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Oh man, VED makes teleporting look kind of terrifying. It already creeped me out, to be honest. Something about being deconstructed and reconstructed at a molecular level doesn’t sit right with me. I mean, you’re effectively dead at that point, right? Just a clone popping out of a booth? VED takes it a step further – you don’t even know where you’re gonna end up. So now I’m not just being broken down to my component parts, but my clone might end up in a broom cupboard somewhere. I’ll stick with walking.
Still, teleporting nervousness aside, VED gives us an interesting look at magic overall. I rather like worlds where magic is present in everyone, not just people in a tower wearing silly hats, and that’s what we have here. VED explores this well, through a handful of interesting characters, and it works hard to make our choices matter. It’s a little clunky at times, particularly when we get away from the story, but it’s a beautiful and engaging experience nonetheless.
VED Up
Now, when you pull up VED‘s steam page, you’ll see it call itself an ‘RPG’. This isn’t untrue, but this is the Dungeons & Dragons style of RPG. Right down to the dice rolls, come to think of it. For the most part, it’s not dissimilar to a visual novel. We progress through a branching storyline, picking choices and dialogue options, and dealing with the consequences. It’s broken up by some skill checks, à la D&D, and jaunts to the magic world, which plays a bit like a strategy roguelike. I’m going to take each half of VED seperately, as I have different feelings towards each of them.
Let’s tackle the real world first, where the writing comes into play. VED’s overall story is quite interesting. It stars Cyrus, a young bloke who comes to the town of Micropolis to make something of himself. That’s put on hold when his neighbour, Mick, sets fire to his apartment, and Cyrus rushes in to save him. Overwhelmed by the flames, a magical instinct kicks in, and he teleports away. From there, the story follows him coming to terms with the fact that magic is real, and how it should be handled. Different factions have different ideas about it. Impulse, a tech giant, want to commercialise it. The Sorcerers want to give it to the people. The titular Veds want it to bugger off and stay in the other world.
These three factions – and the general townsfolk – are headed up by diverse characters. The sorcerers are led by Freddie Fire Hands, for example, a charismatic if… eccentric magician. Depending on your perspective, he’s either a nutcase or the only one talking sense. The character designs and their motivations are great. Cracks do begin to appear when you get into the line-by-line writing, though. Some lines read very awkwardly. Cyrus’ attempts at flirting make me want to call the police. It’s also unclear, at times, what Cyrus is going to say when picking an option. One option labelled basically ‘Okay’ had me laying into my neighbour’s life choices out of nowhere, when I actually wanted to encourage him.
Split Personality
Getting back to the bigger picture, it’s safe to say that VED is a game where choices matter. Not just in how characters respond to you, but entire story arcs can alter. On my first run, I mucked up during the prologue. This changed large sections of the ending. I did two full runs and found unique dialogue sections in each. It makes me curious just how many branches there are, which I think is a good sign. That said, there is some clunkiness in how the scenes are put together. It has to funnel back to the key plot points, so factions would be inexplicably friendly at times, despite me clearly fratenising with their mortal enemies and telling them sod off at every opportunity.
Still, one interesting note is that teleporting isn’t just an A to B situation. You have to pass though the magic world, and the route you take through it dictates where you teleport back. This means entire story beats depend on where you re-appear, which is nice. As for the magic world itself, this plays like a roguelite. You start at a village full of friendly troglodytes and then pick a path through events and monsters to find an exit. Combat within this world is turn-based, expending action points per move. The unique twist being that you need to be in the right ‘lane’ to do the most damage, and enemy attacks will hit certain lanes too.
It has promise but feels a bit threadbare. There are usually only two routes to pick, and only a handful of encounters per run. The dice rolls are welcome for the encounters, as it adds in some unpredictability, but it’s a bit too easy to breeze through. Combat makes itself look complicated, but really we’re just crab-dancing out of the way of attacks. Death is negligible too, as we spawn back at the village and can just go right back to it. Using a grid, rather than just four lanes, might have added in a bit more complexity. That and making the magic world a bit more like a D&D dungeon crawl or an old school adventure game; keep the dice roll decisions running throughout.
VED – An Evolved Visual Novel
This lightness of gameplay is what made me start thinking of VED as more of a visual novel than a classic RPG. I don’t mean that as a knock – VED feels like the kind of evolution I’ve been wanting from visual novels. It brings in key choices at all stages and, crucially, has factors out of our control. That’s why I’ve been bigging up the dice rolls. Failure can be just as interesting as success. The clunkiness is a little unfortunate, but that’s perhaps to be expected when you’re sprawling out so much. Imagine it being like a DM who’s desperately trying to read their drunken notes from the last session.
As a final note before I close, I want to point out that Ved‘s art is spectacular. From character design to the backgrounds of the magical world, it’s gorgeous. Music’s a hit too, though the voice acting is pretty dire. Some side characters would probably have benefitted from letting us do the voices in our heads. Still, the devs have been polishing VED for quite some time and it shows. The developers are Lithuanian, so perhaps some of the line-by-line awkwardness is down to the translation, but it didn’t detract too much. While I wish some elements of VED were pushed further, it’s an intriguing story that never forgets the player.
