Vambrace: Cold Soul Reviews
Vambrace: Cold Souls is one of the best-looking games we've seen on Switch – it really is a stunner – but in terms of gameplay, it's a pedestrian affair. Dungeons are boring and difficult, combat is bereft of any real strategic depth or flair and it thinks nothing of wasting hours of your time for zero reward. The story gets off to a cracking start and it's obvious that an amazing amount of artistic talent has been channelled into creating the City of Icenaire and its surroundings, but, in the end, it's all rendered a little pointless by the fact it's attached to such a monotonous and dreary plod of an RPG.
Vambrace is a successful evolution of the mechanics that made Darkest Dungeon such a hit, but despite its beautiful art style and interesting setting, the repetitive gameplay and lack of meaningful achievements make the experience for more tiresome than challenging.
Vambrace: Cold Soul falls down in almost every way that matters, and there are far better games out there more worthy of your time.
If the art style and graphic execution are superb, its soundtrack fits the environment perfectly and the plot is carefully crafted, the gameplay experience falls short of expectations and as an RPG, it feels like a rather banal effort. While certainly not a bad game, Vambrance: Cold Soul gives the impression that it could be much more but instead, it doesn't leave the territory of an average experience, without any gameplay elements that would make it stand out.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Vambrace: Cold Soul will surely keep you entertained and engaged if you prefer roguelike games. Unfortunately, bland combat, interface and info issues, along with some save file problems can hamper your enjoyment.
Vambrace: Cold Soul is a project that uses the mechanics of Darkest Dungeon in the hope of marrying them with anime style and a good plot. Restrictions spoil the gameplay, turning it into a worship of grind and pure chance. Devespresso Games released a variety of patches, but it didn't really help...
Review in Russian | Read full review
Vambrace: Cold Soul is a great love letter to Darkest Dungeon.
Vambrace: Cold Soul lacks the kind of depth that more appealing RPG and perma-death titles offer. Regardless, Vambrace looks gorgeous and does offer that first step into the challenging world of perma-death games.
Sky-high ambition meets sub-par execution in this roguelike fantasy-epic. Vambrace: Cold Soul delivers a large helping of worldbuilding but fails to provide engaging gameplay to accompany it.
Vambrace has the art, sound and story direction of a top-flight RPG, bolted onto a badly designed roguelite.
Vambrace is an interesting game with a nice story but with a bad interface and some difficulty spikes, specially in the first few hours.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
The roguelike nature of Darkest Dungeon combine with more substantial narrative and exploration, and a Korean manhwa aesthetic. Unfortunately, the mechanics of Vambrace need work. Your squad of mercenaries is largely disposable, there's too much randomization in terms of progress, and there are several issues with the user interface. Perhaps a sequel can bring the gameplay closer to the excellent aesthetics, but Vambrace: Cold Soul doesn't come together completely.