Vampire: The Masquerade- Coteries of New York

Game cover image, featuring Sophie Langley.

Vampire: The Masquerade- Coteries of New York is a visual novel based on Vampire: The Masquerade, a roleplaying game by White Wolf, part of the World of Darkness. In the original game you play as vampires based on an elaborate rule book with courts, rules, and factions. It can be played in many ways from sitting around in a room with friends to full roleplay with costumes and acting. It has a cult following, there have even been some immersive experience LARPs (Live Action Role Plays) in actual castles. I have been interested in VTM since I first heard of it at about 14 or 15 years old but have never played. 

This game is co-written by Krzystof Zieba, one of the writers of the New York by Night game book, it is set after after the original game book and features some of the same characters. 

Playable characters: Brujah, Ventrue, Toreador

Players can choose one of three new vampires embraced (turned) without their permission by a rogue sire who then abandons them. Sophie Langley, a prominent member of the New York Vampire court steps in to save you and take you under her protection. She teaches you to hunt and points you to possible allies to form your coterie. The story takes place over about 16 nights, and you can choose which allies to make over that time period. There are four suggested friends and a couple of other side stories you can pursue. There will not be time to follow through all the stories, which encourages replay, but would have preferred to just do all the stories in one play through as replays involve a lot of unskippable repeat content. 

Tamika, Gangrel

I enjoyed the characters you meet. They all have different personalities and their looks are all unique too. The art looks like gouache paintings and there are many interesting scenes, often contrasting lushly decorated rooms with filthy alleyways. The soundtrack is good with eerie music and ambient sounds. You also get a bit of an idea what the different vampire clans are like. It is a good introduction to the world of VTM.

You are introduced to Toredor, Venture, Brujah, Thinblood, Malkvian, Nosferatu, Gangrel, and Tremere clans, who either belong to the Camarilla or Anarch movments. You may also learn about vampire hunters if you choose certain options.

Adelaide Davis, Malkavian, one of my favourite character designs

POSITIVES

This is a visual novel game so we get static images, not animation. The graphics are beautiful: painted backgrounds of rooms, interesting looking characters each with a unique look. There is an accompanying soundtrack too which helps set the scene.

A lot of terms are explained as you go with a glossary that you can refer back to as needed. You don't have to read a whole rule book first. 

The ally stories and side stories were very interesting although you were not able to play though all of them in one game. Some were longer than others so you might get 2-3 done in a game.

Sana, Thinblood

NEGATIVES

I did encounter a glitch when saving a couple of times, leaving me having to replay quite a bit of content which was frustrating, as I also ended up playing the game fully three times to see what differences the different character arcs made. It would be good if you could save at several points to replay from them instead of going back to the beginning, but I don't know if I was the only person who had this problem due to issues with saving.

There really isn't much plot difference between playable characters, one was a fussy eater but it did not matter that much. (Apparently if you put off eating too long you can go full "beast" which means losing all control, but even with the fussy eater this did not happen to me.) The differences between the playable characters are minimal, many even use the same text. They have a few different skills (some are better at persuasion, for example, others better at running away or using violence) but the outcomes of scenes usually seem the same. The opening scene and the scene where you must discourage your human contacts from searching for you are the only real differences. 

Torque, Anarch Baron

You could not finish all the story choices in one playthough and they provide the main interest of the game. There is time to play maybe 2-3 in one game depending on if you choose longer or shorter story arcs, and when you get near the end some may be left unfinished as you are pushed into the final plot arc. It feels like they hold stories back to make you replay but due to unskippable content that was the same every time, replaying could feel quite grinding. It would be good if you could skip the first 3-4 nights on replay as there is a lot of clicking through with no real choices once you have played it before.

I would have liked to learn more about sheriff and some of the other characters that were introduced. I felt like there was a while when you were building up a kind of relationship with the stern sheriff and he was revealing some of himself to you but the storyline never wraps up. Some people said the game felt rushed and unfinished, as if the developers ran out of time so didn't tie up all the storylines.

Qadir, Sheriff of New York

There is sometimes an annoying lack of choice, especially near the end of the game, you have less choices you can actually make or pursue and have to do as you are told. You are funnelled through mandatory scenes to a single end scene. This can feel very frustrating, particularly if you didn't get to wrap up all the other storylines.

The ending is the most disappointing part of this game. At many places, you can't really make real choices, there is only one possible ending and your choices throughout the game will not affect it. 

Agathon, Tremere

CONCLUSION

This would be an enjoyable game to play once and learn about the world of VTM, however the flaws made replayablity low. A choice of more than one ending would have helped greatly. It would also be good to be able to skip some of the early content such as nights 3-4 during replay which would have worked well if it was easier to save as you went in different save files. This may have been the intention, however I encountered some glitches and issues with saving. I am not sure if anyone else did. The art was beautiful. I am interested to play Shadows of New York (a stand-alone expansion with a different main character) and see if it is an improvement. It would also be good if it continues the storylines of some of the characters introduced in Coteries of New York. I would also be interested in one day attending an immersive VTM LARP.