There are plenty of reasons to dislike Venetica -- it doesn't look good, the framerate is choppy, character interactions are unintentionally humorous, the map is a total mess, the artificial intelligence is inconsistent at best, and the combat system is repetitive. Yet despite all these less-than-stellar qualities, I found myself having a good time messing around in the Southern coast of Italy as a girl named Scarlett. She's supposedly native to the region, but she speaks with a British accent. This is one of those games that falls under the "so bad it's sort of good" category.
Let's get this out of the way -- Venetica looks really terrible for a game at this point in the console generation. People walking by thought it was an XBLA/PSN title, and even then the blurry textures and stuttering framerate made people cringe. But great graphics don't equal a great game, or vice versa, and that's the case here.
This is one dorky title and it can get pretty melodramatic -- in the opening sequence Scarlett appears to fall off a bridge over a cliff, only for her to roll onto a house roof five feet underneath -- but I ended up appreciating the goofiness of it all.
Let's get this out of the way -- Venetica looks really terrible for a game at this point in the console generation. People walking by thought it was an XBLA/PSN title, and even then the blurry textures and stuttering framerate made people cringe. But great graphics don't equal a great game, or vice versa, and that's the case here.
This is one dorky title and it can get pretty melodramatic -- in the opening sequence Scarlett appears to fall off a bridge over a cliff, only for her to roll onto a house roof five feet underneath -- but I ended up appreciating the goofiness of it all.
The premise is also a little odd. You play as an orphan with no blood-related family who turns out to be Death's secret daughter. Except, you do have direct family: a half-brother named Leon that isn't really explained, just shoved into the situation. Also, when it's revealed that Death is Scarlett's father, she barely bats an eye. If I found out that information I'd be stunned, confused, and in denial. She accepts it in stride and never admits how strange the whole scenario is. I guess she's just better at coping than I am.
Still, Venetica is really about the relationship between the mortal world and the twilight world, and it's cleverly incorporated into the gameplay. There are certain enemies you can only kill if you switch to the twilight world, and you'll need to solve quests by using twilight powers you gain along your journey. For example, in most games, skeletons are scattered about for atmosphere. While the same is true in Venetica, as you progress through the game you can eventually interact with them, which is really cool. The way Venetica handles lock picking is also clever, and although it's essentially just a memory mini-game, it's skinned in an interesting manner.
Venetica's other saving grace is that the story is told in an interesting way. The game incorporates both morality and branching storylines, which may not be fully original features anymore but are still welcome additions. When you reach Venice there are three guilds you can choose to join, one that's focused on melee and technically the "dishonorable" choice, one that's based on necromancy and the "honorable" choice, and a third that's not associated with any morality or particular skill set. You can only choose one and based on your decision the story will unfold differently.
Throughout my time in Venice the worst thing I encountered was map inaccuracies. If you're someone who relies heavily on following a game for advice on where to go next, you'll end up really frustrated here. Just navigating the map in general is a pain, but at times the tracking dot will be in a completely wrong spot. For example, it showed that someone's house was in the middle of the Venetian waterways. Call me crazy, but I don't think anybody builds their house in the middle of a canal. After wandering around the outer city for a while I finally found the correct building -- on land -- but it took time and a lot of trial and error. I also had quest givers tell me the wrong place to go, or became frustrated because I didn't realize I lacked the proper twilight powers to complete a certain quest.
Despite these issues, this delightfully average role-playing game does offer plenty of quests; I clocked in a little less than 30 hours and still had a few quests I had yet to finish. Though they're standard fetch and puzzle quests, they're still fun to complete. The XP you receive levels Scarlett up and grants you points to increase her strength or mental prowess, as well as pick some new powers or melee moves.
Grippers, the most annoying mutant lobsters to ever exist.
Killing creatures and people is supposed to be an enjoyable element in a role-playing game, but the combat in Venetica is almost too straightforward. You can chain physical attacks with your melee weapon by properly timing your button presses, but it's just hitting the "X" button over and over. I know it might sound bizarre, but the relatively mindless combat system didn't really bother me until almost 25 hours in when I was continually being mobbed. When you get attacked by groups it's almost a guaranteed death sentence.
Thankfully, when you die in Venetica you don't always kick the bucket. As the daughter of Death you have some privileges, and one of those is the ability to resurrect yourself after getting struck down if you have enough twilight energy. The only way to charge up your twilight energy though is to use a specific weapon (the Moonblade), so the game basically discourages you from using other types of armaments, which is a bummer. The game also does a poor job of explaining that you can actually upgrade the Moonblade, so I almost went into the final boss battle with a weapon that only had 16 damage points. That's not very much.
You'll also use the d-pad and O button to assign twilight powers (magic attacks) or blocks. One thing I found irritating was that there are different "block" abilities for each individual weapon, so if you start using a hammer but equipped the sword block, you have to go back into the menu system and replace it with the hammer block skill. It's cumbersome, so I mostly rolled around on the floor to get away from enemies instead of blocking at all.
I think my favorite part of playing Venetica was seeing bugs -- swords are randomly hovering in the air with no owner and gondola oars can be found sticking straight up out of the water with no ship in sight. The AI pathing is pretty hilarious, too. A little boy offered to show me the way through the large city of Venice, but he kept turning around in circles and wandering off the correct pathway. Animations add to the humor, as people move stiffly and lip-synching is poor.
