Vaporum

Genre: First-Person Action-RPG

Players: 1

.

Review:

Vaporum is a First-Person RPG that’s kinda’ an evolution of the old first-person maze games of yore, with movement being on a grid, with movement strictly limited to four directions and turning. Throw in some real-time first-person perspective combat and occasional puzzles, and you have an idea what to expect as far as gameplay here.

However, it’s the presentation of this game that’s really special. Vaporum uses a steampunk aesthetic that’s reminiscent of the Bioshock games, even including the “amnesiac exploring a strange structure in the middle of the ocean” plot device. While it seems suspiciously similar, it is nonetheless a relatively untapped genre, and it’s refreshingly original for an RPG.

It’s not just the choice of theme and aesthetic that’s impressive here, though. Visually this game looks very good, with well-crafted, detailed (albeit a bit repetitive) environments and enemies, as well as well-acted voice logs strewn about to help with world-building and to tell the game’s backstory.

Really, if I had to pick a weak element here, it would be the gameplay itself. As is standard in this genre, movement is fairly stiff, but this is compounded by a need to hold down a button to move a cursor over the screen to look for hot spots when looting or solving puzzles. As a replacement for a mouse cursor this is less than ideal, and I wish the game’s creators had considered using motion controls for the cursor. What’s more, I found the combat in the game to be repetitive and a bit rudimentary, and the samey-ness of the game’s corridors makes exploration a bit lacking too.

Still, despite its flaws, Vaporum does a good job of giving us a unique spin on an old subgenre of RPG, and fans of steampunk or old-school first-person RPGs will both find something to like here.

tl;dr – Vaporum is a First-Person tile-based RPG with a great steampunk theme and a surprisingly good presentation. It’s a bit repetitive, with simplistic combat, but fans of steampunk and this style of RPG will find a lot to like here.

Grade: B

^{You can support eShopperReviews on Patreon! Please click HERE to become a Sponsor!}