Vampire Hunters

So I repacked this game online in English, something that hopefully shows up here, and I wanted to comment on GreyBush's comment about that impossible fight.

I got to that part and after painfully trying over and over again I DID beat that fight on the ship. It's easily the hardest fight in the game and the most unfair because it turns out that's the LAST fight in the game too! I explain how at the end of this but wanted to explain stuff too.

I'm still floored it ended the way it did but ya, that's it. How did I do it? Magic, and that's it. You really need to invest into magic as the game goes on thanks to the limited fights. You can get by with melee fine enough but since you can only level your magic by using it that means you can't level fire and moon magic unless you're in combat. You can level blood magic outside combat by hitting L to go to your magic list and spamming your first heal spell but you level skills faster by using newer spells that unlock as they come. Ill cover magic fully later.

Here is what I suggest if you want to beat this game. Just like GreyBush said, always have at least 2000 dollars on you by the end so you can buy the quest critical item when he sells it. The rest of the money you make should go into spell books and ONLY spell books. You want to unlock the buffs and debuffs ASAP because I only won the fight deemed to be impossible because of one attack spell and a few buff spells.

Go light weapons the moment you get one from the first enemy. Invest in that a bit but as soon as you get a good chunk of spell books then start using them and try to only use the latest one as it unlocks. You want to explore each level top and bottom for secret item spots tucked away in corners or areas. They give you EXP as well as items. Leveling Endurance and Agility is vital but give Strength and Willpower some points from time to time. My end stats, without any items on, were:

Strength - 16
Endurance - 42
Agility - 17
Willpower - 20

I was wearing items that give bonuses like an item that gives +12 agility and whatever the best armor/weapon was at the time.

Ok magic. You start with 3 types of magic, each with its level 1 spell unlocked. As you gain more books you REALLY want to invest in Blood spells, moon spells and fire spells in that order. Blood spells include Regeneration (spell level 4) and Life Drain (Spell level 6) being mandatory for the last fight, without it and a few other spells I'm pretty sure it's basically impossible. These other spells coming from the Moon Spells list. You want to unlock spells like Celerity (Spell level 3), Curse (Spell level 4) and Freezing Aura (Spell level 5). Without these, you are also never beating the final boss I think. Maybe you can get away with not using Curse but its risky.

SPOILERS FOR THE FINAL "IMPOSSIBLE FIGHT AHEAD"!

Spells in general are good to have but what makes that "Impossible" fight feel that was is that he spams a life leach spell that can do 100+ if your unlucky and by the end of the game I had just over 200. You are praying to the RNG gods that you can start the fight with Freezing Aura and Celerity, in that order. From there you can cast regeneration for extra protection or start spamming Life Drain. I also recommend using Curse because if you can make him miss the rare melee attack thats fantastic for you. Thats the fight though. Debuff, buff, spam Life Drain, debuff/buff when its needed again, repeat. Its all luck and the luck is not in your favour at all.

END OF SPOILERS!

Now that I can confirm this game ISNT imposible I can recommnd trying this but with the warning that this is a balancing act of a game. Having your light melee weapon level high so you get good melee attacks to save spells with, while using spells to level it up and trying keep using the latest ones you unlock to level it faster. There are a finite amount of fights and items in the game so you can 100% soft lock yourself. Its hard, but I did it on my first try so hopefully you can too. Good luck!

So, is this game available in english at all? I didn't seem to find any way

Hi, I got this game on CD in Poland when I was a child, around 2009 or something like that. I loved the atmosphere, the music, everything. I was actually scared of some of the levels. I got to the final boss in the ship and couldn't win at all, throughout the game I was focusing on developing the highest skill level in magic, which then proven to be a bad thing. I won the battle after many years for the first time, and finished the game, but only by balancing the skills on melee and magic equally, it made the final fight powered upon all fronts and not just a single specialty.

The ending was not worth the effort, but it was incredibly fun and satisfying for me as a child. Also never save right after the combat, always pick up items before, as they will not be pickable (at least on my CD version).

come back and let us know how it goes. -- Still actual?

Vampire Hunters has a bit of charm mainly due to its setting, which is fairly interesting, but it's a buggy and unbalanced mess of a game, that spikes in difficulty to the point where it becomes impossible to progress.

The combat is turn based and it's pretty straightforward. You get 1 action per turn, each action has a different speed cost, that works kind of like the casting time of spells in other RPGs, so the frequency of your turns is decided by the speed of the actions you perform. Naturally, stronger attacks are slower, and weaker attacks/using items are quicker (so you can sometimes get 2 consecutive turns if you combine the 2 actions).

The main problem is that you're always fighting solo, and you often have to fight groups of 2, or 3, hard-hitting enemies with a lot of HP. Meanwhile, your healing options are very limited. You get a healing spell that you can only use in combat, but if you don't plan on dumping a lot of points into Wisdom it's pretty useless, and 2 potions, small and large, that heal you for 35-40 and 75-85 HP respectively. The potions are very useful early on, but eventually you reach a point where they can't keep up with the amount of damage you're taking each turn, so you're forced to spam large pots each turn, until RNG decides to give you a window to attack when your enemies miss you with their melee attacks multiple turns in a row.

I played the game for, probably, 6-7-8 hours on the medium difficulty, and I got to a bossfight on a ship, that seems impossible. I'm level 16 with 400 HP, and my strongest attack deals 40-60 damage (mostly around the 40s). The boss has 640 HP, a melee attack that deals 80-90 damage, a spell that deals 90-100+ damage, and another spell that deals 60+ damage and heals the boss for the same amount. The boss also gets 2-3 turns every time, and his attacks are random, so he sometimes drains more than 50% of my health before I even get my first turn. As you can imagine, healing doesn't really help much, as I can only heal 85 HP per turn. I got a bit lucky once, when he missed a few melee attacks, and I managed to deal 150ish damage to him, but the next turn he used the drain spell, and got himself back to almost full health. Eventually, you're not going to be able to heal fast enough, and he will destroy you in a couple of turns.

Now, you're probably thinking that this is an RPG, so surely you can just grind a few levels and get stronger. I thought so too, but unfortunately, Vampire Hunters doesn't have any random battles, every single fight is scripted to happen at a specific time and place, and even though you can revisit previous locations quite freely, the enemies you've already killed do not respawn.

After about a dozen tries, I concluded that this particular boss is simply impossible to beat. So, I did what any normal person would do - I delete...nah, just kidding. I started a new game on easy, to see if it's any different. And it is, for most fights, and everything seems more manageable, and yes, I made it to the same boss a second time. And was it any different? Did I manage to beat him? No. It was exactly the same BS as before. I even spent more points on Vitality, so my HP was slightly higher than before, but it made absolutely no difference, and he destroyed me just as easily as before. And now I'm done.

If anyone ever reads this, I want you to know that Vampire Hunters is not worth your time, but if you decide to give the game a try, come back and let us know how it goes. And if you find a way to beat that damn boss (no spoilers, but you'll fight him on a ship), please share your build/method. Maybe I messed up my stats, or maybe there's some key item that I missed, which could weaken him. I don't know.

As a heads up, the game has some sfx, like footsteps, or opening a door, but there are no sounds in combat, or when you kick a chest open. Make sure to keep multiple saves, as there are points in the game where you can get softlocked. Stats are iffy, and they sometimes change on their own, without necessarily lowering their related attribute; you might have 30 Vit and 15 Agl, and the next time you check your character sheet you'll notice that they've switched, but your HP has stayed the same. Also, you find a lot of potions that can temporarily boost your damage, speed, defence or magic, each coming in either a small or a large version, but the large defence boost one is bugged and you can only use it once. Also, fighting enemies will increase your weapon mastery, for the weapon class you're using (light weapons, heavy weapons, unarmed), so you should choose a weapon type at the start, and stick with it, because of the limited number of fights in the game. Oh, and save your money, because you'll have to buy a mandatory quest item for 2k gold (I think), so you should only buy healing potions from the shop, and nothing else (not that there's a lot you could buy).

Have fun!