Vampire: the Masquerade - Redemption Part #22

Part 22: Giovanni Warehouse

This dungeon is awful.

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These Giovanni are the only enemies of the entire dungeon. Most of the time they like to start by summoning these Wraiths, and they're just as powerful as the Wraiths in the Tower of London. They're pretty difficult.

Then they like to use Plague Wind. If you're lucky, each Giovanni will only do it once. Most of the time, though, each Giovanni will use it twice in a row, like a one-two punch. It's just like Mercurio's Plague Wind: incredibly damaging and will cause frenzy in a heartbeat.

Each of these fights is like fighting 2-4 Mercurios, and there are a ton of these fights in this dungeon. It's absolutely ridiculous.

There were more deaths of the entire coeterie in this dungeon than there were in the entire rest of the game. The only solution is to save after every fight. Remember those save points in the haven? Those were from version 1.0 of the game when players were only allowed to save in the haven. This means that players would have to backtrack to Dev/Null's apartment after every fight to ensure that you don't have to redo all these fights when they die. Project lead and former Nihilistic Games president Ray Gresko explained the reasoning behind this in an interview with GameSpot entitled, Save-Game Controversy.

Ray Gresko posted:

Since you get a free autosave whenever you transition zones of the world, you always have something to fall back upon that's never too far from where you were in the game.

Except multiple fights happen in one zone, so when you die on one, you've got to go through all the others all over again.

Ray "Moongod" Gresko posted:

Also, the game doesn't end unless all four (at most) party members in your game are destroyed, which doesn't happen often if you are careful.

Except when the enemies you face use multiple AOE spells that are extremely deadly to all of your coeterie. There's nothing you can do about that, so being careful doesn't help.

Ray "Fuckingidiot" Gresko posted:

The vampires in your coterie (Vampire's word for "party") can be resurrected with the right power or scroll, so even a few untidy deaths can be undone with ease. You also have a power that transports you directly to your haven to allow saving and advancement, so it's within easy reach.

Not when these scrolls are rare, and the blood you use on Awaken or Walk the Abyss has already been spent casting buffs and powers to have even one member survive the fights.

When you face mobs of 3-4 enemies who are individually more powerful than most of the fucking bosses in the game, none of these arguments hold up. Whoever made this dungeon is a fucking idiot, and Moongod here is a fucking idiot for even thinking about having a dungeon like this in a game where you had to backtrack to a safespot multiple areas away to save.

The only saving grace there is is that you can use Majesty to stop Giovanni close to you in their tracks. It doesn't do shit against the Wraiths or Giovanni farther than arms-reach away, though. Note that the Giovanni also like to use Mesmerize on coeterie members, which renders them utterly useless.

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Yeah! Fuck those asshole smack-using Hollywood liberals!

It turns out this whole game was a public service announcement shrouded in VtM lore.

Look at those frenzy levels. That's after a couple of seconds of Plague Wind. We need to head through that door on the left, but it's locked.

So we head up the stairs to pull this lever. Why did Nihilistic even bother with these locked door puzzles? It adds absolutely nothing of value to the game.

After fighting another mob, we come to another locked door.

Thankfully, we can use Theft of Vitae -- used here due to a scroll -- on the Giovanni in order to refill our bloody supply which is constantly on empty. For whatever reason, I encountered a glitch where this frenzy icon wouldn't go away.

That Giovanni has a minigun. They've got really powerful weapons. It's like the developers were saying "Fuck you for playing the game this far!"

Instead of a lever, it's a keypad this time. Or a 'button'. Variety!

I really don't know what happened to Pink's right hand in this shot. It's like a giant boxing glove.

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'george' simply couldn't counter that flawless argument and slumped to a ball in submission.

Christof called him 'George Thorn' in the subtitles, but he's actually named 'George Thorne'. It's like the writers couldn't even decide.

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I'd like to think that the coeterie were considering ghouling him, which is what they meant by 'salvation', but the writers wouldn't allow anything interesting like that to happen.

This huge door on the right can't be interacted with.

The Giovanni also like to use Potence, as if they weren't powerful enough.

I ran out of blood. We've got to get more supplies.

Let's talk to Dev/Null, first.

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I love that Pink is waving his axe menacingly behind him.

After refilling our supplies, we're greeted by the Giovanni with a fucking explosion.

It turns out it came from a FUCKING ROCKET LAUNCHER. Do you think they're powerful enough??

Ambushed..

Sometime we can get lucky and a critical hit will cause a decapitation and instant death of a Giovanni. This doesn't happen much.

During this dungeon, the party would randomly stop in their tracks and not do anything, like their AI shut down or something. That's why Christof and Lily are standing around in the corner of the screen.

This is back near George Thorne. So, I told you that there isn't any armor that goes in the Arms slot in the modern nights, and this is mostly true...

...but I found these leather gloves from the dark ages sitting on a shelf. I really don't understand why. We'll equip them on Christof and move on.

Another locked door. They really loved doing this.

Fire storm is a pretty damaging power, but it's blood cost is so high that it's not smart to use here. We've got to save the blood for blood healing and other, more important powers.

All these powerful weapons, and this Giovanni is using a goddamn baseball bat.

These red barrels can be damaged, which causes an explosion, but it ends up hurting us as much as the Giovanni.

That final death animation is still pretty creepy.

That Giovanni is guarding a lever. I'm sure that won't come into play.

I can't stress enough how difficult these fights are.

That door can't be interacted with. It's like it's painted on the wall.

But this one is locked.

Back where that chainsaw-wielding Giovanni was, there's a Tome of Mortis.

We'll use it on Seren-I mean Lilly.

I know this game was supposedly graphically-impressive for its time, but look at those fucked-up shadows.

A lot of the time it seems like there are more Wraiths than Giovanni.

AOE damage from weapons doesn't discriminate, but that hardly ever come into play.

This is getting stupid.

There aren't many Giovanni on level three.

There is, however, a prison cell that serves no purpose what-so-ever.

This looks promising.

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Awesome. A fat mob boss stereotype. I love how his name isn't capitalized in the subtitles, like 'george'. It's as if they ran out of time to capitalize their names.

I'm gonna make you an offer you can't refuse.

Grey and white subtitles against the gray and white floor. Exceptional choice, Nihilistic. If you can't read them, I encourage you to click on the 'watch' link and hear the shitty voice acting for yourself.

You know, Vukodlak. That black metal band from Pennsylvania? Are you sure you haven't heard of them?

This is another decision where both responses lead to the same thing, and there is no change in humanity. I'm going to go with the one which doesn't lead to a crippling flaw in the dialogue.

Pink suddenly has wraps on his hands as he leaps towards Al.

Whoever wrote this game, you fucking suck at writing. What I mean will become clear in a second.

Yes, this is the same conversation. I don't know why the subtitles randomly disappeared again.

Wilhem! You've mastered the art of Deus Ex Machina since we last saw each other!

I'm going to come back to this, because it doesn't make any sense.

If you remember, Dev/Null said something about emailing bill.

So this only feels slightly less contrived.

This doesn't make any sense. If Pink was supposed to keep us from finding out about Vukodlak, why did he start us a trail that did exactly that??! Why wouldn't he send us to fight other enemies that don't have information about Vukodlak? Even if the Assamites or Tzimisce didn't have any other enemies, why not send Christof after something else? Again, why lead him down a path that enabled him to find out about Vudkodlak? I'll tell you why. It's because the writer -- and I'm assuming that only one person wrote this, because there's no way two people cooperating together could produce something this shitty -- couldn't think of any other way to ensure that Christof could get to Vudkodlak despite Pink supposedly trying to throw him off track.

Pink teleports away. Oh, did we forget to mention he could do that?

Anyone who paid attention to that contrived Sir Anthony Hunt comment pink made should have seen this coming from a mile away. As NihilCredo pointed out, that isn't even how Cockney rhyming slang works. You can find other hints in Dev/Nulls stupid dialogue, and subtler hints in Pink's "You pathetic trusting git!" lines.

It was Anezka, you fucking idiot.

How do you know this, Wilhem? There's no way you could know that.

I mean, just look at me!

Great ending to that cutscene.

No, this image isn't edited. Christof gets Mortis despite not using the Tome of Mortis on him. Shitty design to go along with shitty writing.

One dot in Shambling Hordes, one dot in Vigor Mortis, one dot in Summon Soul, three dots in Plague Wind, one dot in Decay, three dots in Acidic Touch, two dots in Skin of the Adder, one dot in Tongue of the Asp, one dot in Command, one dot in mesmerize, one dot in The Forgetful Mind, one dot in Cloak of Shadows, one dot in Mask of a Thousand Faces -- which I thought was supposed to be a nosferatu-only power, but it turns out I was wrong -- one dot in Dread Gaze, one dot in Entracement, one dot in Majesty in 10 points in perception, 5 points in strength, 3 points in dexterity.

One dot in Fire Storm, one dot in Shambling Hordes, one dot in Vigor Mortis, one dot in Summon Soul, four dots in Plague Wind, 5 points in perception, 5 points in strength, 2 points in stamina.

One dot in Quell the Beast, one dot in Subsume the Spirit, four dots in Drawing out the Beast, 35 points in manipulation, 4 points in strength, 5 points in dexterity.

Wilhem is really powerful. He said he has barely any humanity left, but his humanity score is only 10 points less than Christof's, who is a diableriser. Let's check out his powers.

Three dots in Majesty, one dot in Blood Healing, one dot in Walk the Abyss, one dot in Celerity, one dot in Feral Claws, 6 points in strength, 5 points in manipulation.