Venetica - Gold Edition

Venetica is a difficult title. On the one hand, it has that great combination of simplicity of story and pleasing mechanics that make for a great aRPG, just like Kingdoms of Amalur. On the other hand, the implementation of the game is rushed, poorly balanced, poorly tested, and in some situtations downright infuriating. The RPG part of the game is decent. 3 different weapons (and for some reason a 4th that is just a copy) offer some variation in playstyle, and the basic talents available with levelups will enhance these and make them more satisfying. "Spell" talents are mostly useless but offer a more story-focused development. The basic combat is satisfying in many cases, though the lack of testing and refinement also results in multiple scenarios being highly frustrating, and often only solveable by cheesing or abusing flaws in the primitive "AI". The game initially hypes "twilight energy", a power source that seems intrinsic to the story and the character development, but after the initial hype it is never mentioned again, and serves only a single use with no regards to resource management or development. The story is incredibly simple and lacks any and all depth. This is fine by me, as I mostly played it for the mechanics and character development. The voiceovers are cringeworthy, but sometimes made me laugh. So, to sum it up. The ideas are good here, and if the game had received the time and resources needed it would have been a solid and well received title. As it is, I can only recommend it as a time-waste if you are desperate for a new aRPG (like I am).

Really interesting game with lot's of interesting gameplay mechanics, an interesting story and a not perfect but still good good/evil system. The main limit of this game is the lenght... too long for the actual content, in the first part you really want to go on with the game, but by the end you just really want to finish it as soon as possible. Also there are weapons that are too good and weapons that are too bad... the sword is really bad compared to shied and lance. I like the idea of a gameover only after multiple death explained by the story, and also the ability to ignore good people advice and do evil things without any consequences. Try to if cheap.

I spend some time into the game. It was fine at all, the story was good and I liked the characters. But after a bug crushed my savegame and I would have to replay sereval hours, I quit without seeing the end of the game. Somewhat sad, but that bug was to serve to be ignored.

The only thing that saves this game is story progression where it does a good job of letting you explore the city of Venice. If you can look past badly aged game design like and annoying portions of the game like. - Recycled NPC models - Bugged animations when using poison - Underwhelming spells and weapon skills - Only 5 hotkeys - Lack of different armor thoughout the game - Lack of direction forcing player to look up a guide - Using a consumable in inventory forces the inventory screen to close - Perma-stun if you don't roll or block - The treasure maps never work, digging is a waste of time Combat is clunky and just ends up with you performing your combo, if they block then you just circle around them and wait until they drop their guard, repeat this for the entire game. The only thing that will keep you going is wanting to learn how the story will unfold, making the gameplay more of an afterthought.

I got this during a giveaway (thanks!). After I finished the game once I wouldn't play again never, because it crash a lot. The dialogs and some quests are unpolished and confusing, and the combat is quite mediocre. Anyway I liked the main character and that's the only reason I finished the game. Tip: save each 5 minutes or less.