Being disowned by your vampire father for becoming vegan is probably one of the more unusual reasons to get kicked out of home. Unfortunately for Voltaire, his punishment is being dumped in a graveyard and told to survive by growing vegetables, completing chores and murdering anything that objects. It sounds gloriously daft, but Voltaire: The Vegan Vampire soon discovers that having a funny premise doesn’t automatically make a good game.
Gaming Heaven
There’s no denying that Voltaire looks lovely. The colourful characters, creepy environments and cartoonish animations give everything a charming Halloween aesthetic. It has plenty of personality visually, even if that personality doesn’t quite survive contact with the gameplay.
The soundtrack and sound effects also fit the ridiculous tone nicely. Controls are responsive, while the tutorial does a decent job of explaining the various systems without requiring a university degree in vampire agriculture.
There’s also plenty of stuff to technically do. Farming, resource gathering, quests, combat, base building and defending your home against nightly attacks are all present.
Gaming Hell
The problem is that none of these systems feels properly developed. Farming is basic, combat is simple, base building lacks depth and the tower-defence elements rarely provide much tactical satisfaction. It’s essentially several genres having an awkward meeting and discovering nobody brought biscuits.
The seven-day cycle quickly becomes repetitive, too. Spend the day collecting resources, growing crops and completing quests, then fight monsters at night. Repeat. Then repeat again. Eventually you’ll be wondering whether Voltaire has been banished or whether you have.
Once you’ve fed the sea monster, upgraded a few abilities and completed enough quests, there isn’t enough meaningful variety to keep things interesting.
Final Judgement
Voltaire: The Vegan Vampire looks fantastic and has an amusing premise, but beneath the colourful presentation is a shallow survival game desperately crying out for more content.
The individual ideas aren’t terrible; they’re simply underdeveloped and repetitive. Like being served a lovely vegan roast and discovering it’s mostly garnish.
