VED

The new game VED has a shockingly complicated set-up. There’s a battle between the real world and the magic world, an aggressively evil tech company, a band of sorcerers out for blood, non-believers, an ancient order of knights and even a talking sword. Yet, despite throwing us right smack dab in the middle of all this craziness, VED’s story never confused me. That’s the real magic at play here. It’s a game with at least two sequels’ worth of world-building, all boiled down into a five-hour game that is surprisingly easy to follow. Does that mean that I’m helplessly under its spell? That’s what we’re about to find out when I review VED from first-time developer Karaclan.

VED is a game that throws you right in the middle of things and hopes you’ll grab hold and never let go. It’s the story of a young man named Cyrus, who has come to the big city to live with his aunt, Xena. It’s while attempting to rescue his irresponsible buddy from an apartment fire that Cyrus discovers that he has the ability to teleport to a magical world filled with monsters and a talking sword. Still with me?

It won’t take long for the utterly-confused Cyrus to find himself in the middle of an ancient battle of ideology. There are those who believe that the real world and magical world should never mix. We’re also introduced to a faction led by Freddie Fire Hands that is sick of staying in the shadows and wants to bring magic into the real world. And then there’s Impulse, a tech company that intends to use magic to gain the upper-hand on the competition. It’s up to Cyrus to navigate his way through these competing ideologies to bring peace and order to the world. Or perhaps to see it burn. The choice is really up to the player.

VED is what I would describe as a 'Choose Your Own Adventure role-playing game. A lot of the game revolves around Cyrus having lengthy conversations and then choosing what to say and do. Sometimes its as simple as asking a pretty girl for her phone number, while other times the choices will come with dire consequences. Should Cyrus prove that magic exists live on television? Should he help Impulse launch their newest tech gadget? Should he train to become a VED knight and push back against the influence of magic on the real world? These choices (and many more) will fundamentally change how the story plays out, creating an intriguing narrative that you have a lot of control over.

When you’re not trying to navigate your way around the different factions, you’ll spend most of the time in the magic world. This is, without a doubt, the most exciting part of VED. To call this a turn-based role-playing game may be accurate, but it’s not the full story. When Cyrus goes into battle, the first thing you’ll notice is that he has a maximum of sixteen different abilities lining the bottom of the screen. What sets this game apart from pretty much every other RPG I’ve ever played is that the abilities you have access to will depend entirely on where you’re standing. You really only have access to a few abilities at any one time, because the sixteen are split up into groups of four. There are a total of four spaces on the 2D combat field, with each giving you access to a different grouping of attacks. The trick is that each of those attacks will move you either left or right, which means that you’ll need to use strategy in order to get the most out of the abilities.

What’s cool about this system is that the various bad guys are created with this back-and-forth movement in mind. An average monster will have its body right in the middle, with its two arms on either side. This means that you’re constantly going to be moving left and right in order to hurt not only the body, but also the appendages. You can’t just stand in the same spot and expect to win every fight, because it’s essential to move around the playfield and use the different abilities and vantage points.

All of this is completely customizable. In fact, you’ll end up spending a lot of time earning the different abilities and then rearranging them on the different spots. You’ll have to think about the flow of combat in a brand-new way, since you will have to consider more than just what attack will hurt the enemy the most. You’ll also need to consider the direction the attack will send you and what types of abilities you have on that spot. If you put healing and defensive spells on the far left and right spaces, you’ll need to make sure you have attacks that will move you there when you desperately need more health or shielding. With dozens of different moves to earn and equip, it becomes a real juggling act.

The combat is easily my favorite part of the game. Once you get the flow down and find the perfect placement for your various abilities, you’ll be hooked. I was excited and exhilarated going into every battle, and I really loved how creative the different enemies are. The magic world is visually stunning, with environments that look like they came straight out of a painting. The bad guys are both familiar and wholly unique, allowing the game’s art style to create battles that don’t look like anything else on the market. There were times when I wanted the game to be nothing but these magic world fights, but we eventually have to go back to the real world to keep the story moving.

This is where VED is at its weakest. While I love how much world building is conveyed in a very short amount of time, the story’s writing is kind of a mess. Let’s start with the biggest problem – Cyrus is insufferable. He’s a weird combination of being aloof and overly confident. There were times in the first half of the game where I honestly wondered if Cyrus had ever spoken to another human being before, because he’s the worst at it. And his inner-monologue isn’t doing him any favors. He says and does things that often make no sense, especially given the gravity of the situation at hand.

And that brings us to the sloppiness of the storytelling. Once you beat the game, it’s easy to see what they were trying to do, but the leaps it makes along the way will have you scratching your head. There are times where it seems like characters will contradict themselves in the same sentence, while other times it will feel like they have selective amnesia. There’s also a love story that seemingly happens out of nowhere. Even though I liked the broad strokes it took to get us to a satisfying ending, I was baffled by the writing throughout the entire game.

None of this is helped by the crummy voice acting. While Cyrus does a solid enough job, there were more than a few supporting characters that were almost certainly voiced by a computer program. Even if you can get beyond that, you’ll be frustrated by how bad the voice editing is. Some times Cyrus will wait a really long time ... to finish a sentence. While in the very next line, the sentences will run-together and almost overlap. It’s like when you’re listening to an amateur sound editor who doesn’t realize that there needs to be a pause between some thoughts. This creates some unintentionally hilarious moments throughout the game, which can be fun. For me, though, I found that it was just one more thing that took me out of the story.

On the other hand, VED is a game I will likely return to. The combat was a lot of fun and I found myself wanting a lot more of it. I’m also curious how the story will play out if I make different decisions. I skimmed through a YouTube playthrough after beating the game and barely recognized the story bits. As messy as the writing is, I appreciate how ambitious the story is and how much depends on your choices. VED may bite off more than it can chew, but it’s also a wholly unique role-playing experience that you won’t soon forget.