VED review

VED, from developer Karaclan and Fulqrum Publishing, is a bit of a weird one. On the one hand it’s a very unique experience at least in terms of its combat, but on the other it suffers from some distractingly poor writing and voice acting.

You play as Cyrus, a young man tossed into a multidimensional adventure, who finds himself adrift on a network of floating islands in a dark and foreboding void. You’ll periodically zip between this world and Cyrus’ world, getting embroiled in various intrigues as you flit to and fro. While it pitches itself as story-driven, though, VED suffers from clumsy, stunted dialogue, poor delivery and a protagonist who I just couldn’t bring myself to like or even really root for. Cyrus is painfully dour, a generic “chosen one” who is either snarky for no reason or miserable instead. You often get his inner monologue when you make conversation choices for him, or roll a fictional D20 to see if you pass stat checks based on his abilities.

The story itself is also a bit of a confusing mess, beginning in the middle of things and then jumping to Cyrus in a way that doesn’t feel organic. When he then meets a strange girl looking for his missing neighbour, then in the next scene finds himself in a weird otherworld, it just feels really disjointed. I struggled to engage with any of it, least of all Cyrus.

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.

Choices aside, combat rounds often begin with you able to choose a debuff for yourself that increases the energy awarded for winning. You might make the enemies faster or reduce your damage, while you can also select equipped debuff spells to cast on the enemy to rebalance the fight. Either way, you’ll then select your attacks, with the percentage to hit shown onscreen, and beat the enemy until you’ve no energy left. Sometimes you’ll need to disable limbs or disarm the assailant, while some enemies can summon help or attack multiple times in a row.

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 isn’t a bad game, it’s just not a great, either, and never quite manages to find its stride. There’s a few good ideas in the combat, but on the whole it doesn’t quite do enough to leave a lasting impression.