The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing: Final Cut Review

This game is always worth playing. While many individual parts are lacking, models look ugly, animations are average at best, gameplay is sub-par to bad, all of it however just clicks with you as it is charming little experience. Through witty interactions with your partner to interesting world you are in.

The strongest part of this game are its story. Game is self-conscious and often will poke fun at itself. This works very well and it is fun how game always calls out its “evil monologues”. Interaction with Katarina is something which makes this game alive. It adds some live into the story which otherwise is told to you as a monologue. Furthermore it adds additional depth as Katarina itself can be quite potent and act as you wish her to. This is what separates this game from typical tedium of ARPGs, it is her witty dialogue, her personality and in the end, her past which is interesting.

Game is full of various references to other games and movies. They are well done and non intrusive. It is difficult to find all of them and you can be sure that exploration of every corner of a map is rewarded properly. Together with non-respawning monsters, it provides a pleasant experience in clearing out the maps and finding all the secrets.


However, Van Helsing is quite undercooked product. It is one big patch away from being considered a complete product. The further you go, the more this becomes apparent. The final boss its most apparent in this where developers just made one massive hit point sponge which is not even hard to kill. Last boss has broken animations. As it flies through arena, if you pay attention, it is really poorly done. Textures are missing in places of his arena. For an entire third part of a game, my potions had bugged out and I was playing without them! Story itself becomes obscure and you go hours through chapters without clear reason as to why. Game loses Steam at the end, monsters become just massive HP sponges and besides Katarina’s past it lacks anything interesting. The only part which pays out is how villain explains his part in the story with a single paragraph. Game is undercooked and I do not think it has substance to be played for longer than one playthrough.

Balance between various enemies is also out of order. Most enemies has difficulty of lets say 1. This applies to bosses to. Then out of the sudden you will face something with difficulty 2. Either in having A LOT more hp or some insane burst skill which one shots you. Then it is down to facing minions and their active abilities which are so weak that you can stand in them.

Difficulty levels are completely pointless. It just raises damage and most importantly hp of enemies. Game becomes nothing more as a kiting exercise. You run and run away from your enemies until you destroy them. This is especially true with bosses, at first I thought they were bugged, but later I realised that you are supposed to run in circles for a half hour at the minimum. This is what some people consider to be “hard”. However, the only difficulty comes from poor pathing and enemies surrounding you and you being unable to move. Enemies has too much hp and too much damage and game slows down to a crawl. If you want to have more pleasure from playing this game then don’t go above normal difficulty. At the end game will become challenging even at normal against some encounters while changing difficulty upwards will leave you stuck slowly clearing even the weakest minions for really long periods of time.


Game has a lot of gimmicks which you wonder why they are even there. There is a pet system which you send to fight, but that is just annoying micromanagement. It takes a lot of runs to level up and it completes a mission in 20 minutes. You are constantly pulled back from your mission and your Chimera is never bringing anything interesting back.

Resistance missions are another aspect of a game which constantly tries to pull you out of experience. In every mission they are spamming you with messages to return to a lair to send your men to perform those missions. However, they offer nothing interesting to you nor it plays into sim city role, it does not show any progress you are making, establishing your presence in. It is just here, an interesting mini game, but not much else.

Tower defence game. Thank God it is optional, but developers had put a decent amount of effort into completely optional content instead of focusing on a main campaign and later expanding it through expansions. It feels completely tacked on and is just an excuse to interrupt your story with constant side quests which you can delegate to your resistance missions mini game or just ignore entirely.

Skill tree is a failed experiment. It is overall too simplistic and does not allow you to make specific builds. It is also annoying with its rage system. Each skill has 3 separate, one time use upgrades. It is a chore to remember what each thing does and it is equally cheap to acquire all those upgrades. In conclusion, it is not even impactful. It does not change your gameplay or what you can do with these skills, it is just degrades to “press all three buttons for more powerful version of a skill”. It is a completely meaningless levelling up system which ultimately degrades to last abilities with maxed out everything. Even bloody freeze mines do more damage than your simple explosive or incendiary mines! System has no complexity whatsoever!


It is a pleasant game to play. It has a lot of small things which makes it stand out. Voice acting, secrets everywhere, non respawning enemies, witty interactions with Katarina. Quality of life changes where selling off inventory is not a big deal. A story line which manages to stay interesting. All of these little things make this game more than sum of its parts and this is why it ages so well compared to alternatives. However, the core gameplay is overburdened with countless distractions. Developers spent too much time developing a lot of unnecessary content and their time would been much better spent on a main game itself. This lacks of focus shows the further you go in the game as bugs and lack of attention in certain areas start to appear.

[h1] More than a sum of its parts [/h1] This game is always worth playing. While many individual parts are lacking, models look ugly, animations are average at best, gameplay is sub-par to bad, all of it however just clicks with you as it is charming little experience. Through witty interactions with your partner to interesting world you are in. The strongest part of this game are its story. Game is self-conscious and often will poke fun at itself. This works very well and it is fun how game always calls out its “evil monologues”. Interaction with Katarina is something which makes this game alive. It adds some live into the story which otherwise is told to you as a monologue. Furthermore it adds additional depth as Katarina itself can be quite potent and act as you wish her to. This is what separates this game from typical tedium of ARPGs, it is her witty dialogue, her personality and in the end, her past which is interesting. Game is full of various references to other games and movies. They are well done and non intrusive. It is difficult to find all of them and you can be sure that exploration of every corner of a map is rewarded properly. Together with non-respawning monsters, it provides a pleasant experience in clearing out the maps and finding all the secrets. [h1] Undercooked product [/h1] However, Van Helsing is quite undercooked product. It is one big patch away from being considered a complete product. The further you go, the more this becomes apparent. The final boss its most apparent in this where developers just made one massive hit point sponge which is not even hard to kill. Last boss has broken animations. As it flies through arena, if you pay attention, it is really poorly done. Textures are missing in places of his arena. For an entire third part of a game, my potions had bugged out and I was playing without them! Story itself becomes obscure and you go hours through chapters without clear reason as to why. Game loses Steam at the end, monsters become just massive HP sponges and besides Katarina’s past it lacks anything interesting. The only part which pays out is how villain explains his part in the story with a single paragraph. Game is undercooked and I do not think it has substance to be played for longer than one playthrough. Balance between various enemies is also out of order. Most enemies has difficulty of lets say 1. This applies to bosses to. Then out of the sudden you will face something with difficulty 2. Either in having A LOT more hp or some insane burst skill which one shots you. Then it is down to facing minions and their active abilities which are so weak that you can stand in them. Difficulty levels are completely pointless. It just raises damage and most importantly hp of enemies. Game becomes nothing more as a kiting exercise. You run and run away from your enemies until you destroy them. This is especially true with bosses, at first I thought they were bugged, but later I realised that you are supposed to run in circles for a half hour at the minimum. This is what some people consider to be “hard”. However, the only difficulty comes from poor pathing and enemies surrounding you and you being unable to move. Enemies has too much hp and too much damage and game slows down to a crawl. If you want to have more pleasure from playing this game then don’t go above normal difficulty. At the end game will become challenging even at normal against some encounters while changing difficulty upwards will leave you stuck slowly clearing even the weakest minions for really long periods of time. [h1] Gimmicks [/h1] Game has a lot of gimmicks which you wonder why they are even there. There is a pet system which you send to fight, but that is just annoying micromanagement. It takes a lot of runs to level up and it completes a mission in 20 minutes. You are constantly pulled back from your mission and your Chimera is never bringing anything interesting back. Resistance missions are another aspect of a game which constantly tries to pull you out of experience. In every mission they are spamming you with messages to return to a lair to send your men to perform those missions. However, they offer nothing interesting to you nor it plays into sim city role, it does not show any progress you are making, establishing your presence in. It is just here, an interesting mini game, but not much else. Tower defence game. Thank God it is optional, but developers had put a decent amount of effort into completely optional content instead of focusing on a main campaign and later expanding it through expansions. It feels completely tacked on and is just an excuse to interrupt your story with constant side quests which you can delegate to your resistance missions mini game or just ignore entirely. Skill tree is a failed experiment. It is overall too simplistic and does not allow you to make specific builds. It is also annoying with its rage system. Each skill has 3 separate, one time use upgrades. It is a chore to remember what each thing does and it is equally cheap to acquire all those upgrades. In conclusion, it is not even impactful. It does not change your gameplay or what you can do with these skills, it is just degrades to “press all three buttons for more powerful version of a skill”. It is a completely meaningless levelling up system which ultimately degrades to last abilities with maxed out everything. Even bloody freeze mines do more damage than your simple explosive or incendiary mines! System has no complexity whatsoever! [h1] In the end [/h1] It is a pleasant game to play. It has a lot of small things which makes it stand out. Voice acting, secrets everywhere, non respawning enemies, witty interactions with Katarina. Quality of life changes where selling off inventory is not a big deal. A story line which manages to stay interesting. All of these little things make this game more than sum of its parts and this is why it ages so well compared to alternatives. However, the core gameplay is overburdened with countless distractions. Developers spent too much time developing a lot of unnecessary content and their time would been much better spent on a main game itself. This lacks of focus shows the further you go in the game as bugs and lack of attention in certain areas start to appear.