First of all, Venture to the Vile stands out for its extraordinary setting, which simultaneously reminds of Lewis Carroll’s fairy tales and Tim Burton’s films . It should be noted that, although the bright Victorian style is not such a frequent guest in video games, the setting is far from the most remarkable thing in Venture to the Vile . The developers have taken a swing at the holy of holies of the genre: how the exploration of the world works in it, because you can move around the locations here not only forward and backward and up and down, but also deep. And it is not limited to two roads (the main and the background) – you can even get lost in the interweaving of “layers”. It turns out that the veterans really lived up to expectations this time? Ah, if only everything were that simple!
Welcome to Rainybrook
The game takes place in the town of Rainybrook and its surroundings, which is engulfed in corruption. All the people here wear masks of animals and birds: the doctor wears a raven mask, the school teacher wears a squirrel mask, and the police officer wears a dog mask. The protagonist, Vincent, who is not very talkative, looks like a deer. He has a friend, Ella, but one unfortunate day she goes missing, and Vincent, of course, wants to find her. At the same time, Dr. Raven sends the hero to explore the corruption, because he can suddenly collect it and mutate it without losing his mind.
The game’s opening is, frankly, underwhelming: there’s little action and a very long introduction that also includes an episode from Vincent and Ella’s childhood. The staging of the scenes looks ridiculous, but then, when the hero is finally released onto the streets of Rainybrook and tasked with investigating the sinister infirmary, the game finally begins to open up.
The solid number of NPCs immediately catches the eye, almost each of whom has a task for Vincent. In different areas, we will meet more and more new townspeople, so the more you play, the more quests are added to the journal. Moreover, the tasks are all very diverse. In one, you find a secret organization, and in order to get there, you need to eavesdrop on the password. In another, an escaped criminal plays riddles with you; since the Fawn is mute, instead of saying the correct answer, you need to choose items from the bandit in the cave. There is a task to find escaped students, each of whom requires a different approach. There is also a banal delivery of love letters, where you don’t even have to think – just take the envelope to the addressee several times and pass on the response. But even such a simple quest was fun to complete thanks to the content of these letters.
You can spend much more time on additional tasks than on the main plot, but it does not disappoint here. The doctor and the policeman send the hero on missions further and further from the city center, and the more you explore the locations, find other people’s diaries and note curious details, the more you wonder who, in fact, is the monster in this game. Venture to the Vile even has several endings, one of which encourages active examination of every nook and cranny.
I don’t have a map of this area.
As I already noted at the beginning of the review, the main feature of Venture to the Vile is the ability to move deep into locations or to their foreground. This does not happen anywhere, but at specially marked crossroads. Remember what Todd Howard said at the presentation of Skyrim in 2011? “See that mountain? You can climb it . “ It’s pretty much the same here.
If there is something enticingly glittering in the background, enemies frolicking, or an obstacle course visible, then you can definitely get there. But sometimes figuring out how to get to the desired place is a real puzzle, which is complicated by a very annoying moment: there is no map in the game. Or rather, there is a map, drawn in the spirit of some Disneyland plan and giving an idea of the location of the districts and the number of secrets hidden in each. But you won’t be able to navigate by it, and you won’t even be able to leave a mark if you find something interesting.
On the one hand, you can understand the developers: how can you draw a convenient map if the character moves in so many directions? I would probably do it this way: all the areas – from above (the map would become like a labyrinth), and each separate section – an additional traditional map on the side. Of course, it would have to be complicated, but at least it would be easier for the player to navigate, because now without maps of individual areas it is not even clear what you have already cleared and what not.
Plus, like in any other Metroidvania, backtracking in Venture to the Vile is of no small importance – here you have new abilities that allow you to reach previously inaccessible places, and NPCs waiting for the Fawn’s help (he can’t help right away because he doesn’t have the necessary thing), and objects that are only available at a certain time of day. For example, some flowers, from which points for upgrading mutations are knocked out, open only at night. Again, you need to remember this place and come there when it gets dark.
In general, the daily cycle adds spice to the passage, because many side quests can only be completed at a certain time or in certain weather. Above, I talked about the quest to find Miss Squirrel’s escaped students; so, one of the schoolgirls, for example, is ready to return only if you talk to her during the rain: then she admits that the city is still drier and warmer.
But no matter how much I grumbled about the lack of a map, exploring the locations was really interesting (otherwise I wouldn’t have played Venture to the Vile for twenty-odd hours trying to unravel all of its secrets). Each area has its own distinctive features – for example, in the mines you’ll need to deal with elevators, ride minecarts and blow up dynamite, protecting the burning fuse with your body from the water pouring down from above, and in the gloomy cathedral you’ll have to jump on chandeliers and look for braziers that need to be set on fire. The locations also have mutated bosses, each of which requires a special approach. Some battles with optional bosses (yes, there are such things) are more like a puzzle or a test of agility than a fight in the traditional sense.
New mutants
Initially, the main character also has a mutation – a cruel claw that grows instead of his right hand. Thanks to this weapon, the Fawn can deftly deal with enemies. However, each story boss gives Vincent a new ability. Having defeated the overgrown rabbit from the infirmary (by the way, he looks like the March Hare from American McGee’s Alice ), we get a leg mutation, better known among the people as a double jump. The grasshopper boss gives a dash, and so on. Each of the newly acquired abilities can be developed by pouring into it points of filth received for killed monsters, and resources that also actively fall out of enemies.
The combat system in the game is enjoyable, and the more Vincent is upgraded (read: mutated), the more enjoyable it becomes. In addition to a quick claw strike, a heavy blow with a fist-club is unlocked, but I didn’t find it particularly useful in battles throughout the entire game. The hero can also parry some attacks, and this skill turned out to be much more useful. In addition to battles, an important part of the game is platforming, and I have no complaints about it either. Everything jumps freely, you just have to get used to it, of course. This is not the White Palace.
To be fair, I’ve read complaints about the overly difficult platforming in the final part of Venture to the Vile , supposedly there were suddenly too many spike traps. However, I didn’t feel any kind of jump in difficulty. Perhaps because I had already gotten used to the game and by that point had already managed to complete the optional mill with its pitfalls, and the sewers, in which you also need to show miracles of acrobatics, and the creepy secret wing of the infirmary with nurses who seemed to have come from Silent Hill
New abilities dropped by bosses open up shortcuts – here too, everything is according to the genre’s precepts. There is no fast travel or teleports in the game, but there is the already mentioned sewer, thanks to which you can quickly get from one end of the map to the other. In my opinion, the solution is elegant: on the one hand, it is a whole additional level, and on the other, the sewer connects all the important points in the game, the passage through which still needs to be earned.
I would like to praise the local humor separately. Vincent’s silence is compensated by the talkativeness of Rainybrook residents – every phrase they say is some kind of moderately funny joke. For example, a policeman admonishes us as we leave the city: “I wouldn’t advise going there, but better you than me .” Even the dead are ironic here – on one of the gravestones in the cemetery there is an inscription: “I told you I was sick . “
But what deserves the harshest criticism (after the lack of a map, of course) are the bugs. The character can get stuck in a location, enemies can fall outside its boundaries, some scripts simply refuse to work, and quest items disappear from the inventory. In comparison, incorrectly working achievements are not such a terrible misfortune, but still an annoying thing. However, while I was working on the review, the developers from Cut to Bits also did not sit idle and fixed most of the broken achievements, so much so that they were automatically counted as soon as you entered the game. The authors are also aware of the other problems, so there is a high probability that everything will be fixed soon.
Venture to the Vile is a very unique experience thanks to its spatial manipulations and stands out from other Metroidvanias. That’s why it’s especially disappointing that the game’s release went almost unnoticed. Currently, Cut to Bits’ creation doesn’t even have guides on Steam (and with such intricate quests, they wouldn’t hurt), and the number of reviews is indecently modest. I want to believe that more people will learn about Venture to the Vile (at least thanks to this review), and that veteran developers will be motivated to continue creating such unique projects. Despite all the shortcomings, it’s clear how much love and effort was put into the game.
Pros: unusual opportunity to explore locations in all directions; unhackneyed Victorian setting; original puzzles; interesting, dissimilar regions and bosses living there; a large amount of optional content and additional tasks.
Cons: no map to mark points of interest; bugs; in some locations you can’t see a thing in bad weather.