Review | Venture To The Vile - Refreshingly Infectious

I play a lot of Metroidvanias. They tickle my brain in ways that other genres could ever hope to. Give me the promise of exploration, puzzle solving, combat, and boss fights and I will speed boost and shinespark my way to the credits as quickly as I can. I am always on the lookout for experiences that add wrinkles to the genre specifically and to video games as a whole; it’s kind of what I live for.

The latest game to enter my complicated brain-space is Venture to the Vile, which is the first game developed by the Montreal-based studio Cut to Bits. It is a narrative-focused Metroidvania with a 2.5D perspective, a Victorian-inspired art style, and a day and night cycle that allows for breathtaking visuals. It has a personality that feels wholly unique and while I’m not sure if the team was inspired by Tim Burton, the end result sure is evocative of his distinctive style.

How Did We Get Here?

Venture to the Vile starts with the silent and unnamed protagonist and his friend Ella moving through a section of the world trapping rats. She soon becomes lost and we end up encountering what we later learn is referred to as The Vile while searching for her. Your hand gets grabbed by an abhorrent creature before you eventually escape only for you to wake up under the care of Dr. Crow. You learn that The Vile has started to take over the world and that the infection is also spreading within you.

Dr. Crow wants you to explore specific outbreaks on the map in the name of science! Oh, and also as a means of finding a cure. You are also encouraged to search for your friend, Ella, which is your secondary main quest. There are several NPCs throughout the world to interact with and several of these offer side quests to complete as well. The side quests do not have waypoints and if you want to complete these quests you have to thoroughly explore every area you come across. Even with the amount of exploring I did (which felt extensive during my 14-hour playtime), I was only able to complete 5 side quests (with 22 others incomplete), which was relatively disappointing.

I don’t come to Metroidvanias for the story content - with the lone exception at this time being Ori and the Will of the Wisps - but I did find the story in Venture to the Vile to be engaging and I genuinely wanted to get to the end so I could reunite with my friend. Unfortunately, there are multiple endings and the ending I got was not reuniting with Ella, which was a disappointing end to a great experience overall. If multiple endings get the juices flowing for you, then I could envision how this would provide additional enjoyment with subsequent playthroughs.

More Exploration, Please!

The most unique element of Venture to the Vile by far is the way in which you traverse the world itself. Your character is on a 2D plane and they travel between parallel 2D planes by either moving toward the screen or away from the screen at designated spots.

This unique perspective is a deviation from the traditional ways in which worlds in this genre are presented and is something that is also a worthy evolution. Finding secrets and items in most Metroidvanias consists of breaking invisible walls, finding hidden paths, or using previously obtained upgrades.

While it is true that those things are mostly also available in Venture to the Vile, this perspective offers the ability to see an eye-catching item in the background and then spend time figuring out how to navigate the world to reach it, which adds a puzzle-solving element to exploration and was almost always satisfying.

The map is not great, which is a cardinal sin for a Metroidvania, but I was able to forgive it for a couple of reasons. For starters, a more detailed 3D map would have likely taken a significant amount of effort to make given the unique perspective (something Metroid Prime-inspired would have been perfect, but likely outside the budget of an indie studio). Secondly - and most importantly - Venture to the Vile encourages you to explore. The map is small enough for you to memorize but large enough to feel lived in - I felt it was a nice sweet spot that many other Metroidvanias struggle to find.

I found myself thoroughly searching each area for ways to wrap up side quests and for loot to use for upgrades and I was able to learn the map pretty well through exploration alone. The time melted away as I explored and I found that almost every alternate path was worth the time that I invested.

Like A Boss

Memorable boss fights are the main reason why I come to Metroidvanias. If the boss fights are challenging then that is just icing on the proverbial cake and I am pleased to say that Venture to the Vile does not disappoint in this regard. The enemies throughout the world mostly consist of animals that have been affected by The Vile and the boss fights build on this idea with larger, grotesque creatures In fact, fighting a giant octopus on the deck of a ship as the impressive water physics wash over me will probably stay with me forever.

There are escape sequences à la the Ori series and while they don’t quite reach the heights of those games (what games can), they are very good and offer a break from the traditional boss fights, which was a welcome change because I found the combat to be minimally satisfying overall due to it being more defensive in nature.

As a result of the infection, your hand is able to transform into a blade and this is your main source of damage. You can upgrade the power of this weapon by accumulating certain monster parts found by exploring the world, killing certain enemy types, and the currency gained from killing enemies. You can also upgrade certain power-ups that then allow you to attack with them, but I was only able to upgrade one of them and it didn’t very feel good to use.

My biggest gripe with the combat is that your character does not gain upward momentum when making contact with an enemy as you attack downward while in the air. Otherwise, my issues with the combat being more defensive are likely magnified because of my specific play style. You are equipped with a parry, a double jump, a back dash, and a forward dash and there were times when I was able to use them effectively enough to give me satisfaction.

It is important to note that your currency is not lost upon death (much appreciated!) and I utilized the accessibility options to give my character more health and to allow for a larger parry window.

The Good, The Bad And The Ugly

Venture to the Vile is one of the best-looking 2.5D games I have ever seen. The aforementioned day-night cycle creates some truly breathtaking visuals with the way the lighting changes during dusk and dawn, specifically, although the game looks great at night, too. The water visuals and physics could give Sea of Thieves a run for its money.

The music in Venture to the Vile provided an excellent juxtaposition. The music in the overworld was calm and subtle with it moving to haunting while in dungeon areas and anxiety-inducing in boss fights. The music didn’t result in any earworms outside of playing the game, but this is only a minor complaint, and what’s more important is that it fits the tone and enhances the experience of playing the game itself. The audio design itself is very good with the sounds of the creatures in the world being the highlight. The gibberish spoken by the NPCs was endearing much like the ones found in games like Hollow Knight.

I played the majority of the game before release and it was mostly stable and also appeared to improve with each update I received. That said, I had at least two crashes that resulted in restarting my Steam Deck and losing some progress, which is obviously not ideal. I experienced some slow down in certain areas that seemed to get worse worse when it was raining. Lastly, there was frame stuttering at times that was bad enough to be distracting. However, all of this was while running on Steam Deck where it is not yet “Verified”.

Verdict

Venture to The Vile is an excellent starting point for the team at Cut to Bits. While it doesn’t have the special sauce to go toe-to-toe with the top-tier games in its genre, it does more than enough to hold its own. While the inclusion of a better map would be greatly appreciated and the performance proved to be quite the frustrating distraction at times, the unique perspective, breathtaking visuals, and impressive boss fights make this an easy recommendation to anyone looking for a solid Metroidvania to get consumed by.