Developer: Little Bat Games
Publisher: Little Bat Games
Platform: PC
Tested on: PC
Vampire Therapist – Review
Vampires are back from never really having been gone. There are hugely successful TV shows like Interview with the Vampire and What We Do in the Shadows, movies like the recently released Abigail, and an upcoming Nosferatu remake. And then there are video games of course. Titles such as Vampire Dynasty and Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 are set to arrive later this year. However, if you are either impatient or simply prefer a more off-beat vampire game, then the recently released Vampire Therapist should have you covered. Is this visual novel what the doctor ordered or should you stock up on garlic to keep it away?
Story
Just putting the words ‘vampire’ and ‘therapist’ together should be enough to pique players’ interests, but those two words only scratch the surface of what’s to come. You see, our protagonist Sam Walls isn’t *just* a vampire therapist, but also a cowboy. The opening scenes provide some backstory on his time in the Wild West. After hundreds of years of living a murderous existence, Sam decides he wants to take things in a different direction. This brings our Nosferatic gunslinger to Leipzig, Germany, where he meets up with the ancient and experienced vampire therapist Andromachos, or Andy for short. Andy agrees to take on Sam as an apprentice, and that’s where our story really begins. We’ll try to refrain from posting spoilers, of course, as Vampire Therapist is best enjoyed going in blind, but rest assured that if the premise of the game tickles your interest, you’ll find that running with the full concept results in a genuinely funny yet heartfelt product.
Being vampires, Sam’s patients are a varied bunch hailing from different time periods. The colorful cast is wacky and over the top and wouldn’t feel out of place in an episode of What We Do in the Shadows. Examples include a vampire scientist who refuses to drink blood and a two-thousand-year-old vampire who has built a career on the undead equivalent of OnlyFans. We should note that a vampire’s moral code doesn’t necessarily line up with that of a human, and you’ll have to think outside the box and come up with absurd solutions to help them out. It’s not all just played for laughs, though. The solutions to Vampire Therapist’s cases are rooted in real-life psychology, specifically cognitive behavior therapy. We aren’t psychologists ourselves, and we’re not going to claim that we’re suddenly experts on the subjects, but we do feel like we understand CBT better now that we’ve played Vampire Therapist. It’s probably worth mentioning that Vampire Therapist’s 18+ rating is definitely warranted, with the game’s writing being a bit too reliant on sex jokes at times, as well as the game touching on very heavy themes. There are trigger warnings present in the game’s opening and we can definitely see why. This isn’t one you’re going to want to let your kids play.
Graphics
We’ve probably been spoilt by B-PROJECT RYUSEI*FANTASIA’s more animated approach, because Vampire Therapist’s visual presentation felt a tad underwhelming. Don’t get us wrong, we absolutely adored the comic book aesthetics, and the character designs are nothing short of amazing. However, things felt a bit too static overall. It doesn’t help that there aren’t any CGs present, something that is typically a visual novel staple. Even the occasional change in background aesthetics would have helped, as everything is either dark and lit by fire or by red neon lights. As it stands, Vampire Therapist still looks good as is, but we’d have loved a bit more visual dynamism to go with the extravagant cast designs.
Sound
We can’t talk about Vampire Therapist’s audio without gushing over the incredible voice cast. The most famous voice you’ll hear is that of Matthew Mercer, whose name alone should be enough to excite fans of Critical Role. The show stealers, however, are Francesca Meaux (of Hades fame) and Kylie Clark, who apparently is a newcomer to the voice acting world, as we couldn’t find any relevant credits for her. We’d rightfully be singing the voice work’s praises too, if it wasn’t for some apparent hiccups with audio mixing. Voice lines don’t always line up with the on-screen text, for example, and we ran into several instances where the voice work glitched out, restating lines mid-sentence. It’s a shame, given the quality of the performances, so hopefully, this is something that will be resolved soon. Apart from this, the game’s audio is fine, if unremarkable.
Gameplay
When it comes to gameplay, you’ll find Vampire Therapist occupying the grey area between traditional video games and visual novels. That’s not a bad place to be, as the game finds itself in the company of titles like Ace Attorney and Famicom Detective Club. The majority of your time with the game is spent reading and identifying the negative thought patterns of your patients. When you spot a cognitive distortion, you’ll highlight and click on it. There isn’t necessarily a ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way to treat a patient, at least as far as we could find, although certain choices flowed a lot more naturally than others. The core reading-and-making-choices gameplay is broken up by a pair of mini-games that tie into the overarching theme. The first one sees you engage in meditation sessions, whereas the second one involves biting victims’ necks -consensually, we might add. While we appreciate the inclusion of these gameplay elements, we should add that they don’t add a whole lot to the game, and aren’t all that fun to play either. We honestly could have done without these.
While there are different approaches to tackle the different cases, we don’t really see the game having a high replayability factor. Granted, there isn’t a whole lot you can do with this sub-genre of visual novels that hasn’t been done before, and Vampire Therapist nails what it sets out to do. We could say the same about the aforementioned Ace Attorney and Famicom Detective Club series, whose replay factor is also questionable. Vampire Therapist’s “play once” philosophy is reflected in the game’s surprisingly low RRP of €14.79. How long it’s going to take you to play through Vampire Therapist depends on your reading speed, of course, but given the high quality of what you’re getting here, we’d say that the game is well worth the price of entry.
Conclusion
The strength of Vampire Therapist definitely isn’t in its gameplay, as it doesn’t bring anything new to the table, but in the writing. If you can get behind the outlandish premise, then you’ll find a fantastic set of cases here. Vampire Therapist’s audio does suffer from the occasional issue, and the mini-games were an unnecessary addition, but don’t let that deter you from sinking your teeth into this visual novel.
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