Jeremy and Alysa about to spill some blood.
Blood Knights is a 2013 action game made by the German studio Deck13 for the PlayStation 3, with a deep, gothic-inspired atmosphere and fantasy RPG elements.
In an unspecified time period somewhere in Bavaria, set in an age where humans are battling the undead, a group of Hunter of Monsters are ambushed and nearly wiped out by a vampire attack, with their leader Jeremy as one of their last survivors. The vampires are after a powerful MacGuffin called the Blood Seal, and to empower Jeremy and retrieve the seal, Jeremy had a vampire lady named Alysa, one forced to serve humans, ritualistically bound into himself, however unwilling Jeremy was.
But after a series of quests and battling the undead, Jeremy and Alysa uncovers a massive conspiracy within the church, and realize they're the only ones who can stop the true evil threatening the world.
Gameplay-wise, Blood Knights follows the usual Hack and Slash-format where you control Jeremy and / or Alysa into fighting all sorts of mooks, from the undead to werebeasts and even human traitors. In classic action game fashion, Jeremy is a combat-orientated character who uses melee weapons, while Alysa is a ranged fighter carrying an infinite amount of arrows and firing them nonstop with her dual crossbows. On single-player mode both Jeremy and Alysa can be controlled and swapped around during gameplay, while two players can control both characters at once, player 1 being Jeremy and player 2 being Alysa.
Blood Knights contain examples of:
- Animated Armor: The succubi have sentient, living armors as her mooks, which Jeremy and Alysa spends the whole level battling. These enemies are powered by having flesh bound into their interiors, however, so despite being metal they can bleed like flesh-and-blood mooks.
- Blood Knight: Well, Jeremy certainly is one, if him eagerly charging to slice up mooks with his swords are any indication. Alysa... not so much, but she's willing to kick ass if needed.
- Bottomless Magazines: Alysa's dual Automatic Crossbows never runs dry of ammunition. Or needs to be reloaded at any point. She can just keep firing them on full-auto until enemies are either dead or too close for her to shoot at.
- Burn the Witch!: The supposed fate of Blood Fox after you defeat her; after she gets captured, the last you saw of her is being tied to a stake and swearing revenge, but you never witness her execution.
- Can't Live with Them, Can't Live Without Them: Jeremy and Alysa, the former being a human who had the latter, a vampire, ritualistically bound into himself and wanting nothing to do with her, but in the final cutscene, after defeating the Paladin and overthrowing the corrupt church, Jeremy decides not to have Alysa removed, having grown attached to her, as they go on a new adventure.
- Dark Action Girl: A whole bunch to choose from; there's the crossbow wielding vampire Alysa who's skilled at killing mooks, the succubi of Pikehold Castle who puts up quite a fight, the deadly vampire baroness Blood Fox...
- Dhampyr: Jeremy went from a human to one of these in the backstory, as the result of a ritual to have the vampire Alysa bound into himself. He really wants to have her exorcised from inside himself once his mission is over, but the final cutscene have him actually deciding to keep Alysa instead.
- Dialogue Tree: Interactions with NPCs tends to split into dialogue branches, where you can choose to accept or reject offers or even insult characters conversing with you, though they often fall into But Thou Must! territory.
- Disc-One Final Boss: Blood Fox, the Vampire Countess introduced in the second stage and supposedly the game's main threat, was defeated less than halfway through. The rest of the game revolves around Jeremy and Alysa uncovering a conspiracy from the Church itself.
- Dual Wield: Jeremy wields two swords in combat, and he damn well knows how to use them to slice up enemies.
- Dungeon Crawling: The stages within interior environments, including castles and dungeons. Some of the caverns as well. And all of them infested with undead and assorted monsters as Jeremy and Alysa explores around.
- Fragile Flyer: The bat-imp enemies are among the only airborne mooks in the game, and the weakest, getting killed in just a few weak slashes.
- Friendly Neighborhood Vampire: Alysa the vampire was initially unwilling to serve the humans, being forced into becoming Jeremy's ally as part of a ritual, but she later warms up to him and even assists to stop the game's human villain from carrying out his plans which could kill millions of humans.
- Giant Mook: Behemoths are giant enemies far larger than regular mooks, capable of soaking far more damage but are a lot slower.
- Gorn: The game's onscreen gore can get really extreme sometimes, with each and every onscreen death a macabre masterpiece.
- Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: Played straight with Jeremy using swords, while Alysia uses crossbows.
- Healing Boss: The Vampire Countess, Blood Fox, is fought in an area filled with impaled prisoners. During the boss battle, upon sustaining damage Fox will drain blood from a random captive from a distance to replendish her health. The battle goes on until she runs out of prisoners to absorb blood from.
- Heal It with Blood: Jeremy and Alysa regain health by absorbing blood (which they suck in through the air like a red mist), fitting for a dhampyr and a vampire.
- Hidden Villain: The game doesn't seem to have a villain for most of the first half - sure, there's Blood Fox, but she's eliminated more than halfway through and not brought up again - but late into the last stages, Jeremy and Alysa uncovers a plot from the Paladin to kill millions to enforce the church's controls over the population. With the last stage revolving around their efforts to ensure the plan doesn't happen.
- Humans Are the Real Monsters: In a game filled with undead and demons, the real threat to humanity's existance is the leader of the Church, the Paladin, who covets the Blood Seal in order to wipe out entire populations to enforce the Church's controls over the public. He's also the game's True Final Boss confronted at the final stage.
- Ironic Echo: This line Alysa gives Jeremy halfway through, which Jeremy delivers back in the final cutscene:"You're always getting soft."
- Light Is Not Good: The Paladin who leads the church is clad in silver armor, wields a blade radiating with holy energy, is worshipped by all the land and is planning a mass extermination plan that could wipe out millions of lives, so the survivors can seek refuge within the church.
- Literal Maneater: The succubi feeds on men, and have slain hundreds of unfortunate knights and hunters by seducing them before feasting on their flesh.
- Mercy Kill: In more than one area, Jeremy and Alyssa can come across impaled townsfolk or guards, skewered on stakes by monsters but somehow still alive. And they can put them out of misery by absorbing their blood, killing them while gaining a health boost in the process.
- Multishot: Unfortunately, Alysa couldn't do this despite being armed with her trusty crossbow (though she can fire at rapid speed) but there are enemy archers who fires three arrows per shot.
- Protection Mission: One stage have Jeremy and Alysa escorting their new ally, Roya the nun, who's drawing blood from dying vampires. Roya warns that the scent of their blood will attract monsters, and sure enough Jeremy and Alysa must fend off a wave of flying imps coming out of nowhere. Should Roya die, it's back to the mission's beginning.
- Samus Is a Girl: The "Lord" of Pikehold Castle, which Jeremy and Alysa found out during a meeting with "his" knights.Jeremy: When did you say your lord will arrive?
Knight: No more lord... a LADY now!
Succubi: [revealing herself to be the lord they're waiting for] And another sweet male to devour! - Shield-Bearing Mook: Some of the Paladin's soldiers carries shields adorned with crosses in combat, and have higher defenses compared to other humanoid enemies.
- Succubi and Incubi: The boss of Pikehold Castle is a sultry succubi who preys on men, tricking them with her charms before devouring them. She attempts this trick on Jeremy, but it doesn't work thanks to Alysa being bound to him leading to the boss fight.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Expectedly, since the main characters are a Vampire Hunter and a Friendly Neighborhood Vampire. But gradually Jeremy and Alysa warms up to each other.
- Tempting Fate: A cutscene near the game's end has two of the Paladin's knights talking about how "no vampires could breach the church alive". Cue Jeremy and Alysa breaching.
- Our Werebeasts Are Different: The werewolves who serves as recurring enemies in the forest areas are feral, savage and mostly mindless, attacking everything in sight. They serve as lackeys to the stage's boss, Blood Fox.
- Vampire Hunter: Jeremy starts off as one of these, until he had the vampire, Alysa, bound to himself in the prologue.
