Thank you Haemimont Games for sending us this game to review!

Victor Vran is a monster hunter who has been summoned by his friend to come to the town of Zagoravia which has become overrun by demons.  Many monster hunters have come before Victor and sadly, most of them lie dead in various catacombs, caves, and dungeons.  Victor senses that this is a trap, and upon his arrival, he hears the voice of a demon both taunting and guiding him along his journey.

The narrator is rather humorous and some of his comments made me groan while others made me laugh out loud. When I was surrounded by monsters and drastically losing my health, I made a "strategic retreat" while the narrator started singing Brave Sir Victor Ran Away.  Even if the hordes of monsters get tiring in this dungeon crawling action RPG, you can count on some good humor to keep it interesting.   

Besides the standard fare of slicing apart giant spiders,  skeletons, and elemental spheres, there are optional goals that pay out generous gold, experience, and items when completed.  A star is given  for each goal that has been completed on a level.  If you're not happy with the results, you can always try again.  In fact, you may want to anyway to scrounge up enough gold for the better equipment on sale at the queen's castle.  Like many hack and slash games, there's always a better weapon just around the corner.

Along with weapons, Victor can equip armor with various abilities and cards that can boost stats. Since Victor made a pact with a demonic being as part of his back story, he can use demon powers which are both  obtainable and changeable.   The ability to call down a firestorm, a healing aura, or throw a massively huge boomerang is cool, but it makes me wonder what price he paid for such abilities.  This ability  could be what keeps in him alive in the end. 

There is plenty of weapon variety including hammers, swords, rapiers, pistols, lightning guns and many more depending on the class chosen.  I went with a hunter build which is more balanced and stronger in dire circumstances.  The cavalier class is a caster that accumulates the demon power ability over time and not through attacks.  The vigilante class powers up the demon ability by critical hits only.  Critical hits are vital for keeping the enemies down permanently.  Victor can't just kill a monster, he has to "overkill" them with a critical or powerful attack.

The ability to use attacks and consumables, like health potions and bombs require a recharge time before you can use them again.  Not being able to chug health potions is tricky when swarmed by monsters and bosses, but there often are healing statues and shrines near difficult areas.  If you want an added challenge you can play the game on the harder difficulty or add hexes to yourself to add challenges like giving the enemies regeneration abilities or randomly taking damage.  

 If you want to make the game a little easier you can invite someone to join you!  Up to four players can play cooperatively.  Player versus player (PvP) arenas will also unlock later in the game.  There is also a bottomless pit that becomes available when the player reaches level thirty six to add onto the otherwise short single-player experience.  If someone is not interested in completing side quests, the main storyline can be completed in around six hours.  

Victor Vran packs a lot of punch for the twenty dollar asking price.  If you buy it in a two or four pack it costs even less.  While the game is very well polished and fun, it's not without objectionable content worth mentioning.  Like many hack n' slash dungeon crawlers there is some violence and gore.  When smashing apart skeletons, their bones went flying and squishing spiders often ended up in a green substance spraying out of them.  There is a lot of dark magic and demon abilities that can be used by Victor.  Many of the beautifully detailed levels have pentagrams placed in them.  Last but not least, there is some minor language.  If those issues don't bother you and you like action RPGs like Diablo and Torchlight, Victor Vran is worth checking out.