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Victor Vran is a game I’ve been really wanting to see a Linux version, and while it was planned from the start to have one, I didn’t think it would be so soon!

Note: I purchased a copy, but the developer sent a key after as well, so hopefully our Samsai can GOL Cast and/or livestream it soon too.

About the game (Official)
Victor Vran is an isometric Action-RPG with a massive selection of weapons, items, outfits,demon powers and destiny cards. Experience intense combat action with dozens of enemies attacking you from all sides and unleash powerful skills to finish them off!

Victor Vran lets you decide how to play the game. Forge your own personal version of Victor thanks to a vast array of powerful weapons, game-changing outfits, wicked demon powers and destiny cards. Use special moves, combine skills and weapons to wipe out hordes of hideous beasts and clever boss monsters.

I’ve been following it and the developers have nicely stuck to their roadmap, and they have been gradually adding lots of content and features. It also has very favourable reviews, so I’m optimistic about this.

Some initial thoughts
Reminder: The game is still in Early Access, so we will have another post on it once it is completed.

Performance
Performance with everything on highest isn’t great, and gave me just over 30FPS. Setting MSAA to x2 instead of x8, but keeping all else maxed out made it shoot up to 60+FPS, so that’s pretty normal as MSAA always destroys FPS. That’s pretty damn good for a game that probably isn’t optimised yet.

No matter what's going on, the game remains smooth. So, performance wise it's really quite good.

Gameplay
Looks like this will be seriously fun. My fun is amplified by the fact that my Logitech F310 works out of the box, and it’s incredibly responsive with a gamepad.

Swinging my sword around, dashing, and doing special attacks is all fluid and satisfying. You can even jump around as much as you want. Jumping is needed to, as you need to vault from the side of one building to another to get to certain sections, and it looks awesome.

Being able to rotate the camera as much as I want is also a big bonus, I can easily get a feel for my surroundings, and for what’s lurking around.

There’s a fair bit of placeholder art, like the start cutscene which has no audio. They note this, and it will be added in eventually.

Smashing crates for gold is pretty nice as well, with nice animations, and seeing the crates break apart is well done too.

Issues
Switching between the menu, and the on-screen map will often turn the gameplay screen entirely black, so it’s a major issue and does make the game a bit unplayable. The developers noted they can reproduce it from my report, and are now looking into it.

The in-game bug reporting tool also doesn't accept the "@" key in the email field.

Final Verdict: Probably best we continue a more in depth look when the black screen issue is fixed. Even with my limited play due to the major graphical issue, this could be my go-to action RPG when it’s finished. It seems like it will be barrels of fun.

Check out Victor Vran on Steam. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
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10 comments

fraghopper May 14, 2015
I ran into that same @ symbol bug in another game... I don't remember which. But I do remember that I worked around it by re-mapping a key temporarily to send an 'at @ at @' symbol.

Probably not worth doing just for the bug reporter though :-)
EKRboi May 14, 2015
Hell yes! This looks to be my kind of action RPG! No EA for me, but I suspect Liam will let us know when it is out of EA and ready to go ;)
Keyrock May 15, 2015
Quoting: EKRboiHell yes! This looks to be my kind of action RPG! No EA for me, but I suspect Liam will let us know when it is out of EA and ready to go ;)
Yeah, I'm in the same "I'll check it out when it exits Early Access" boat.
mao_dze_dun May 15, 2015
QuotePerformance with everything on highest isn’t great, and gave me just over 30FPS. Setting MSAA to x2 instead of x8, but keeping all else maxed out made it shoot up to 60+FPS, so that’s pretty normal as MSAA always destroys FPS.

It's absolutely normal to have a bad framerate on x8 MSAA. MSAA is my least favorite method of AA. It produces only slightly better results than SMAA yet it uses nearly as much resources as super sampling. x8 MSAA is redundant - it's better to just render in 1440p or 4k and downscale instead. The performance hit would be just marginally higher and the rendered images are much better looking.
Nanobang May 15, 2015
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I had been thinking lately about firing up the Xbox 360 and playing Reckoning KOA, but then I saw this game and knew that it wouldn't be necessary.

This is only the second EA title I've ever purchased, and I purchased it within minutes of discovering its availability on Linux. It looks like the devs are regularly updating the game and are responsive to players, so I'm not worried about the game being abandoned. (Granted, it could happen. I'm just not worried about it).

My usual policy is no EA titles, but I knew I would buy this one eventually (Linux, ARPG, and controller ... kinda sold itself), so I decided to help the devs out as I took advantage of a lower EA price.
Liam Dawe May 15, 2015
Quoting: maodzedun
QuotePerformance with everything on highest isn’t great, and gave me just over 30FPS. Setting MSAA to x2 instead of x8, but keeping all else maxed out made it shoot up to 60+FPS, so that’s pretty normal as MSAA always destroys FPS.

It's absolutely normal to have a bad framerate on x8 MSAA. MSAA is my least favorite method of AA. It produces only slightly better results than SMAA yet it uses nearly as much resources as super sampling. x8 MSAA is redundant - it's better to just render in 1440p or 4k and downscale instead. The performance hit would be just marginally higher and the rendered images are much better looking.

That's why I did note it was pretty normal to expect it :P

They mentioned they have fixed the major graphic issue, so a full post will come within a few days :D
mao_dze_dun May 15, 2015
Any idea if it will work with the open source drivers. I'm currently pissed off with AMD so I'm boycotting Catalyst and opting for bleeding edge open source - mesa 10.6 + llvm 3.7 + kernel 4.1 RC1. I know you do your reviews on a 970 but if you have info on that matter, I'd be thankful.
filsd May 15, 2015
Can anyone that have this confirm that it works on a Intel HD 4000 graphics? In Ubuntu 14.04? I have a nvidia card, but my girl have a Intel and I would LOVE to play this with her! :D
melkemind May 16, 2015
Fun game. It works very well with my old trusty GTX 660. I would still be playing right now, but my hands were tired. :)
ezra-s May 21, 2015
I wouldn't say "released" when it is really "early-access release". Just saying.
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