As a seasoned gamer with over two decades of gaming under my belt, I’ve played games that range from the sublime to the ridiculous, and VED falls squarely into the latter category. While it presents an intriguing concept and a unique combat system, its execution leaves much to be desired.
The game titled VED, created by developer Karaclan and publisher Fulqrum Publishing, offers an unusual gaming experience, particularly in its combat system. While it presents a distinctive gaming encounter, especially in that aspect, it is let down by some poorly written dialogue and voice-overs that can be quite distracting.
In this game, you take on the role of Cyrus, a young man thrust into a multi-dimensional journey. He finds himself drifting among floating islands in a mysterious and ominous void. The game will occasionally transport you between these worlds and Cyrus’ world, immersing you in different plots as you travel back and forth. Despite being marketed as story-centric, VED struggles with awkward dialogue, weak delivery, and a protagonist that I found hard to connect with or even support. Cyrus comes off as excessively gloomy, a typical “chosen one” who either snarks unnecessarily or wallows in misery. During conversations, you get glimpses of his inner thoughts or roll a fictional dice to see if you pass skill checks based on his abilities.
The narrative seems to lack clarity and cohesion, starting abruptly in the midst of events and transitioning abruptly to Cyrus’s storyline without a smooth connection. When he encounters an enigmatic girl who’s searching for his lost neighbor, followed by a sudden shift into a peculiar otherworld, it all feels disjointed and hard to follow. I found it challenging to become invested in any part of the tale, particularly Cyrus’s character.
What did get my attention beyond the hand-drawn art, which is pretty enough without being mind-blowing, was the combat. It’s an interesting take on turn-based battling with an unusual narrative integration that sees you rolling the dice to determine whether certain special skills or gambits work in your favour. For example in the opening fight you’ll need to do battle with a powerful swordsman, and will be able to choose to either catch his sword or roll under a table for protection, which you can fail or succeed in doing, with differing consequences.
In most cases, before a fight starts, you have the option to apply a self-imposed debuff that boosts the energy you earn upon victory. You may opt to speed up your opponents or decrease your own damage output, or use debuff spells from your equipment on them to even out the battle. After making your choice, you’ll then select your attacks, with their success rates displayed on-screen, and continue attacking until you run out of energy. At times, you might need to disable limbs or disarm your adversary, while certain enemies can summon allies or attack repeatedly.
I have to praise some of the monster artwork, too. VED really makes use of colour and lighting to make its mostly still images look vivid and vital, and while a lot of the human models are decidedly unattractive by design, the monsters are often stunning. As you progress from encounter to encounter you’ll meet NPCs that will help or hinder you, but again the writing leaves a little to be desired. I did enjoy building up the weird little troll village that allows you to learn new skills and influence the story, even if it did feel a bit oddly ancillary.
VED is more of an average game than exceptional, struggling to fully realize its potential. The fight mechanics have some interesting concepts, yet collectively, they don’t deliver a truly memorable experience.
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2024-11-28 14:16