I've seen this game dismissed as "anime Dark Souls" more than once, but having tried it out, I'm not sure I agree. First, because it's much more anime Bloodborne, come on, and second, speaking as someone who's never touched God Eater and cannot comment on that series at all, Code Vein represents the single most accessible Dark Souls clone I've ever encountered, both in terms of gameplay and narrative.
Gameplay-wise, setting aside the clunky tutorial that starts proceedings off, it avoids many of the pitfalls of the From-patterned game by altering the upgrade system. Now, while "character level" still scales up in price with each purchase, a character's actual stats are more a function of their equipped-and-swappable "Blood Code," a class-equivalent that filters that level into actual stats, different for each class.
Blood Codes also offer "gifts," special abilities that can be mastered so that they can be used with any Code, and effectively serve as replacements to both spellcasting and Weapon Arts, both of them using "Ichor" as a resource pool. New gifts can be purchased for a flat fee that does not scale up with additional purchases, and unlocked by properly exploring stages. And while weapon and armor upgrading is still a bit... opportunity-cost heavy, at least upgrade materials are relatively plentiful, and pre-upgraded weapons are often found as treasure at several key chokepoints.
Additionally, Ichor is an overall superior replacement to every resource system From has ever used. Basic attacks restore it over time, according to the "drain rating" of different weapons, the starting pool varies with Code, and the maximum can be increased with various special attacks, including backstabs, that also restore huge chunks each time.
And the story and characters are themselves significantly more straightforward than the usual From method. While not all of them are particularly deep, they all have very human drama that the player is able to understand, and the situations they find themselves in are much more understandable from very early on. You don't necessarily have to read the liner notes on a bunch of items to get the basic ideas across, is what I'm getting at.
Finally, even the level design is a bit easier to get a grasp on. Dark Souls's skeleton wheels are rightly infamous for their ability to shred a player's health, while the Code Vein equivalents are merely annoying, dealing a lot of knockback without a lot of damage, just as an example. Difficult terrain's additional effects don't also tend to include damage. And while From's games typically restrict friendly aid to online play and boss fights, you can bring along friendly companions throughout Code Vein, who will helpfully point out hidden shortcuts and ambushes, heal you when you're knocked out by a cheap hit (at the cost of their own health mind), and generally prevent you getting ganged up on too hard, though they start to fall off later on.
All of that said, is it better than most From titles? Honestly, no. Combat feels floatier, with less of the chunky, satisfying sense of weight and impact that characterizes From's work. Backstabs and hitboxes are just as picky and fussy as ever, and like post-Dark Souls games in the genre, there're no real items to alleviate having to slog through hazardous terrain that deals damage or slows the player down to a sluggish crawl. And enemy variety is much lower overall. While most zones have some unique foes, there're never more than three tops... and many of those get repeated later on.
Healing items are doled out at a more-miserly rate in terms of usage, potency, quantity, and, hurtfully, speed. In From titles, it doesn't take nearly as long to use a healing item, and you can often line up more than one use once the initial animation is over, such that you are unlikely to end a boss fight without emptying unless you don't want to commit. In Code Vein, you probably will because healing takes a long time, isn't very effective for most of the game, and bosses tend to rush you whenever you try, especially since you can't heal more than once before going through the whole animation again.
Plus while the storytelling being more straightforward means it's much easier to understand, it loses some of that rich, mythic quality From infuses its games with. When I play a From title, I feel like I'm hearing the mythology of a people or a philosophy alient to my own; not necessarily something I agree with but something worth listening to. And while Code Vein doesn't have a bad story, it ultimately isn't too different from other video game plots and characters.
That said, I appreciate a decent twist partway through that plays with genre expectations regarding the protagonist being a cypher, and the way it links together story and gameplay by literally upgrading characters' abilities through hunting down and viewing their lost memories. The Vestige Restoration sequences generally are surprisingly well-directed, with interesting architecture and blocking that rarely feels stagnant or too much like all the other such sequences, and generally serves to flesh out the other characters in interesting ways. And, like so many other reviewers, I also must praise the first major boss of the game, the character creator, despite its high difficulty.
Finally, we come to what I regard as the major actual barrier to the game's accessibility: it's... well, it's pretty anime-esque. The character designs tend towards the over-the-top and stylized, the cutscene action towards the aerial and flippy, the cutscene animations towards pose-to-pose, and the script (which is buoyed up by voice acting that's actually pretty good and capable of nuanced emotion and surprising subtlety when called for) towards the wordy and awkward, never using one word where ten will do, never saying once what can be said twice (or thrice!), and, worse, towards occasionally awkward expressions. Also, not to put too fine a point on it, just about all the ladies are some combination of scantily-clad and stacked like a snowfort, especially the female bosses.
I don't mind that much, any more than wrestling fans mind the occasional staged-looking spot, or gritty guns-and-growls gaming fans mind the silly speechifying and cliches there... but if you hate anime, this isn't going to be the game that changes your mind. That said, don't get it twisted; the cutscenes aren't so long you get board, and the jabbering isn't incoherent or hard to follow.
I do recommend Code Vein, both to those who have and haven't tried the genre before. It represents the best entry point I've yet found. It might not be better than the From titles, but it's still good, and my major actual warning is thus: in the immortal words of Ben Croshaw, "If you find the Japanese offensive, then you'll find this game offensively Japanese."
VideoGame Accessibility At Last! ...Depending On Japan Tolerance.
I've seen this game dismissed as "anime Dark Souls" more than once, but having tried it out, I'm not sure I agree. First, because it's much more anime Bloodborne, come on, and second, speaking as someone who's never touched God Eater and cannot comment on that series at all, Code Vein represents the single most accessible Dark Souls clone I've ever encountered, both in terms of gameplay and narrative.
Gameplay-wise, setting aside the clunky tutorial that starts proceedings off, it avoids many of the pitfalls of the From-patterned game by altering the upgrade system. Now, while "character level" still scales up in price with each purchase, a character's actual stats are more a function of their equipped-and-swappable "Blood Code," a class-equivalent that filters that level into actual stats, different for each class.
Blood Codes also offer "gifts," special abilities that can be mastered so that they can be used with any Code, and effectively serve as replacements to both spellcasting and Weapon Arts, both of them using "Ichor" as a resource pool. New gifts can be purchased for a flat fee that does not scale up with additional purchases, and unlocked by properly exploring stages. And while weapon and armor upgrading is still a bit... opportunity-cost heavy, at least upgrade materials are relatively plentiful, and pre-upgraded weapons are often found as treasure at several key chokepoints.
Additionally, Ichor is an overall superior replacement to every resource system From has ever used. Basic attacks restore it over time, according to the "drain rating" of different weapons, the starting pool varies with Code, and the maximum can be increased with various special attacks, including backstabs, that also restore huge chunks each time.
And the story and characters are themselves significantly more straightforward than the usual From method. While not all of them are particularly deep, they all have very human drama that the player is able to understand, and the situations they find themselves in are much more understandable from very early on. You don't necessarily have to read the liner notes on a bunch of items to get the basic ideas across, is what I'm getting at.
Finally, even the level design is a bit easier to get a grasp on. Dark Souls's skeleton wheels are rightly infamous for their ability to shred a player's health, while the Code Vein equivalents are merely annoying, dealing a lot of knockback without a lot of damage, just as an example. Difficult terrain's additional effects don't also tend to include damage. And while From's games typically restrict friendly aid to online play and boss fights, you can bring along friendly companions throughout Code Vein, who will helpfully point out hidden shortcuts and ambushes, heal you when you're knocked out by a cheap hit (at the cost of their own health mind), and generally prevent you getting ganged up on too hard, though they start to fall off later on.
All of that said, is it better than most From titles? Honestly, no. Combat feels floatier, with less of the chunky, satisfying sense of weight and impact that characterizes From's work. Backstabs and hitboxes are just as picky and fussy as ever, and like post-Dark Souls games in the genre, there're no real items to alleviate having to slog through hazardous terrain that deals damage or slows the player down to a sluggish crawl. And enemy variety is much lower overall. While most zones have some unique foes, there're never more than three tops... and many of those get repeated later on.
Healing items are doled out at a more-miserly rate in terms of usage, potency, quantity, and, hurtfully, speed. In From titles, it doesn't take nearly as long to use a healing item, and you can often line up more than one use once the initial animation is over, such that you are unlikely to end a boss fight without emptying unless you don't want to commit. In Code Vein, you probably will because healing takes a long time, isn't very effective for most of the game, and bosses tend to rush you whenever you try, especially since you can't heal more than once before going through the whole animation again.
Plus while the storytelling being more straightforward means it's much easier to understand, it loses some of that rich, mythic quality From infuses its games with. When I play a From title, I feel like I'm hearing the mythology of a people or a philosophy alient to my own; not necessarily something I agree with but something worth listening to. And while Code Vein doesn't have a bad story, it ultimately isn't too different from other video game plots and characters.
That said, I appreciate a decent twist partway through that plays with genre expectations regarding the protagonist being a cypher, and the way it links together story and gameplay by literally upgrading characters' abilities through hunting down and viewing their lost memories. The Vestige Restoration sequences generally are surprisingly well-directed, with interesting architecture and blocking that rarely feels stagnant or too much like all the other such sequences, and generally serves to flesh out the other characters in interesting ways. And, like so many other reviewers, I also must praise the first major boss of the game, the character creator, despite its high difficulty.
Finally, we come to what I regard as the major actual barrier to the game's accessibility: it's... well, it's pretty anime-esque. The character designs tend towards the over-the-top and stylized, the cutscene action towards the aerial and flippy, the cutscene animations towards pose-to-pose, and the script (which is buoyed up by voice acting that's actually pretty good and capable of nuanced emotion and surprising subtlety when called for) towards the wordy and awkward, never using one word where ten will do, never saying once what can be said twice (or thrice!), and, worse, towards occasionally awkward expressions. Also, not to put too fine a point on it, just about all the ladies are some combination of scantily-clad and stacked like a snowfort, especially the female bosses.
I don't mind that much, any more than wrestling fans mind the occasional staged-looking spot, or gritty guns-and-growls gaming fans mind the silly speechifying and cliches there... but if you hate anime, this isn't going to be the game that changes your mind. That said, don't get it twisted; the cutscenes aren't so long you get board, and the jabbering isn't incoherent or hard to follow.
I do recommend Code Vein, both to those who have and haven't tried the genre before. It represents the best entry point I've yet found. It might not be better than the From titles, but it's still good, and my major actual warning is thus: in the immortal words of Ben Croshaw, "If you find the Japanese offensive, then you'll find this game offensively Japanese."