Vampire Romance
|
| Vampire Romance

Okay, here’s a quick question for you all - how many social romance games that you’ve played open with the main character dieing in a pool of their own blood?

For that matter, how many mobile games have their own Facebook-esque social network ticking away underneath, or allow for the user to reply with their own words to characters and not just via multiple-choice answers?

If you’ve shouted ‘Vampire Romance’, then congratulations - you’re in the right review.

Blood. Lots of blood

To be fair, calling Vampire Romance a social romance title like Gameloft’s other series, Date or Ditch, would be a little incongruous given how its plot bends and twists around Twilight-inspired fantasy story-telling.

This means that rather than spending the game deciding who’s the most attractive girl/boy and being a bitch/great friend to people, you’ll instead be dodging fireballs from demons, channeling the spirits of dead students, and using magical powers to read people’s minds.

The game has borrowed the same dialogue system from that previous title, but it appears Gameloft has taken on board earlier criticisms. It's now significantly harder to second-guess the ‘best’ answer to any given situation.

Emma would like to be your friend

One of the finest features about the game is the usage of the aforementioned social network.

Every character you meet is added as a friend, who then start commenting on wall posts, post PMs and have their own profile (complete with a mysterious secret).

Cleverly, this modern twist on the standard dialogue trees extends to how your tasks are handed out as well.

If you need to research a fire that may have killed a ghostly student in the '50s, for example, it’ll be displayed as ‘tell me what you find at the library!’ from your best friend on your wall, rather than a dull menu drop-down.

Don’t say garlic

Adding to the consistency inside the game world is the text input sections. At certain points during a conversation, or when replying to a wall post, you can use the keypad to type in whatever you want in reply.

The game doesn’t pass the Turing Test for reacting to human responses - saying ‘I like your HAGGIS’ will receive a confused and lukewarm reply, despite its euphemistic qualities - but if you play it fairly straight it more often than not responds directly to your reply.

As with all story-heavy titles, the linearity means that you’ll most likely not be returning to Vampire Romance once complete, and the story itself - for all its strong writing - won’t surprise any Buffy or Twilight fans (indeed, parts of the plot feel directly lifted from the two).

However, these two aspects don’t prevent Vampire Romance from being extremely enjoyable to play, and well worth hunting down.

Vampire Romance

Packed with original ideas, Vampire Romance is one of the best, and most unusual, story-driven games out on Java mobiles
Score
Will Wilson
Will Wilson
Will's obsession with gaming started off with sketching Laser Squad levels on pads of paper, but recently grew into violently shouting "Tango Down!" at random strangers on the street. He now directs that positive energy into his writing (due in no small part to a binding court order).