Code Vein gets many of the souls-like genre tropes mixing them with a more accessible and forgiving gameplay, a charming manga-like artistic design and great depth in character customization, resulting in a very enjoyable action-RPG despite some technical and difficulty balancement flaws.

A cool, stylish vamp that, if you can allow for its imperfections, definitely has bite. [Issue#183, p.81]

At times, Code Vein can be stressing as you can’t cut much slack until you have gained not only level-ups to strengthen your character but also personal confidence to challenge everything the game throws at you. While it sometimes too obediently follows conventions of Souls-likes, its generous framework and character-centric exposition bring the game its own kind of unique personality.

Code Vein is a pretty strong entry into the genre and it’s always refreshing to see new IP. While it has a few (mostly patchable) drawbacks, Code Vein is one I would recommend with just a little bit of hesitation.

The overall controls are your basic Dark Souls setup - strong and weak attacks, dodge, abilities and a parry. If you're a fan of Dark Souls, you're not guaranteed to like Code Vein, but you will immediately fall right into its gameplay since it's nearly the same. Code Vein focuses more on narrative through cutscenes compared to Dark Souls hidden lore among the items that you find. Code Vein is quite enjoyable if you're in the mood for a good story mixed with some decent Dark Souls gameplay. I had a lot of fun with it despite its problems.

Although I enjoyed my time with Code Vein, it could definitely use some work to live up to its genre contemporaries. With that said, if you're a fan of action RPGs then you'll find a lot to sink your vampiric teeth into here.

It’s a shame that Code Vein doesn’t achieve what it’s trying to do with its very cool class system. With its skimpy environments and dated visuals, Code Vein as a nice gameplay but it never really shines.