“Venetica” is truly a game for the nostalgic. You play as Scarlett, the daughter of the Grim Reaper himself. You have lost your worldly home and your love, you are constantly being hunted down by lackeys of a great evil entity, and all the while you are trying to figure out who you really are and what you are meant to do in this world. After playing the game for several hours, you get the feeling that you’re caught somewhere in the middle of “RuneScape” and “Champions of Norrath,” both of which were excellent games of the time, but in comparison to modern games they fall drastically short.
Don’t get me wrong, “Venetica” is a great time waster, but its graphics are that of RuneScape on steroids, which even still doesn’t add up to the likes of “Dragon Age,” “Fable 2,” or any “Final Fantasy” game.
Its story is okay, I suppose, not great. The graphics and communication system could use a major overhaul. They seem to have been truly were borrowed from RuneScape, as they all have you hit the “X” button to engage in conversation, listen to what the A.I. has to say, and then choose a response from a list of multiple answers to see what the A.I. has to say again, then repeat until you are finished with the conversation.
The quest setup is run so that you start a quest with one person who tells you to go get something or go find somebody else who will then give you his own quest for you and it begins to form a chain of do A for Person One, who will give you information to Person Two, who wants B done so you have to go talk to and finish Person Three’s quest to get what you need for Persons One and Two. It gets a little monotonous after a few quests, to say the least.
But the upgrade system to your skills is pretty solid. You get the basic skill when you’re ready. Then, after each level up, you get points to spend on whatever skills you are most interested in, be they physical or magical, but in order to spend these hard-earned points, you must find a capable teacher of whichever craft you want to enhance.
All-in-all, the graphics look like they came from the same point in time as the story is about, the dark ages. The voice and music get old fast if you pay attention to them. The replay value is decent seeing as how there are several different ways to go in the game, what with joining guilds and upgrading different skill sets and interacting with people differently each time you play. And each interaction can have an effect on the ending.
The interface is easy enough to grasp, and the questing can be fun, but it would be better if you could play multiplayer or at least have some sort of sidekick or something. If you’re an RPG questing fan and you’ve got some extra 30 hours and $40 to spend, this game could be great for you, but otherwise I wouldn’t bother with it much.
I give this game a 2.5 out of 5. It isn’t great, but it isn’t a bad way to reminisce about days gone by in an afternoon.