VED Review

I don’t hear about a lot of games coming out of Lithuania, so I approached VED with some curiosity as to what it might tackle. The developers, Karaclan, are a team of 3 brothers (and previously a sister), it is clear that VED is a clear labour of love as it has been in development for over 10 years with a heartfelt message in the credits themselves.

It is built as an expansive turn-based RPG with a branching storyline. The art style is 2D and hand drawn, most of the story plays out in an animated comic style. It has a rich range and adds extra depth to all the characters portrayed. The contrasting oranges and blues work well that it causes everything to pop.

The story centres on Cyrus a blind(?) man that has recently moved in with his aunt. There is a conflict in his city (Micropolis), with the working class being pressured by a corporation. There is a separate faction of people that believe in magic over science, and see Cyrus’s teleportation into another world as an indication that powers are returning. Meanwhile Cyrus’s traversal into this other realm has awakened a monster.

The combat is turn-based and relies on a puzzle element. Each monster that Cyrus encounters in the magic realm presents itself on 4 lanes that represent where Cyrus might be standing in relation to it, and will signal where they might be attacking. Cyrus can use a number of different skills to target different parts of the enemy (or defend himself) and move him across the lanes to try and avoid the attacks. It is a simple enough system that has depth to it as the player must figure out what will beat each of the monsters. Some require having their limbs removed, others need a specific spot targeted, and others will need to never have their core targeted while certain defences are active. It works, except for the fact that it is often unclear what the tactic is for fighting each of them and it can take several attempts to figure out what it is that does damage. This isn’t helped because I kept getting one-shotted by unexplained attacks. So, the system is enjoyable but flawed.

Sadly, the same can’t be said for the story itself. There are some parts that are missing in translation: things like ‘Bough and arrow’ used instead of ‘Bow and arrow’.  Those little localisation mishaps are dotted throughout the English text, but more confusing is some of the story telling. Some exchanges seem like there are missing explanations, people jump to conclusions without proper explanations or build ups to those lines.  

The majority of VED was played on the ROG Ally. It ran well, the turn-based game and small-scale battles make it perfect for short trips. Some of the text is small, so if you have trouble with your sight be prepared to use glasses. Honestly, the game’s format on the Ally is one the strong recommendations for playing this. That said – this game will not appear in the Xbox game app – you will need to go through a couple of steps to install it there.

ROG Ally corner

I think one of my big problems is that I found Cyrus a deeply unlikable character. He wants to both sides any politics discussions, the only woman he has any real affection for is his aunt, and his weird ‘too cool for school’ approach reminds me of the worst JRPG characters. When he meets a woman for the first time, he asks her what colour her hair is (because he is blind). If you choose to not pursue her – this is the first time he meets her and they barely exchange more than a few sentences – Cyrus reasons that he needs to get a job and be more valuable, the kind that she would want to introduce her parents. If the goal was to make Cyrus a embarrassing PUA-influenced dweeb, then mission-accomplished.

It could have at least shared some more DNA with the dweeb protagonists of Final Fantasy (which seems the closest parallels) and have Cyrus grow a little. Apart from getting his eyesight back, Cyrus is basically the same by the end despite big revelations.

I am not enjoying ragging on VED because there are good things here, but the more I look back on this game, all that persists is Cyrus.

Conclusion

VED has a strong combat system, but its story doesn’t hold the rest of the components together, which is a fundamental flaw for a game so focused on it.