Venetica, an RPG from Deck13

[Hümmelgümpf]

To sum the review up:
A good light-RPG. Good presentation of story and characters. Interesting quests. Lovely design. Some bugs.

Does the review mention any optional areas to explore? Shifting between two worlds is what caught my attention, and I really want this game to be a Soul Reaver with stats.

 

[Siannah]

Playing the german version for a week now. It has some flaws, which makes it a love/hate-relationship for me, but is definitely worth checking out. Beware though, it's a light action-RPG with more action than RPG.

The world isn't really open. The first part you'll run through defined paths like in Jade Empire. However, once you reach Venice it won't matter anymore since you'll be running around the city's separated quarters, which you have to "unlock" through advancement of the main story. It's actually a rather clever way to overcome the limitation of your movement.

Story. This is what keeps me getting back to it and where they put in their heartblood and their wits. In the end it's still defeat-the-evil-overlord-and-his-goons but playing as death's daughter and the whole setting adds enough twist to it, to make and keep it interesting.

Hidden treasures / optional areas. Finally someone picked up the good old shovel and put it to use. Yes, there are treasuremaps you'll have/can dig up. There are also some optional areas to explore, but they come mostly as quest related to one of the 3 guilds you could join. Since you can only join one per playthrough and aren't big, I wouldn't count optional areas.

Sound is very good. Enough variations, fitting the situation, not intrusive or getting on your nerves.

Graphics/Design. Good or very good, certainly not state-of-the-art but nothing shoddy.

Lockpicking. Simple, too simple for my taste. No jammed locks, no challenge, just remember the (up to 8) different combinations shown. Get's old fast.

The bad parts.
- Performance issues. Even with top notch equipment, you'll run into it. It's far from becoming unplayable, but it can get on your nerves.

- The battlesystem. It's actually easy to beat your standard opponents quickly, but there are some unfair parts in the game where you'd wish it to be a bit more flexible or a bit more RPG and less action. Targeting one specific enemy from the 3 heading towards you, is near impossible. Sure, mostly it also isn't necessary, but the whole system isn't a strong point of the game.

- Bugs. Plenty of them. (Almost) nothing you can't overcome and not another Gothic 3 disaster, but it does have it's share. I'm about half-way through and encountered 1 which breaks the plot, preventing you from advancing.
Now keep in mind that the international and the console versions are still to be announced. So I'd guess most if not all of them might getting fixed 'till then.

Overall it's mindblowing and heartbreaking at the same time. Mindblowing what they came up with for their first RPG (Deck 13 is more known for their adventure games like Jack Keane, Ankh series) and giving them room to improve. Still, it's heartbreaking if you consider what they could have made. You'll stumble over so many parts where you think "why didn't they....".

In the end it's a solid game that (once the bugs are ironed out) I would give a 7.5 on a scale of 1 to 10. The sad part is, it could have been easily a 9.

 

[racofer]

What a cool looking game.

Anyway, alot of games keep coming out of Germany, and due to them being from Germany, we simply don't get much information or coverage from the "conventional sites".

So what do the Germans here think of it?

EEEEEWWWWWWWWW LOOK AT THOSE SHARP SHADOWS WERE IS SHADOW SMOOTHINENING EH THIS GAEM LUKS OLDGEN

 

[Phelot]

snip

Nice review.

Are there any stats or skills and are they any good? You said it's RPG light so I'm guessing they're lame if they exist at all?

How is the dialogue?

 

[Siannah]

Nice review.

Are there any stats or skills and are they any good? You said it's RPG light so I'm guessing they're lame if they exist at all?

How is the dialogue?

4 stats, basically hitpoints, mana aka energypool, melee damage and magical damage.

There are two skillsets, bodyskills for all weapons and ghostskills for all... let's call it magical... abilities.

Each meleeweapon gets a small skilltree which looks about like this: 1 for more combo options, 1 for parry and 3 actuall skills.
However, you'll need all weapons sooner or later (at least to a degree), so you won't pump skills on one and forget about all others.
For example, you start with a standard blade and soon get the moonblade which you'll need to fill your "cheat death" bar. However, as soon as you enter the catacombs under Venice (which you'll do on a regularly basis) both won't do you any good against certain enemies - you'll need one of the big twohanders.

While this may seem as not much, the magical abilities look even worse. While damaging abilities are available, the whole tree takes a lot more the supportive approach.

For both skillsets you'll need to advance to a certain point in the game to actually make parts of it accessible. Especially for the magical ones, this really limits your playstyle. To be honest, I highly doubt that it would be possible getting through the game with the concept of a mage or a battlemage in mind.

The dialogs are another two sided blade.... the dialog with quest or important NPCs is well done, with two or three different options on how you can react (and possible different outcome) and great voiceacting. The behavior of random NPCs on the other hand is far from reaching Oblivion-status, with only about 2 sentences that they give from them as you pass by - you can imagine how quick you want to leave that room with 3 random NPCs, each saying "hmmm... looks good" over and over again.

There's a german video-test available you might still find interesting. At 1:15 you'll see the first introduction on the "cheat death" ability, at 3:15 the different effect of weapons I mentioned. On 5:22 the ghost skillset, and from 7:00 to the end different bossfights.

 

[thesheeep]

hmmm... looks good.

 

[Luzur]

girls didnt wear pants during the Renaissance.

 

[thesheeep]

Daughters of the death did.

 

[SCO]

Were they stoned for being outside the red light district though?

 

[The Wizard]

i thought we abandoned realism at the time the main character was DEATHS FUCKING DAUGHTER, you morons.

 

[MetalCraze]

And now tell me what this bloomy shit has to do with RPGs?

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

You know, I really miss the nazi Skyway pic. Where is it?

 

[Wyrmlord]

And now tell me what this bloomy shit has to do with RPGs?

Somebody already did.

Nice review.

Are there any stats or skills and are they any good? You said it's RPG light so I'm guessing they're lame if they exist at all?

How is the dialogue?

4 stats, basically hitpoints, mana aka energypool, melee damage and magical damage.

There are two skillsets, bodyskills for all weapons and ghostskills for all... let's call it magical... abilities.

Each meleeweapon gets a small skilltree which looks about like this: 1 for more combo options, 1 for parry and 3 actuall skills.
However, you'll need all weapons sooner or later (at least to a degree), so you won't pump skills on one and forget about all others.
For example, you start with a standard blade and soon get the moonblade which you'll need to fill your "cheat death" bar. However, as soon as you enter the catacombs under Venice (which you'll do on a regularly basis) both won't do you any good against certain enemies - you'll need one of the big twohanders.

While this may seem as not much, the magical abilities look even worse. While damaging abilities are available, the whole tree takes a lot more the supportive approach.

For both skillsets you'll need to advance to a certain point in the game to actually make parts of it accessible. Especially for the magical ones, this really limits your playstyle. To be honest, I highly doubt that it would be possible getting through the game with the concept of a mage or a battlemage in mind.

The dialogs are another two sided blade.... the dialog with quest or important NPCs is well done, with two or three different options on how you can react (and possible different outcome) and great voiceacting. The behavior of random NPCs on the other hand is far from reaching Oblivion-status, with only about 2 sentences that they give from them as you pass by - you can imagine how quick you want to leave that room with 3 random NPCs, each saying "hmmm... looks good" over and over again.

There's a german video-test available you might still find interesting. At 1:15 you'll see the first introduction on the "cheat death" ability, at 3:15 the different effect of weapons I mentioned. On 5:22 the ghost skillset, and from 7:00 to the end different bossfights.

 

[MetalCraze]

Where? All I see is a yet another shitty console slasher (or how next-gen codexers prefer to call it - "RPG-lite") with GoW-like unlockables (which next-gen codexers call "skills" for some reason). You even have special bars to fill.

 

[Dickweed]

Where? All I see is a yet another shitty console slasher (or how next-gen codexers prefer to call it - "RPG-lite") with GoW-like unlockables (which next-gen codexers call "skills" for some reason). You even have special bars to fill.

YOU TELL EM SKYWAY. EVERY NEW GAME IS SHIT ESPECIALLY THE ONES YOU KNOW NOTHING ABOUT.

 

[SCO]

i thought we abandoned realism at the time the main character was DEATHS FUCKING DAUGHTER, you morons.

Oh fuck off (just read Ash by Mary Gentle).

 

[circ]

Where? All I see is a yet another shitty console slasher (or how next-gen codexers prefer to call it - "RPG-lite") with GoW-like unlockables (which next-gen codexers call "skills" for some reason). You even have special bars to fill.

YOU TELL EM SKYWAY. EVERY NEW GAME IS SHIT ESPECIALLY THE ONES YOU KNOW NOTHING ABOUT.

I thought the review gave a pretty good indication what it's like.

 

[Dickweed]

Where? All I see is a yet another shitty console slasher (or how next-gen codexers prefer to call it - "RPG-lite") with GoW-like unlockables (which next-gen codexers call "skills" for some reason). You even have special bars to fill.

YOU TELL EM SKYWAY. EVERY NEW GAME IS SHIT ESPECIALLY THE ONES YOU KNOW NOTHING ABOUT.

I thought the review gave a pretty good indication what it's like.

COOL PEOPLE LIKE SKYWAY DON'T READ REVIEWS BECAUSE REVIEWS ARE ALL BULLSHIT REVIEWERS NOWADAYS DON'T CARE ANYTHING BUT GRAPHICS SKYWAY CAN TELL A GAME IS SHIT FROM A SCREENSHOT

 

[HiddenX]

Venetica has been released at Steam today.

 

[Minttunator]

I recall this was on Greenlight a year or two ago - personally, I acquired it through other means, gave it a try and I really don't believe it's worth whatever money they're asking on Steam right now. I remember thinking that it was just a mediocre console port of a generic, underwhelming action game. It wasn't exactly terrible, just... meh.

 

[Infinitron]

Venetica has been released at Steam today.

Hey, go necro newsposts on RPG Watch

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/venetica.36048/

 

[HiddenX]

I don't have to necro RPGWatch newsbits, because Couch already has a new newsbit for this.

(BTW: re-releasing a game after 6 years on Steam is kind of a necro, too)

I recall this was on Greenlight a year or two ago - personally, I acquired it through other means, gave it a try and I really don't believe it's worth whatever money they're asking on Steam right now. I remember thinking that it was just a mediocre console port of a generic, underwhelming action game. It wasn't exactly terrible, just... meh.

I disagree - this Action Adventure CRPG is entertaining and fun.
I agree more with JarlFrank's review conclusion.

 

[DramaticPopcorn]

lol @ first page of this thread

 

[A horse of course]

"Achievement unlocked: killed a negro"

Is that caption really necessary? I'm surprised the editors allow this quasi-racist stuff to slip by. I thought you kept the hate isolated to the (cesspool) General Discussion forum.

Having this stuff in your feature articles is really bad form.

Why didn't you cunts LISTEN to this man when you had the chance?!?!

 

[Angthoron]

So is this game worth playing or something?