Okay, time for an honest look at your childhood: the PlayStation 3 era wasn’t really that good. Apart from a couple of classics like The Last of Us, Bayonetta and Dark Souls, as well as many unpolished gems like inFamous and so on, there were hundreds of mediocre or straight out bad games, maybe more than any other gaming decade. Was Venetica one of those pieces of junk? Well, Deck13’s ARPG is basically a subpar b-movie-esque version of Fable by Lionhead Studios, and that’s saying a lot about what to expect from it, as even Peter Molyneux’s overhyped creation wasn’t exactly that good either… but it still has a weird charm of its own. Following an older review of Venetica, here’s one more retrospective look into something that could have been so much more.
Venetica takes place in a fictionalised version of Renaissance-era Europe, with the main area amongst the few on offer being a fantasy version of Venice. The whole thing begins at a nearby mountain village, where Scarlett, the beautiful Lara Croft lookalike and protagonist of this tale, sees her love being butchered by a force of invaders. After a few minutes of corny dialogue where the audience is led to believe that she is a typical damsel in distress type of character, it’s a pleasant surprise to see her act as the exact opposite.
Scarlett turns out to be quite the feisty lass, throwing herself into the battlefield with nothing but a stick and her torn white dress. Her journey starts as a simple tale of vengeance, yet soon the heroine will find out that she is special, and the powers of necromancy she holds within her are the only thing that stand between the world and a bunch of evil fellows that… let’s say cheated their way into immortality.
If expecting a grand epic that will keep you glued to your seats you can keep waiting. This is a sword-and-sandals b-movie, one with a cartoony look, cartoony characters, and cheesy, cartoony writing, with a plot that is all over the place, world building that feels like a 10-year-old’s first attempt at fantasy writing, and villains of the twist-the-moustache-and-laugh-maniacally variety… which is actually one of the few aspects that is awesome, as long as you are into that kind of thing, of course. Some light role playing is available too, with Scarlett being able to choose between good and evil numerous times throughout this quest, something that affects the final ending. RPG afficionados won’t be impressed, but at least the path isn’t completely linear.
Narrative-driven this is not, as this 20- to 30-hours-long trek mainly revolves around two things: fighting stuff, and going from A to B, and from there to C, and then back to A again. The fighting part is straightforward, as one can either mash the attack button, or do it a bit more rhythmically to chain sword swings, deal higher damage, and stun-lock enemies. It’s so easy to do the latter that any semblance of challenge gets removed, and it’s only when dealing with more than one enemy where one must be a bit more careful. Even then, Scarlett can return from the dead as long as she has enough of a specific energy, which is fairly easy to replenish. There’s a plethora of combat abilities that she can learn after gaining enough skill points, but the game sort of fails to provide the necessary incentive to use most of these. In fact, this is such a walk in the park that most will even forget to allocate their skill points after a level up.
Concerning the adventuring on offer, typical in RPGs, Venetica uses the errand boy (and girl) style of gameplay, and uses it badly. The first two hours or so are decent enough. Scarlett is given a task by an NPC, plus a general direction. She does what needs to be done, returns to the NPC and receives her measly reward. Nothing special about the process, nothing bad either. Then Venice is reached, and the pacing is officially dead. This hub world is mostly an empty place, with myriads of doors that can all be opened, but rarely lead to something of worth, and many, many NPCs are waiting for Scarlett to give her their boring, many times MMO-style side missions.
Even worse than boredom is how bad the journal is at noting down important info about quests, or how the tracking system that marks objectives either doesn’t work as intended or doesn’t work at all! There’s generally plenty to do after reaching Venice, and it’s nice that the whole thing is so open-ended. There are side missions aplenty, people to talk to, enemies to fight, guilds to join (each with their own quests and storyline), and so on and so forth. Too bad none of it is in the least bit exciting.
Long story short, Venetica isn’t that good. It’s a deeply flawed action-RPG that fails to be engaging with its storytelling, which is basically a corny b-movie-esque cartoon; it has forgettable action, since it is too easy and repetitive; and, finally, the adventuring portion is tedious and even annoying due to its errand boy-style running back and forth, and badly implemented journal. It has its charm, sure. It’s fairly good looking despite the many rough edges, and typical-for-its-time washed-out colours and overuse of bloom lighting; the dialogue is pleasantly bad (when it’s not sleep inducing) and many characters are quite colourful; plus its low challenge makes it a comfortable experience for those not exactly into more demanding titles – but all these are not enough to save it…
The biggest issue with it, as with many other bad games like it, is that it is easy to see how much better it could be with a little more care. The story is interesting but gets a backseat for most of the journey to the point that you forget what it is you are pursuing in the first place, the skills are numerous and varied, but there’s little use for them, and the world is enormous, but actually empty. The perfect example of how Venetica doesn’t take advantage of its systems is the ability that lets one “enter” the realm of the dead. Essentially, aside from a few key spots where this will be needed to find hidden portals, most players will forget that the skill even exists. If only the developer worked a bit more on this, it could easily be a nice low-budget, b-movie The Legend of Zelda.
