Vampyr is a decent game held back by many game design choices and somewhat weak in its main content. The setting of the game is interesting, set in the Spanish flu -era in London. It has a dark atmosphere and the characters reflect that with their despair, greed and violence.

The game is strongest in its ability to make you invested in the side characters. For example, the lady in the hospital who thinks she's a vampire and her relationship with the patient who lets her bite him is surprisingly endearing. However, the writing of the main character is somehow not even close to the writing of the side characters. Not once during my playthrough did I feel attached to the main character. He just kind of is there to find more about the world and its inhabitants. His personality is nonexistent and his whole romance arc with the main vampire lady seems forced for the sake of the plot. There seems to be only little build up with it and both of the characters involved in it are so reserved that it seems almost awkward.

The game also seems to make a great deal of the relationship of the main character and his sister, but that falls short of anything remarkable too. She has no build up and appears later as a villain, and the game expects the player to feel something for them. I suppose her coming back was slightly interesting but it surely did not make me like the dynamic between the two any more than before.

Then there's the combat. It's slightly infuriating with its limited array of abilities and weapongs. For me at least, the combat boiled down to using the same five abilites for the entire game, as other setups seemed severely underpowered. Oh, and if you try to do a playthrough where you don't eat any civilians, have fun. Every enemy will be way overleveled and will turn you into dust quickly, and the normal street thugs will take so long to whittle down. In addition, the loading times are awful. It is not really tied to hardware, so expect to enjoy minute-long loading screens when retrying bosses, entering and exiting sewers, and such. Not fun. When facing hard bosses, you are also discouraged to use your healing and ammo, as if you die after using them, you have to restart the boss without them being replenished. Why? I have no idea but it is another blight in the combat. The last boss was very theatrical and enjoyable though.

This game also has no fast travel or manual saving, for reasons unknown...

The main story is kind of interesting, and the multiple endings make this somewhat replayable. However, the combat might turn people away from that. I do appreciate how well they packed the small map with many things to do. The milieu, the side cast, the music and some bosses are enjoyable. It's just when you try to enjoy the game for more than its outer shell, there's not much to it.

One of the strongest Yakuza games. In many aspects, it feels like they took what they failed on in Yakuza 3 and improved on it. The plot was strong and I will forever defend the boat.

Kiryu is amazing and depressed in this and the themes of failed father-son relationships run deep with pairs such as Big Lo and Jimmy, Big Lo and Yuta, Kurusu and Little Baby Iwami, and Kurusu and Hirose.

Despite Daigo being nowhere as present in the story as in previous games, this game made him and his relationship to Kiryu seem so much more important. The letter to him being formed as to at first seem like it would be aimed at Haruka and then hitting the player with the reveal that it was to Daigo was truly peak.

Iwami was a really hateable character, and it was a nice change of pace from villains that were humanized a lot in the prior games, which has been a trademark of the series. It felt satisfying to get at him, especially after the act of cowardice he displayed with Haruka.

However, the side cast was somewhat lacking. That might be especially highlighted after playing Yakuza 5, but characters like Kiyomi and Matsunaga don't really get fleshed out and remain pretty one-dimensional. The fake killing of Kiyomi was pretty weird as well. Kiryu's departure would've hit a bit harder if she actually had passed. Not to say it didn't hit hard though.

Regarding the side content, the sub stories were amazing, even more so as they were voiced, and quite adorable. Minigames were a bit sparse though. Karaoke was as enjoyable as ever.

Overall, an amazing story and good side stuff. Love it.