Posted in: Games, Review, Video Games | Tagged: Fatbot Games, game review, steampunk, Vaporum

The Pain Never Ends: A Quick Review Of 'Vaporum'

Vaporum is a steampunk grid-based dungeon crawler where you're thrown into the role of a lone soldier/explorer stranded at a tower in the middle of the ocean. Much like other games in the genre, your task is to explore the place and figure out every question under the sun. What is the place? Who built it? What purpose does it serve? Why am I here? How the hell do I get off? And many more questions of that ilk. The RPG elements are pretty basic in nature as you'll collect items from around the area and off defeated enemies, contributing to your storage of armor to equip, weapons to hold, and random items to be used later for various purposes in your inventory.

You can choose a couple different classes of fighter at the start, and as you level up you'll gain extra slots on the armor and more skills. You'll need to pay attention to how you use your XP and how you manage your health as both are the biggest factors to your survival. One of the biggest problems you'll have to deal with are the enemies, which should go without saying, but the game is pretty ruthless. You can't seem to go more than ten spaces without running into at least two enemies, which come with their own patterns and fighting styles to take you down. You could rename this game "The Neverending Battle" and it would fit perfectly as there seems to be little room to breathe and take in the environment.

One of the nice bonuses to the game is that the acting is well done and makes you feel more a part of the world than you normally would. Sure, there are tons of over exposition, but who cares? When it's done correctly, you don't notice it. If you find the game is getting too hard, you can change the difficulty settings as you go, but lose all the perks and achievements from higher levels if you do. Another issue you need to keep your eye on and have to choose carefully are your special abilities, which will turn you into a monster killer, but they all come at a price.

Vaporum is one hell of a game and I don't have a lot of problems with it beyond the influx of enemies and the difficulty punishment system. It's a must play for RPG fans who are looking for something a little different and maybe a little more steampunk-ish, but you're going to run into a few elements you may not enjoy as far as combat and movement. But hey, it's a challenge to overcome!

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