Nighthawks Review: Choices Matter | The Gamerheads Podcast

Platform reviewed: PC (Steam)

Price: $19.99

I didn’t realize how difficult being a vampire was until I played Nighthawks, a visual novel where I play as a newly created bloodsucker. It doesn’t help that vampires have been outed and are publicly known. This is the background of the game, and every decision I make influences how the story will play out.

This starts with creating my vampire’s background. I choose things like who my sire was and what my background was before becoming a vampire. All these decisions affect my vampiric powers and stats. I love a game where deep decisions help create the character I want to play, and Nighthawks didn’t disappoint.

The city I live in is a trial. One of the few places where vampires and humans live together. An experiment. But the petri dish is contaminated. Drug addicts, mob bosses, shady hospitals, and snake oil salespeople all run amok in this city. Being a newly created vampire, giving up my “human” life isn’t easy. And something that tied me to that life was stolen from me by the vassal of my vampire sire. I need to hunt him down and take back any semblance of my humanity. Even if it’s just a shred of my former existence.

I start to wander the streets, searching for clues as to the whereabouts of this fiend. I meet an unusual cast of characters: a vampire mob boss who runs the local nightclub, a vampiric boxer who teaches me a thing or two about fighting, and a doctor who works on vampires. All of these characters are voice acted (and well done at that), and the art really brings these characters to life. It’s almost like looking at an oil painting. It really adds to this gothic vibe that the game is going for.

Most of the decisions I make require the use of my skill set. The game indicates how successful I will be at using a skill. This is one area where I wish there was more transparency. While the game gives me a sense of my success rate, I would have liked to have seen a roll of the dice. Instead, I get the next set of text stating whether I was successful or not. This is anticlimactic as well. Getting into a fight just shows my character taking hits. Trying to suck blood shows my suspicion meter rising. A lot of it happens too fast and takes away a bit of the role-playing aspect for me.

Each power I use takes away from my stored pool of blood. I need to feed to restore this reserve. Feeding isn’t easy. It’s a lot of making decisions on who to talk to and using different skills to avoid suspicion. It seems like the game discourages using the same skill over and over, so I have to be more strategic. Here again, though, I wish there was more of a roll of the dice to decide the outcome.

Another thing that disappointed me was that the game didn't play well on a Steam Deck. I take my Steam Deck wherever I go, dropping off kids at dance lessons, waiting for my kids to be done with play rehearsals, sitting in the car waiting for volleyball practice to be done. Having the ability to play this game on the go would have been great. Unfortunately, it didn't work very well. I couldn't actually play the game on the Steam Deck because the controls didn't translate to the machine. Hopefully, that gets optimized in the future.

However, what did work well for the game was the narrative. The story is my favorite part of the game. As I explore more of the city, I run into more characters, each having their own motives. I can decide if I want to help these people or double-cross them. My decisions have weight, and the characters that I offend remember our encounters. I love a visual novel that is deep with branching decisions, where my choices matter. And they certainly matter in Nighthawks.

Final Grade: B+

Nighthawks is a fantastic mash-up of visual novel and role-playing. The choices that you make matter, including the creation of your vampire. I love the art style and the voice acting; both add to the immersive world that Nighthawks creates. I wish there was a dice-rolling mechanic when using my abilities. It would add to the tabletop aspect of the role-playing part of the game. But even without it, Nighthawks is a great game to play, especially during October.

Review code provided by Wadjet Eye Games