Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines 2: The Flower and the Flame review

 

    Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines 2 is widely considered to be a disappointment by both the fans as well as the creators. The game was an action adventure that had a lot less roleplaying than the original Bloodlines as well as few characters as iconic as the original’s cast. There was no Prince La Croix, Nines, Voorman Sisters, or even Heather the Ghoul. Damsel made a brief cameo but the only characters that really stood out were Phyre themselves (not always for the best reasons) and Fabien the Malkavian Detective. Fans rejected the game and it proved to be a financial failure.

    Despite being a strong defender of the game, I was really hoping they would attempt to fix the game and add the necessary content to make it as great as it deserved to be. This proved to be unlikely with only two DLC planned and both of them dealing with villains from the main game versus more adventures for Phyre themselves. I enjoyed Loose Cannon, which did give a bit more development to Benny the Brujah Sheriff but it also gave some much-needed improvements to the gameplay with the ability to use melee weapons as well as a pistol that applied to the main game once downloaded.

    The Flower and the Flame‘s premise is that we are taking the role of Ysabella Moore, the Toreador Primogen of Seattle. Basically, the head of her vampire clan in the city. The Toreador are the artsy Anne Rice-esque vampires and hedonists to the extreme. Ysabella has grown bored with her mundane vampire existence and has allied herself to the brutal vampire cult known as the Sabbat.

    Surprisingly, The Flower and the Flame focuses on character development over mindless violence. We actually get a lot of information about Ysabella Moore. We find out how she was embraced, how she rose to power in Seattle, and what ultimately drove her to corruption. The DLC’s latter half seems suspiciously similar to the Toreador flashback sequence of Swansong but I think that’s a definite improvement over not developing the character. I also feel the first half of the DLC is kind of generic and uninteresting while the latter embraces its gonzo narrative (and is thus much better).

    Unfortunately, Ysabella is just not that deep of a character and if you manage to try to preserve your humanity or free will then you will have it overridden at the end by the Big Bad of the main game. Which is something of a problem with people. The game also adds a lot more gunplay to both this as well as the main game, which is definite improvement to Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines 2 that should have been there from the beginning. It’s an okay work on its own but does little to redeem the legacy of the game.