 31, 2019 at 15:41

            I really dig the core gameplay concepts and the world is pretty great, but it just didn’t click for me because of how party members are handled. Though, I would like to give it another go one day. The dark and moody aesthetic speaks to me

          • Pariah

            May 31, 2019 at 16:03

            I think it’s one of those games where it either really clicks or it doesn’t. It’s a fantastic game, but you’ve already heard that 100 times over by now I bet. XD

          • Umar

            May 31, 2019 at 16:03

            Yuuuuup! Been told by so many people already lol I do respect the game though and I can recognize it’s a quality title.

        • Someone132

          June 2, 2019 at 11:41

          Well, there’s an achievement for getting Reynold and Dismas (the two people you start with) all the way into the final boss fight, and quite a few people managed that. Well, quite a few people out of the reported 2% of the players who finished the game, that is. (At least, that was the case two years ago, it’s probably higher now.)

          Reply

    • Pariah

      May 31, 2019 at 15:40

      Iratus is a DD-like game that actually embraces that. You basically construct your monsters (squad) from parts that you acquire on missions. They’re literally just tools, as you say. It’s actually very different because of that. In DD you don’t want to lose a squad member. It takes a lot of time and effort to replace one. They’re not just tools, they’re valuable tools that required time and investment to get there. Levels, quirks, abilities, upgrades, with quirks being particularly costly to lock. Losing one isn’t fun, and losing a whole squad usually has a major impact.

      This also assumes you’re not playing on the easiest difficulty, because then literally nothing matters. Lose a squad member? Eh, whatever. I’ll get another. But that’s only true for the easiest difficulty.

      Reply

      • Umar

        May 31, 2019 at 15:51

        This was kind of how DD was explained to me, and made sense given what I played. That I can’t really get attached to a character I spent building up. Maybe I’m playing it wrong, because I couldn’t keep up with keeping characters alive. I remember being linked this too
        https://medium.com/@Adador0/disposable-characters-in-darkest-dungeon-a2ff906bcc83

        Reply

        • Pariah

          May 31, 2019 at 16:03

          Heh, interestingly on the hardest difficulty you have a maximum amount you can lose before the run ends. You can’t just treat them as expendable at all. There’s also a 100 week time limit. It ups the ante, it ups the stakes. So if you do go back, I think it might be worth it to play a bit on the middle difficulty to get the hang of things, and then start a new run on the hardest difficulty, where the characters dying DOES matter.

          Reply

          • Umar

            May 31, 2019 at 16:13

            Hmmmm, interesting. Okay I’ll try that. kind of getting the itch to try this game again. Dammit. I’m still trying to get through Darkwood T.T

      • Someone132

        June 2, 2019 at 11:47

        I haven’t heard of that game. Might check it out now, as it sounds interesting.

        So far, I don’t think there’s actually been that many DD-style games, which is a bit surprising, given just how extraordinarily successful it’s been – you probably have to go all the way back to Supergiant’s Bastion breakout for another example of a team of less than 10 people making a game that swiftly sold millions.

        From what I remember, there’s DD itself, this game, Deep Sky Derelicts (sci-fi with similar premise to Void Bastards, but the combat is done like those card games, with every ability drawn from a deck), Plague Road (grid-based combat, and apparently really poor in general), and… not much else?

        Reply

    • Brad Lang

      May 31, 2019 at 15:51

      See, I understand the whole “using your party as tools” in Darkest Dungeon because it fits that games theme. It’s a beautiful piece of mechanical storytelling when you find out that the uncle that left the estate to you, the player, was driven mad by the power below. He was willing to sacrifice everything, even the lives of innocent adventurers to unearth the riches. When you get the estate he tells you to take a more admirable path, to not be sucked in by the promise of glory and power like he was. But playing the game, going deeper and deeper, you start sacrificing people just like he did. It’s a circular curse that cannot be escaped.

      Reply

      • Brad Lang

        May 31, 2019 at 15:51

        But for Vambrace, it’s just like, “Ah beans, it’s heckin’ cold! Shucks, the sword guy died. Guess we gotta find a new one!”. It’s a mechanic for a mechanic’s sake and really doesn’t fit with the game’s main character, who is presented as someone who probably wouldn’t risk the lives of her followers. But when someone dies, you just find someone new with no consequences.

        Reply

        • Umar

          May 31, 2019 at 16:03

          That’s a big yikes. I guess this is like the Lords of the Fallen of these games. Trying to mimic something else without actually understanding the reasons some things are the way they are.

          Reply

          • Someone132

            June 2, 2019 at 11:41

            Yeah, see my long comment below for some other big differences I feel Brad failed to mention, and which make this game like Lords of the Fallen, if not worse.

            I also heard that the game actually breaks this even further by not letting your characters level up alongside the protagonist…but automatically scaling up the recruits you get from the tavern for free. Thus, you are actually encouraged to regularly dismiss party members as the protagonist levels up, so that you can swap them out for more powerful ones at no cost.

  3. Original Heretic

    June 1, 2019 at 09:04

    Looks like my type of game. I’m one of those who loved Darkest Dungeon.
    Incredible game.

    Reply

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