It doesn't ruin the game by any means but it definitely leaves you with the nagging feeling that Vampire Smile didn't quite live up to its incredible potential.The cooperative option is one of the game's strongest selling points because you can play through the entire game as one character with a friend who controls the other. With this I would've liked the constant combat to get broken up with a little puzzle solving or platforming, but instead you literally fight waves of enemies, find the key, fight more bad guys, kill the boss and repeat in the next chapter. You can run up walls, phase through doors, and even fly if you spam the dodge button enough. It's a welcome change of pace that keeps you engaged for the most part, but I feel it's an idea that could've been explored better.Controlling each of the characters is easy and intuitive. You'll be fighting a horde of enemies only to flash back to Yuki in a mental hospital.
As a whole the story is pretty nonsensical, but Yuki's story is made a little more interesting because of her continuous mental struggle. Then you'll proceed to the next area, repeat, move on to a boss and the entire cycle starts over again. For the most part both of the campaigns have you exploring the environments where you'll get locked in a room until you defeat every enemy in there, which then unlocks the doors. They let you regenerate health in combat, lower enemies' blocking capabilities, increase your resistance to rockets or blades, and many, many more.Despite the game's robust combat system and level of ability customization, Vampire Smile suffers from quite a bit of repetition. On top of that there's also a collection of beads hidden throughout the levels or awarded when you defeat bosses that augment your abilities. Both the Dishwasher and his stepsister have three different talents but they act mostly the same a magic ability strikes every enemy in the arena, another you have to aim at a group of enemies, etc.
The weapons act very different from one another, some are fast but deal little damage, some are strong and slow but they can strike multiple enemies, and there are some ranged weapons as well.To enhance the combat there are also quite a few combos you can use to unleash a wave of pain against any unsuspecting foes, as well as an armament of magical powers to strike many enemies on (or off) the screen at once. Both characters have a unique arsenal of weapons, some of which are pretty inventive, like the Dishwasher's massive shears (right out of Clock Tower) or Yuki's intimidating large syringe.
The blood, guts and severed limbs have only been cranked up while the frustrating difficulty has been drastically lowered (that is, unless you choose a higher difficulty setting).There are two playable characters: the Dishwasher from the first game and his vampiric stepsister Yuki that each come with their own separate campaigns. If the gore in Dead Samurai wasn't your thing than this might not be your cup-of-tea either. With Vampire Smile, however, designer James Silva has taken into consideration the reviews its predecessor received to create one of the most well designed 2-D action games I've played on Xbox Live.Vampire Smile retains much of the original games aesthetic: it's black and white, and has a fair share of badass bosses and visceral combat to look forward to. It looked and played great but the game was also on par with Ninja Gaiden in how unforgiving it was, and that ended up turning off some gamers, including myself, that otherwise might've been interested in it. Dead Samurai was a flawed but interesting concept for a violent 2-D beat 'em up.
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