VED Review (Xbox Series X)

STAFF REVIEW of VED (Xbox Series X)

Friday, December 27, 2024.
by Adam Dileva

I’m always a sucker for great story driven games, and if it has hand drawn art, even better. This is what initially drew me towards VED. Turn-based combat with some rogue-lite elements, VED really wasn’t what I was initially expecting in a story driven RPG. There are some components I really enjoyed with its strategic combat, but there was also a handful of things that didn’t quite impress as well.

You play as Cyrus, a blind chosen-one who becomes a hero. Set in two different worlds, Cyrus arrives in the city of Micropolis hoping to find a new life as he stays with his aunt. Cyrus is looking for work at the local corporate conglomerate, but unexpectedly he suddenly manifests a magical power to teleport to another world. This other world that Cyrus can teleport to is magical, full of mysterious creatures, floating islands, and plenty of secrets to uncover. Somehow this special world is connected to the real one, but how and why is initially unknown. There are a number of factions that Cyrus will encounter during his journey that all seem to have their own motivations, and it's up to you who you want to side with.

There is Impulse, the local and powerful corporation that will do whatever it takes to keep power so they can sell their technological innovations. Then there’s a group of sorcerers who wants to release magic to the world and show that it can be harnessed for good even though it’s outlawed. Then there’s the VED’s, a magical police of sorts that use their powers to keep the two worlds separate and are largely anti-magic. This naturally puts them at odds with the Sorcerers, and the story starts to become quite muddled with all of this information.

Cyrus is going to need to master his powers of being a VED, learn about himself, and decide how he’s going to save both worlds, if at all. The story starts out interesting and simple enough, but then it keeps piling on, adding more characters and factions. It becomes so confusing that it’s quite difficult to follow, as there’s also a storyline involving a mysterious girl that Cyrus seems to develop feelings for, yet doesn’t really know who she is. The story is non-linear and changes based on your choices but it becomes a mess and impossible to follow clearly if you don't pay full attention or take notes.

As you meet new characters you’ll have them entered into a diary of sorts so that you’re able to reference it when needed. Choices you make will also affect your relationships positive or negatively, though I’m not sure if this actually changes certain outcomes or options given to you later on. Siding with one faction will obviously negatively impact others narratively, and there’s a number of different ways you can steer the story in each chapter, so those wanting to really get their value worth, there’s clearly a number of playthrough options available if you want to see everything VED has to offer.

At certain times you’ll make narrative choices, but also be given a d20 that you’ll need to roll based on Cyrus’ scores for Strength, Dexterity, or Magic. For each successful roll you’ll improve your stats which makes subsequent choices easier to pass a winning roll. These rolls can give you bonuses to buffs or debuffs, so there’s some risk versus reward. Easier difficulties will make it impossible to fail these rolls, though these parts feel quite out of place for how infrequent they are.

The magical world is unique, as this is where you’ll meet and converse with a number of mythical creatures, improve the village, and face monsters in combat. Before you face off against a monster you’ll be given a number of options to make the battles either more challenging or easier. Choose to make the battles harder and you’ll earn extra currency which is then used to upgrade your village. Giving the enemies buffs can make quite a challenge increase, though if you want to breeze through combat, you can make it easier but not get as many rewards.

Building your village has a lot of benefits, as this is how you’ll earn new abilities and skills for the combat portions. Purchase new buildings will coincide with a number of different abilities that you can then use to slot into your combat loadout. The combat was the most innovative part of VED, being turn-based and having to position yourself appropriately for advantages.

When combat begins, you’re face to face with a monster and placed on four horizontal tiles. Most abilities will move you in one direction or the other, some moving one tile, others more. Enemy attacks that are about to occur will show red on specific tiles so that you know which to hopefully avoid. Many enemies can spawn extra limbs or addition monsters that can only be attacked from certain tiles as well, so there’s quite a lot of strategy when deciding which skills to use, as you need to factor in what tile you’re on, which you’ll go to, and what portion of the enemy it'll attack (or miss).

Cyrus has mostly offensive abilities, but there are some defensive ones that are purchasable as well, such as shield gains or heals. Adding another layer of strategy is that you’re able to customize which abilities and skills you have in each slot. Each tile has a limited number of skills you place when Cyrus is in that spot, so there’s quite a lot of customization when it comes to figuring out the best setups for Cyrus. Do you use a limited skill slot to place a heal in every tile slot, or opt for more offensive abilities instead. I found having one heal or shield in every second tile was sufficient, but I also played a bit more defensively.

It’s going to take quite a few battles to really understand the combat, as it’s not taught very well from a strategic standpoint. You can turn down the difficulty for each battle until you really understand its intricacies, then you can make it more challenging to earn more rewards once you understand it better. Combat is the most interesting portion of VED, it just takes time to really understand how it works and to unlock more abilities.

The hand-drawn artwork is VED’s greatest strength. The other world is very colorful, and while monsters get reused often, they’re all designed quite well and really fit the fantasy setting. The real world is much more dim and dark and makes for quite a stark contrast. The soundtrack fits the mood for the most part as well and the sound effects of your attacks sound impactful, but then there’s the voice acting. All dialogue is voiced, but it’s atrocious at the best of times.

Either its poor editing or something else, but there are long awkward gaps in-between sentences that make for prolonged pauses. There’s also heavy emphasis on the wrong words or letters in sentences, as if the script is being read instead of acted, and possibly by a non-native English speaker. There are a number of times I even suspected that many lines were simply voiced by AI, that’s how little emotions were in each of the performances. Even Cyrus sounds dead inside and made it impossible to like him at all. The writing is poor, but the voice acting is probably one of the worst I’ve experienced in quite some time, to the point of being comical and quite distracting.

VED has some interesting ideas but it’s as though the game didn’t know quite what it wanted to be at times. This is possibly because it was a completely different game in its early stages. It's hard to be harsh towards a small indie team that clearly made VED with their passion, but there’s so many different components that don’t mesh cohesively, and a story that becomes so confusing that it’s difficult to follow. Even if you could follow the convoluted narrative, you’ll be too distracted with the abysmal voice acting to even remember that combat was actually quite interesting.

**VED was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**

Overall: 5.0 / 10
Gameplay: 5.0 / 10
Visuals: 7.0 / 10
Sound: 3.0 / 10

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STAFF REVIEW of VED (Xbox Series X)

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