Venture to the Vile

78%
Game Brain Score Based on 148 reviews
  • story
  • graphics
  • gameplay
Venture to the Vile Game Cover
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"Venture to the Vile" is a spooky 2.5D Metroidvania game set in the rainy, eerie town of Rainybrook, overrun by a mysterious entity known as the Vile. As the player, you'll fight through treacherous grounds, absorb the Vile's powers, and search for your lost friend Ella. Along the way, you'll uncover clues, meet peculiar townsfolk, and unlock new abilities to explore dynamic environments and battle unique bosses. The game features a story-rich world with various quests to discover and secrets to uncover.

  • PC
  • Play​station 4
  • Play​station 5
  • Windows
  • Play​Station
Genres & TagsPlay Modes

Reviews

78%
Audience ScoreBased on 148 reviews
story27 positive mentions
optimization9 negative mentions
  • The game features stunning art and a beautifully atmospheric world, making exploration enjoyable.
  • The combat is satisfying, with challenging boss fights and a variety of interesting NPCs and side quests.
  • The narrative is engaging, with a unique story and humor that adds depth to the gameplay experience.
  • The game suffers from performance issues, including stuttering and bugs that can disrupt gameplay.
  • The lack of a proper map system makes navigation frustrating, leading to excessive backtracking.
  • Combat mechanics can feel clunky and unpolished, with imprecise hitboxes and a grindy skill upgrade system.
  • story83 mentions

    The game's story is generally well-developed and engaging, with a captivating premise and strong art direction that enhances the overall experience. However, players have reported issues with quest organization and bugs that hinder progress, leading to frustration with uncompleted side quests. Despite these setbacks, many find the narrative compelling enough to encourage exploration and investment in the game.

    • “The story is super engaging, making me want to explore every creepy corner.”
    • “It's more than a metroidvania, there's a lot of depth in the story and in the characters.”
    • “The themes, art direction, levels, story premise, it's all wonderful.”
    • “The quest log and inventories are cryptic and unorganized, so it's hard to keep track of what you want to do in each area, or what you're supposed to do for certain quests.”
    • “The story is meh, which is a bummer because the style was so great I was hoping for more.”
    • “Some of the quests are quite arbitrarily difficult and not presented in a way that will actually help you solve them; some of the layouts are counter-intuitive.”
  • graphics40 mentions

    The graphics of the game are widely praised for their unique art style and visual appeal, effectively enhancing the spooky atmosphere. While many players appreciate the beautiful aesthetics and dynamic lighting, some have noted issues with blurriness and occasional graphic bugs. Overall, the visuals contribute significantly to the game's engaging narrative and metroidvania experience, despite some frustrations with controls.

    • “The art style is unique and fits the spooky vibe perfectly.”
    • “The layers and the art made it incredibly visually appealing, and the creepy story and soundtrack added a lot to the aesthetic.”
    • “Wow, I was blown away by the graphics, the gameplay, the mechanics, the art direction.”
    • “Also, there are still a few graphic bugs and a few times where I simply fell out of the world into the abyss lol.”
    • “A bit janky at times, but the whole aesthetic made me not mind too much.”
    • “The graphics and changes from day to night are wonderfully done and the storyline is already quite engaging.”
  • gameplay29 mentions

    The gameplay is generally well-received, featuring a fun and casual metroidvania style with interesting level design and rewarding mechanics that encourage exploration and skill-building. However, players have noted several issues, including imprecise hitboxes, frustrating wall-jumping mechanics, and some unexplained features that detract from the overall experience. While the art style and accessibility options are praised, the enemy design and combat can feel tedious and unbalanced at times.

    • “It has plenty of accessibility features and mechanics that make it a great starting point.”
    • “The gameplay loop is interesting and rewarding, allowing you to build up skills and unlock different areas and enemies.”
    • “Pretty simple metroidvania gameplay with interesting enough level design to make me not mind backtracking and searching for whatever I managed to miss.”
    • “Unfortunately, the gameplay is riddled with tolerable, but numerous issues: wall jumping is a pain, fighting animations are not exactly snappy, hitboxes are imprecise, and, well, the bugs (mostly falling out-of-bounds) exist.”
    • “The gameplay is lacking flavor; the level design is interesting only for the indoors; the gating abilities are all common tropes, lacking any unique tricks of their own.”
    • “It's just frustrating to see this much unexpressed potential for enemy mechanics and their positioning as you progress. They attempt to take inspiration from a mix of 'Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night' and 'Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown' but fail hard, with the enemies being just worthless sponges with too much life for their ineffectiveness, becoming too boring to take down.”
  • optimization22 mentions

    The game's optimization has received mixed reviews, with many players experiencing significant performance issues, including stuttering and high resource consumption, particularly on the Steam Deck. However, recent patches have reportedly improved performance considerably for some users, though others still encounter frequent frame rate drops. Overall, players are advised to wait for further updates or sales before diving in.

    • “Update: the performance is a lot better now.”
    • “Post big patch: performance issues have been reduced an insane amount!”
    • “Shame about the performance issues but hey, I can play it and it's only patch 1.0 as of time of writing.”
    • “The performance of the game is all over the place and takes too many resources.”
    • “It's constantly stuttering with enough frequency to affect every fight.”
    • “Steam Deck performance is not good and the device runs hot for a lot of the time.”
  • music14 mentions

    The music in the game is widely praised for its phenomenal quality and ability to enhance the overall atmosphere, with a well-crafted soundtrack that complements the story and sound design. Reviewers highlight the soundtrack's pleasing themes and clever musical references, noting how it contributes significantly to the game's aesthetic and tension. Overall, the combination of excellent music and art direction creates a captivating experience for players.

    • “The soundtrack is phenomenal, and the story is well developed.”
    • “The sound design is spot on too, with music and effects that really crank up the tension.”
    • “A wonderful artistic solution, fascinating music, pleasant characters and an interesting world.”
  • atmosphere8 mentions

    The game's atmosphere is consistently praised for its eerie and immersive qualities, particularly in the dark, rainy setting of Rainybrook. Players appreciate the combination of beautiful visuals and unsettling vibes, which create memorable "what?!?!" moments that enhance the overall experience. This atmospheric metroidvania is deemed a must-play for fans of the genre.

    • “A beautiful and atmospheric metroidvania, immaculately vile vibes!”
    • “This is actually a very nice, atmospheric game!”
    • “The game drops into this eerie town of Rainybrook, and it’s got a dark, rainy atmosphere that sucks me right in.”
    • “The masks, the atmosphere, and just the feel make this a must-play for anyone who enjoys the 'what?!?!' moments gaming can give you.”
  • stability6 mentions

    The game is reported to have significant stability issues, with multiple users noting persistent bugs that affect gameplay and text clarity. Despite its potential, the ongoing problems have led to a lack of recommendations until these issues are resolved.

    • “This is a good game, but it is far too buggy for me to recommend currently.”
    • “Too buggy and hasn't been resolved for over months.”
    • “Only issue is it's a bit buggy; the text is hard to understand and words mess up.”
  • grinding5 mentions

    Players find the grinding aspect of the game to be excessive and frustrating, particularly criticizing the tediousness of boss fights and the skill upgrade system. The overall combat experience is described as lacking depth, leading to a sense of monotony in gameplay.

    • “Thus far, the boss fights are boring and tedious. The game is annoyingly grindy with its skill upgrade system, and the combat is amateurish at best. A three-man team could have done better.”
    • “I also agree with the sentiment that the bosses can get a little bit tedious.”
  • humor4 mentions

    The game features surprisingly good humor, with witty character interactions that enhance the experience and motivate players to engage in side quests. The writing and story also contribute to the overall comedic tone, making it a standout aspect of the game.

    • “This game has surprisingly good humor.”
    • “The character interactions are funny and make you want to keep completing side quests.”
    • “The story and writing are surprisingly funny.”
  • character development2 mentions

    Reviewers praise the character designs and world-building, highlighting their strong contribution to the overall character development in the game.

Positive mentions (%)Positive
Neutral mentions (%)Neutral
Negative mentions (%)Negative

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