RECKONING OF NEW YORK is the third installment of the visual novel series begun by COTERIES OF NEW YORK and SHADOWS OF NEW YORK. Visual novels are essentially stories similar to Telltale’s games but often have even less variation and choice. The point is to tell a story where the player has a feeling of participation but the focus is almost entirely on the writing. This series is part of the VAMPIRE: THE MASQUERADE gameline that is the setting for the World of Darkness RPG setting.
The premise of the Of New York games is that you are a vampire in New York. Fair enough. Specifically, you are a very young vampire that has very little power in the complicated politics of the Camarilla (The Vampire Mafia). Each game has the protagonist struggle to navigate the ups ad downs of “Kindred” society in order to see if they can rise higher and at what cost. Sometimes they find out that their choices are no choices at all. All of the games have a shared cast as well as setting in the modern world.
Reckoning of New York stars a new protagonist from the previous two games, Kali. She is a Ravnos, who are a clan of wanderers as well as grifters. Her sire has abandoned her and, worse, left a mountain of evidence that implicates her in a variety of crimes that will guarantee her final death. Kali has a week to find her sire and deliver him back over to the Camarilla or she will be put to death. Teaming up with an eccentric Clanless named Padraic. The two of them must track down the blood trade and underground market in occult objects to interrogate its leaders.
A cool element is that it consists of two separate campaigns that are perspective switches. The first campaign is Kali’s and the the next is following Padraic’s on the same happening with a bunch of knowledge that the player didn’t possess earlier. It’s an interesting literary technique that highlights how all Kindred are liars and how deep their political games are. I was overall satisfied with Reckoning of New York’s story and was glad that there were multiple endings in the Padraic route.
It’s important to keep your expectations for Reckoning of New York within reason. It’s very much like reading an illustrated book and while you can choose to do certain things, there is mostly a linear story from Point A to Point B. Still, I absolutely love the art for the game and it is a well-written story. I suspect some people will find Kali annoying but I found her quite charming. I also enjoyed her relationship to Padraic. Romance was completely absent from the previous games but our protagonists have a slow build that works well.
In conclusion, Reckoning of New York is a fun visual novel and probably the best of the three, though I’d argue the second game has the best protagonist. The visual novel wraps up most of the story beats from the trilogy and has quite a few fascinating twists. If they ever make a fourth game, I hope they move to another city like Chicago but I still feel this has been a really fun set of stories.
