Vampire: The Masquerade Redemption

Vampire: The Masquerade – Redemption is a PC role-playing game released on June 7, 2000 by Activision. The game follows the adventures of a French crusader Christof Romuald through Prague and Vienna in the Dark Ages and modern-day London and New York City. The game is based on the pen-and-paper roleplaying game Vampire: The Masquerade.

In short, you're a crusader who finds himself resting in Prague after being brutally stabbed on a battlefield somewhere. As you heal, you become friendly with Anezka, the cute nun who helped you recover, and take it upon yourself to protect her and her convent from the creatures of the night that threaten it. Vampires and monsters of misshapen flesh walk the streets at night in Prague, but you are confident that with your trusty sword and faith in God, you can overcome any enemy.

Then things get worse. I mean, this wouldn't be a Vampire game without the protagonist becoming a bloodsucking monster at some point, now would it?

The game's whole story, crossing most of Europe and 800 years of history, culminating in an epic battle to prevent an apocalypse on January 1st, 2000, ultimately turns on Christof and the three things which drive him: his love for Anezka, his despair and rage over his condition, and his faith.

Can be bought from GOG.com here, or on Steam here.

• Action Girl: Every female vampire who is not hostile to you. Anezka tries to be this too, but doesn't really succeed.
• All There in the Manual: The manual contains a lot of information on Christof's backstory and the Old World of Darkness that never actually comes up during the course of the game.
• An Axe to Grind: The Dark Ages have both one-handed axes and heavier battle axes, the latter being among the strongest weapons. In particular the Templar Chieftain not only wears a scary black armor, but also wields a giant two-bladed axe that you can obtain by felling him. Unique weapons include the Evil Axe and the Berserker Axe, scythe-like weapons that may rise the Frenzy of the wielder.
• An Economy Is You: Justified. Of course the only businesses in town that are open in the middle of the night cater to vampires and/or nocturnal thugs; that's just good marketing.
• Aristocrats Are Evil: Even the ones who DON'T advocate human sacrifice will treat you like garbage.
• Artificial Stupidity: Your allies' AI is only just good enough to keep them from using ALL of their own blood for disciplines. They tend to stink at any combat that requires a more complex plan than "shoot until it's dead". And even when shooting until dead, they don't ever take advantage of the automatic fire that their weapons may have, and may fire into walls. On the plus side, your enemies are no smarter.
• Back Tracking: Usually happens within city-levels you're already in.
• Badass Normal: Christof, initially. The Society Of Leopold's troopers might qualify for this too, given how well they perform compared to most mooks.
• Black Magic: Almost all of the magic you can learn is designed to hurt other people. You can learn some things to heal or bolster yourself, but there are no disciplines you can learn that will help anyone but you.
  • Subverted with two groups of disciplines used by humans (usable for player only in multiplayer mode). The first one is Holy Magic with some spells to heal the caster, others to inflict damage to vampires. The second group is a kind of more "neutral magic", with spells like one that turns the caster invisible.
• Blade on a Stick: Wilhelm's starting weapon of choice is an halberd. In general, polearms (which include slashing spears and lances, halberds and the glaive-like bastions) tend to be slow but very powerful, with the Lance ranking up all the way to the top alongside greatswords and greataxes. And in a very unexpected case among the usually wizardly Tremere, Lady Virstania wields and drops an Exquisite Halberd.
• Blood Lust: This game is about VAMPIRES. What'd you expect?
• Blood Magic: All special abilities have a cost in your blood.
• Body Horror: If this game is anything to go by, Body Horror is the entire reason for Clan Tzimizce's existence.
• But Thou Must!: Plot-wise, this game is completely linear. Making Christof act like a callous Jerkass and openly stating that you will not pursue Anezka won't keep you from running to her rescue anyway.
• Chainsaw Good: Oddly, it does less damage than a lot of weapons.
  • In the Modern age, it's the most damaging melee weapon, but it takes some time in order to work. The machete is weaker but faster.
    • Which is pretty realistic: chainsaws inflict huge messy wounds on anything you hold them against, but are extremely unwieldy and in a quick impact they're little better than a spiked club.
• Chaste Hero: Good Christian that he is, Christof refuses to despoil a nun while he's alive. After he gets turned, he still doesn't respond to anyone's amorous advances, probably because he's too driven to care.
• Chekhov's Boomerang: The amulet of St. Jude, patron of lost causes.
• Chick Magnet: Christof. Many females comment on how handsome he is, while a few others outright try to seduce him.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: Christof seems to have a mild case of this. I say "mild" because he is focused enough on his objective of finding Anezka that he is willing to do some decidedly unheroic things to find her. You can make him grow out of it.
• Clap Your Hands If You Believe: Touched on, in true World of Darkness fashion, when Christof pulls a silver cross on a vampire, and it does nothing because Christof lacks the depth of faith needed to make that trick work. Anezka has no such problem though.
• Climax Boss: Prague has Ardan (for the first part) and the Vodhz under Vyserhad in the second part, Vienna has the battle against Etrius. In the modern age, there's Lucretia, the Setite High Priestess, in London.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Dev/Null the Malkavian. He was actually trying to warn you about Pink the whole time.
• Combat Tentacles: The Tzimisce enemies you meet all have a spiked tentacle for an arm.
• The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: Your vampire enemies will never have any problems grabbing you and draining your blood, even if you're wearing a neck protector specifically made to prevent this. And then there's the Tzimizce monsters that have a "bite your head off" instakill move as a standard attack...
• The Corrupter: Vukodlak is not named "The Defiler" for nothing. That said, nearly every vampire Christof talks to does this, to some extent. It is a World of Darkness, and all that.
• Corrupt the Cutie: Christof, if you allow it. Anezka, whether you allow it or not.
• Crapsack World: It is a World of Darkness.
• Critical Existence Failure: All vampires, Christof included, turn to dust when the last hitpoint is gone. The worst they do before that is stagger a bit and gripe about needing blood.
• Cutscene: Usually done for dialogue.
• Cutscene Boss: Alessandro Giovanni is actually ready to spill the beans to the Coterie, only for Pink to Diablerize him on the spot before he can talk.
• Cut His Heart Out with a Spoon: The Underprince threatens to bury the Coterie under sewage with their hands and feet tied, forcing them to eat their way out.
• Damsel in Distress: Anezka... In theory, at least.
• Demoted to Extra: In the tabletop RPG proper, you'd be surprised to read about Etrius and Virstania, the so-called "Mother of Gargoyles". In game they're just there for a boss fight and the latter is ignominiously dealt with.
• Death Seeker: Luther. Some people don't take well to being Embraced by vampires, it seems.
• Dialogue Tree: Christof, when he's permitted to speak, may use these. Generally, conversation options don't do much besides affecting your Humanity score.
• Disc One Final Boss: Etrius in Vienna, unless you count the gigantic Vodhz under Vyseradh Castle as one, being the last challenge of the Dark Age segment of the game.
• Do Not Taunt Cthulhu: Erik keeps insulting and making threats to Etrius, the lord of Vienna's chantry and the previous right-hand man of Tremere himself. No big surprise when the wizard has enough and completes Ardan's ritual, turning the Gangrel into a mindless Gargoyle the coterie has to slay.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: The game's title isn't an accident. "Redemption", of a sort, is possible, but Christof really has to work hard for it, and you as the player have to make sure to always make the "good" choice even when other choices seem more practical.
• Elemental Powers: One of the forms of Thaumaturgy is the fire-focused Lure of the Flames. The elusive Rituals will allow the caster to use other elements such as stone, ice, lightning and earth.
• Exposition Break: See Cutscene above. There's an especially big one at the end in the Hall of Flesh, where Anezka's memories are recorded.
• Five-Man Band: ...with Christof as The Hero, Wilhelm or Pink as The Lancer, Erik as The Big Guy, Samuel as The Smart Guy, and either Lily or Serena as The Chick. Five-Man Band is a bit of a misnomer though, since you only ever have four people in the party at once.
• Foreshadowing: Dev/Null the Malkavian will tell you the entire plot of the game from the point where you meet him to the end... assuming you can understand a damn thing he says.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation:
  • While you can encounter the flesh-wrought creations of the Tzimisce such as Szlachta and War Ghouls, Vicissitude is not one of the Disciplines you can learn in-game, though possibly due to limitations.
  • The entire first mission in Vienna takes places during daytime in Stephansdom, with the gimmick being that the daylit areas will burn the players. However, in the proper tabletop game, Kindreds simply can't act during day hours and need to make continuous Willpower checks to stay awake.
  • Hellhounds are implied to be creations of the Tzimisce only: they can be summoned by any Brujah with Animalism, while Tzimisce will summon a Szlachta instead.
  • Your Coterie members can freely drink blood from each other without creating a Blood Bond. In fact, the only time a Blood Bond is during the London arc, where Lily must be fred from Lucretia's control and even then she can just magically remove the Bond like nothing and Lily never acts as if she's under Lucretia's control.
  • Ventrue enemies will have access to Proteid, even if it's a Gangrel-only power.
  • One that has nothing to do with the tabletop setting: even if you skip or don't read the various journals, entries and diaries that are scattered around the place (and thus giving you the important information you'd think you need to proceed in the story), Christof and the characters will still acts as if they know everything. For example, even if you don't read Allatius' journal entries in the laboratory and mansion, Christof will still be aware that he needs to find the Giovanni who are shipping Prague's soil to New York.
• Gatling Good: You can buy yourself a minigun. The ammo take up a lot of space, but nothing else in the game does as much damage in as short a time...
• Giant Space Flea From Nowhere: A single white werewolf will burst out from a large crate just outside London's Tower. No explanation is given, and the coterie seems totally unfazed by this event. Luckly, it's the only one (though the in-game editor also has several other models of different colors).
• Giant Spider: Ghoul Spiders: you first encounter a few of them about the size of a rat in Vienna. Cue to the Modern Nights, where gargling, pearly-eyed horrors the size of a human will descend from the ceilings to suck you dry and envenom your characters.
• Glacier Waif: As a rule of thumb, all two-handed weapons will have greater damage balanced by a slow attack speed that makes them hard to use in combat, especially if you're staggered by an enemy attack.
• Going Through the Motions
• Gothic Punk: Again, it is the Old World of Darkness.
• Heroes Prefer Swords: Averted. Christof starts with a sword, and the blood-draining Sword of Ainkurn is arguably the best weapon in the game, but any character can use any weapon that they have the strength to pick up, from poleaxes to gatling guns.
• Hide Your Children: Possibly justified because you're almost always out in the middle of the night, when any child that has even remotely responsible parents would be at home and in bed.
• Hit Points: Recovered as a mortal with healing potions, recovered as a Kindred by spending blood to activate the Blood Heal Discipline.
• Hostage Situation: Near the end of the game, Vukodlac points out that, even in the inconceivable chance that Christof slays him, this would cause Anezka to quickly wither and die because of her longevity being due to Vukodlac's blood. Christof ultimately doesn't care and fights him all the same.
• I Fought the Law and the Law Won: An unusual case. Starting a brawl or trying to drink blood in public will call down infinite numbers of city guards/policemen down on you, but the real danger is not from their weapons. Instead, the danger is that every time you kill one, your Humanity score goes down by 5 points, and when it reaches 0, you get an automatic game-over.
  • That is unless you kill them with "Theft of Vitae" discipline, in which case you don't lose humanity points when you kill an innocent human.
• I Hate You, Vampire Dad: You can make Christof act like this.
• Human Popsicle: Prison of Ice, one of the most useful Disciplines, can freeze an enemy solid for several seconds, leaving them immobile while also inflicting Ice damage across time. Not even the final boss is immune, making this power a viable tactic to defeat him.
• Immune to Bullets: Vampires aren't immune, but they are resistant. However, resistance alone isn't enough to stop the Society of Leopold from blowing you to bits with shotguns. Liberal application of More Dakka helps you kill enemy vampires as well.
• Invulnerable Civilians: Played straight for monsters, averted with players. There are a few events in Prague wherein monsters roaming the streets will cheerfully attack you, but ignore less well-armed citizens who happen to be in the same area. You, however, are free to murder the populace as you please, if you don't mind the drop in your humanity score.
• Irony: In the Dark Ages, Ecaterina will wax poetically about how her Prometheian order is meant to uphold civilization, culture and nobility in a dark world where the obtuse churchmen and petty nobles repress the populace. In the modern nights she's with the Sabbath, which is a violent, fanatical sect who despise and reject humanity (although they share the common objective of destroying the Antedeluvians).
• Karl Marx Hates Your Guts: Oddly enough, 800-year old axes are worth about the same in the 20th century as they were in the 11th.
• Kick the Dog: Pink's obnoxious remarks, especially towards Samuel and Lily. The former even downright calls off his life boon after Pink outright says the Underprince can have him.
• Kiss of the Vampire: Biting someone results in an awful lot of grunting and moaning...
• Locked Door: A common obstacle. Even more common are "doors" which are apparently just painted onto walls. Sometimes you'll have to find a lever or a switch to open the door from a distance.
• Ludicrous Gibs: Seeing enemies explode into meat is fairly common.
• MacGuffin Guardian: Downplayed, but a bunch of Vipers will spawn once you reclaim Lucretia's Heart.
• Meaningful Name: Vukodlak really earns his title "The Defiler".
• Morality Chain: Christof learns early that, if he wants to keep his humanity while bearing the curse of vampirism, he must choose something, some cause, that he can dedicate himself to to keep his sanity. Naturally, he chooses Anezka. Hence, the significance of Christof killing Anezka in the game's two bad endings.
• More Dakka: In the portions of the game that take place in the middle ages, bows and crossbows are all you have in the ranged weapon department. But by the year 2000, assault rifles are surprisingly easy to come by.
• Multiple Endings: Which one you get depends on how high your humanity score is when you reach the end.
• Multinational Team: Across the ages, the party ends up consisting of a Frenchman (Christof), a German (Wilhelm), presumably a Czech (Serena), an Irishman (Erik), a British but actually Arab (Pink), an American (Lily) and an Afro-American (Samuel).
• Never Smile At a Crocodile: Expecially at a giant albino Ghoul Gator. Aside from being rather though, they also possess a special, highly-damaging attack in which they chomp on a player and violently trash him around.
• Not So Harmless: When you're in the dark ages, human enemies aren't much of a threat, mostly because they lack the Talents that vampires have. But in the modern age, they're not at all shy about chucking holy water and stakes at you.
• One-Winged Angel: After the first beating, Vukodlak turns himself into the allmighty Zulo.
  • Clipped-Wing Angel: ...who is actually quite a bit easier to defeat than Vukodlak's humanoid form.
  • After her first defeat in the Setite Temple, Lucretia opens her second battle against the Coterie by turning in a Giant Cobra.
• Outgrown Such Silly Superstitions: Pink thinks we have. Christof disagrees.

Pink: ...and some people still believe the world was created in seven days, even though men have walked on the moon! Christof: The Lord completed his work in six days.

• Point Build System: You get Experience Points for killing enemies and completing quest objectives, and spend them to increase attributes or but Disciplines, more of which are unlocked when you complete certain story events or find Tomes which teach you the Discipline. What a character has to start is fixed, however.
• Point of No Return: Whenever you move from one city to the next, there's no going back. Fortunately, there's generally no reason to go back either.
• RPGs Equal Combat: Rather than delve into the complex rules and facets of Kindred society, the game is a long series of "walking into a Clan's stronghold and trash the place".
• Run, Don't Walk: All players will run in the direction you click, though if it's close enough they'll just walk there slowly.
• Sanity Meter: Your Humanity score. When it's at or below 20, you can use the game's most powerful equipment, but if it goes to 0, you literally lose control of your character permanently. Game Over. There's also the Frenzy Meter, which will cause you to go berserk and possibly try to drain your allies' blood if it fills up.
• Save Point: You can save anywhere, but there are still savepoints in your haven, vestiges of earlier versions of the game.
• Save the Princess: You'll spend most of the game chasing after Anezka...
• Saving the World: ...but you'll end up doing this on the way. Hopefully.
• Scaled Up: Lucretia the Setite turns herself into a giant cobra for the second battle.
• Scripted Event
• Second-Hour Superpower: Your vampiric abilities are only gained when you become a vampire, which is around the second level.
• Single-Target Sexuality: Although some vamps express interest in Christof, Christof cares for no one but Anezka.
• Sinister Scythe: The Cappadocian vampires are armed with sickles.
• Skippable Boss: Father Leo Allatius, if you interact with his Vitae tank instead of attacking him: doing so skips the battle and nets Christof some Humanity.
• So Long and Thanks For All the Gear: Pink.
• Soul Jar: In London, you have to kill the leader of the Setite vampires, and you need a certain heart artifact which contains her soul to vanquish her once and for all.
• Spell My Name with an "S": The game mistakenly renders Alessandro Giovanni's name as "Allesandro", switching the double consonants.
• Suicide by Sunlight: Luther. Christof actually has to take a Humanity-influencing dilemma in whether to agreeing in killing a defenseless man as he wishes (as a devout Christian, Luther won't take his own life) or refusing (causing Luther to pull a Taking You with Me in retaliation).
• Summon Magic: Vampires with Animalism can use the basic power to call forth an animal (or, de facto, a minion of sorts) to fight for them, ranging from expected (Gangrel summons Wolves, Nosferatu and Caitiff have Ghoul Rats, Tzimisce have Szlachtas, Cappadocians call forth Walking Corpses) to unexpected (Brujah and Hellhounds, Toreador and Ghoul Spiders, Giovanni and Ghoul Alligators). The only discipline of the Lasombra clan Obtenebration makes them summon a Shadow Hunter.
• Tactical Suicide Boss: Etrius. You take him on in a two-round battle. In the first round, he is incorporeal and cannot be harmed. In the second round, he is not, enabling you to hit him. He also displays the ability to teleport at will, but doesn't use it in battle, again enabling you to hit him.
• The Battle Didn't Count:
  • When you take Etrius's health to zero, he won't die, but just curse the Coterie for wasting his precious time and resources before telling Christof where to find Anezka and teleport away.
  • Defeating Vukodlak's first form will make him angrily curse the party and drop them through a hole into the bowels of the Cathedral of Flesh.
• Token Evil Teammate: Out of all the possible party members, Pink is extremely rude, condescending and scathing towards everyone, even Christof, a fellow Brujah he offered his help to. Turns out, he's an Assamite on Vukodlak's checkbook, meant to monitor Christof and delay him.
• Touch of Death: The Thaumaturgy: Hands of Destruction is all about inflicting massive/debilitating aggravated damage through touch. It's the only discipline to require low Humanity to use.
• Violence Is the Only Option: For the last time, it is a World of Darkness...
• Warrior Monk: Crusader Christof most certainly is one at the start of the game. Whether or not he still is one at the end of the game is partially up to you.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: The soldiers and scientists of the Society of Leopold appear to be this. Alas, they're being led by a Complete Monster.
  • Mercurio in the Dark Ages.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: You never learn exactly what happened to most of the vampires and people from Christof's early years.
  • Though, in the case of your Cappadocian buddies, the answer is both obvious and horrible, given that clan's eventual fate...
• Wooden Stake: The stake is a standard weapon that deals little Lethal damage but, on a lucky shot, can pierce the heart of a vampire (unless protected with a specific discipline), leaving them paralyzed for a while. In the modern nights you can even find a stake-shooting gun.
• Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe: Christof's speaking style confuses people in the year 1999. This is often Played for Laughs.

Pink: We're gonna need some supplies. You can sell some of that old junk and get some REAL weapons. Christof: We require an armorer and an alchemist. Pink: Er... something like that.

Christof: What manner of beast is this central computer, that it can besiege fortresses? Lily: Wow, you've got a lot to learn.

• • When Christof accuses a mugger of being "A common cutpurse", the man's reply is a baffled "What?".
• You All Meet in An Inn: The multiplayer scenario "To curse the darkness" starts the players off in a tavern.