As you know from The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing 1, 2 and 3, we are following Van Helsing’s quest to explore and defeat a variety of enemies that plan to take control over Borgovia and the entire world. While the final cut version doesn’t alter the story at all, the reality is that the main story is perfect and it manages to deliver a great set of results all the same. The combination of powers that Van Helsing accumulates in the game world makes the entire experience amazing and while the story can be dull at times particularly in the beginning chapters where you can’t figure out what you need to do, it quickly ups the ante, especially in the second and third episode.
The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing 3 was considered a step back by most gamers and Neocore managed to focus less on that, instead they took many ideas from the first and especially the second game. You can go through the entire game via six classes and not only 3 like in the final installment, something that adds a lot more interesting possibilities. You can choose to be a protector, bounty hunter, constructor, phlogistoneer, umbralist and elementalist. These classes are a nice take on the normal ones from other action RPGs, and some like the phlogistoneer and the umbralist are exciting new breeds that just can’t be found in other similar games. Moreover, The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing: Final Cut brings back the actual skill tree so you do need to start from prerequisite skills then focus on expanding them to get the best set of powers. Thankfully, there are more than a dozen major skills and dozens of smaller ones to focus on, not to mention that each can be expanded, so you do get a ton of variety here.
They also change the way you level up the character stats because there were 5 standard categories to dump points into, and now you get only 3. I feel that this is a streamlined, much better process despite lowering the overall options you can get here. I feel that the mechanics are solid here but while the level cap is quite large (80 and in come game modes 100), you don’t really get that replay value that can be found in other games in this genre.
Lady Katarina is more powerful than ever as a companion and while there is no new content to be had, the entire continuation is designed in order to offer a seamless and exciting experience all around. I feel that the game is created with high quality in mind and while they didn’t integrate a lot of content in the game per say, they did focus on creating a lot of endgame content that’s new and fun to go through.
The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing: Final Cut works well most of the time but you will encounter crashes on more than one occasion for sure. They did patch up the game but there still are some issues with crashes after Alt-Tabbing and other similar situations. Load times are also a little long, however if you install this on an SSD you can speed up the process. Other than the aforementioned situations though, the game works well, graphics are taken directly out of the third game so the first two chapters are updated from a graphics standpoint a little bit which is always nice.
There are a few graphics related issues here and there such as characters going through walls and the camera can go nuts from time to time, but rest assured that the entire experience is quite impressive and filled with fun. This is a great game to test out a mid-budget gaming rig, since it looks great and at the same time it does deliver quite a lot of immersive experiences all around. Character models are nice, the game world, albeit gothic and dark, looks nice as well and in the end it just manages to stand out of the crowd.
Final thoughts
The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing: Final Cut is exactly what you would need to expect from a compilation of games. It offers new content and the ability to play from beginning up until the end uninterrupted, but it also delivers a higher level cap and a cool range of other bonuses. The difficulty remains pretty much the same, there’s a variety of monsters to be had and the gothic appeal suits the game for sure. I feel that The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing: Final Cut is a solid investment for those persons that like the ARPG genre. If you enjoy a dark atmosphere, great level design and pure hack and slash elements, this is definitely the game for you!
Reviewed for PC