1348 Ex Voto

A Brilliant Story Ruined by Terrible Execution 📜💀 1348 Ex Voto is a game with an incredibly brilliant story and a fittingly brutal atmosphere, but it is unfortunately dragged down by its disastrous execution. While the environments are nicely crafted and the narrative idea is perfect, the game feels completely unfinished. From horrific audio mixing to a lack of basic optimization, it is a very rough experience. Finishing everything 100% takes about 3 hours, making the 25€ price tag completely unjustified. I wanted to love it for the story, but I can only recommend picking it up on a massive sale and only if you have a powerful PC. ➕ Pros: Story & Atmosphere: The core idea and the narrative are genuinely fantastic. The creator had a perfect vision, accompanied by beautiful environments and a fitting level of blood and brutality that fits the historical era perfectly. Combat & Upgrades: The combat system is generally good (though it can be a bit annoying at times). The upgrade system is primitive, but it is absolutely sufficient for what the game needs. ➖ Cons: Disastrous Audio Mixing: The sound design is a complete mess. Dialogues are barely audible, yet opening the inventory will literally blow your ears out. You'll encounter constant audio bugs, music randomly cutting out, and chaotic moments where background characters scream over the silent protagonists. Creepy Animations & Poor Optimization: Facial expressions and animations are mutated and outright creepy. The idea to use a different engine might have been good, but the execution is terrible. Despite not offering groundbreaking visuals, the game runs poorly with constant lags, requiring a beefy PC even on low settings. Clunky Mechanics & Missing Features: Platforming is unresponsive and annoying; you often have to beg your character to actually jump. Shockingly, there is no option to adjust mouse sensitivity—for 25€, why?! Additionally, accidentally stepping into a cutscene trigger permanently locks you out of exploring the rest of the building/area. Unbalanced Difficulty & Price: The final boss fight is completely unbalanced and about 250% harder than the rest of the game for no logical reason. Completing the entire game in 3 hours for 25€ is simply outrageous. [b]Final Score: 4/10[/b]

If you ask me whether I think one should play this game, I would say "yes, but...". My problem is that I came with expectations, some understandable, others completely on me. One thing that I am not happy about, is that this game was implied to be a love story between two women. If you've come for this, prepare to be disappointed. As someone who's known a time where everything had to be subtext in mainstream media, I was able to pick up on some, but it is barely there. While this game aims to be very detailed visually (to the point where my computer, which is not bad, had trouble running it properly, and I had to lower a bunch of graphic settings), the content is lacking. The characters are very superficially developed, and the story is quite basic. I saw the ending coming a MIIIIILE away. I did enjoy being able to play a female character, especially a female knight, because this a still a rare occurrence nowadays. And even more so a female character who is not over-sexualised, AND is gender non-conforming. Aeta could have been a very interesting character if the story had taken the time to delve more into her personality and thoughts. She reflects a little about her past, but it doesn't tell us much about WHO she is. Gameplay wise, I did expect more secondary mechanics. The skill tree is basic, as are the weapon upgrade system and the trinkets / treasures. But more would have been unbalanced compared to the rest of the game... So I guess the main issue would be that the whole game is pretty short considering how visually advanced it is, so don't expect to spend several days on it. I did like the combat system, even if it was frustrating at times because of the lags. Also, although it is a corridor style game, the world felt rich and not so linear. In conclusion, I would say the concept of the game is interesting, but I wish it was more developed on some aspects. I would have even preferred less realistic or complex visuals if it meant more complex content. Do have a look and make your own opinion though, as the novelty of playing a character such as Aeta is enough to be refreshing.

- Many visual Bugs, despite 5 months since release - You have open areas but get blocked by invisible walls - performance is all right on my system but I still have things popping in, and models look bad on highest setting - Fighting feels weird and clunky, u never know if you did something right Oh, fighting is the only thing you do except walking and picking up some resources. Which would be fine if the fighting would feel good. But even after the fighting rework its not good.

Its the middest of mid games. Combat is copy paste. Dialogue written like a fat guy trying to act japanese with throwing in random italian words.Cutscenes are preloaded like hot garbage and somehow it is a pretty game but one of the ugliest at the same time.

So, I want to desperately love this game and leave a good review; it's got the bones of a good game but I have encountered too many issues or things I personally dislike for me to leave a good review. I have enjoyed parts of the game and will be finishing it and continuing to play in the hopes that my criticisms are addressed by the devs in future updates or even a sequel -- but considering the team behind this game is comprised of "AAA Veterans"< I am not exactly hopeful nor impressed. The game feels incredibly rushed. - Movement is incredibly slow. I get that it is meant to be cinematic and realistic in this sense, but it is TOO slow. Sprint should be the usual movement speed, I'm holding shift basically all the time. - Animations are really smooth, but when in combat, oftentimes when getting behind an enemy their head will twizzle around like some sort of scene out of the Exorcist, taking you out of the experience and leaving yet another unfinished and rushed feeling. - I like the puzzles and collectibles, but there should be way more. - Combat is good when you get into it, but the control scheme and button mapping (in my opinion) is inconvenient -- made even more so by the fact YOU CANNOT EDIT YOUR KEYBINDS. This is an incredibly novice and anti-user choice that should have been a feature on release. - To further add to key inputs and combat, sometimes your character will just freeze in combat if you accidentally press a combo of buttons, meaning you eat damage unfairly. - I also encountered an issue where I could not pick up collectibles on chapter III until I re-equipped and sheathed my sword after combat. - Noticeable texture popping. - Health system and HUD is a little hard to understand at first but when you get into it you do start to understand. I would recommend maybe allowing players to edit the HUD or reworking it so it is a little easier to understand. Cinematic doesn't always mean good, I like cinematic experiences but not at the expense of gameplay information. Aside from my criticisms, I'm enjoying the story and world -- its incredibly pretty to look at and performs well on a low/mid PC. The acting is also solid. I'm hoping I did not come across too harsh -- as I said, I want to love this game. I'm hoping the devs are reading feedback and are actively working on improving the polish on this game.

Особистто мені гра зайшла але на початку було сильне бажання зробити рефанд. Так як бойова система ніби робилася школярами, всі топові "переваги" UE 5 з його дропами та якась сумбурність на початку. Але вчасно якось розробники пропатчили гру і покращили бойовку, а далі історія пішла в нормальне русло і гра затягнула. Та і взагалі чисто історичних ігор саме в такому жанрі не те, щоб багато. І наспраді ця історичність, напевно, головна переваги цієї гри. Бо оточення, побут населення Італії тих часів, ці всі лицарські обладунки, замки, королівські покої зроблено класно, ніби екскурс в ті часи. Все враження серйозно псує система таргету. Не знаю, можливо, проблема лише в мене, але коли на арені більше двох ворогів, починається справжній хаос. Лок постійно перескакує між цілями й нерідко фокусується на тому, хто стоїть десь позаду, тоді як найближчі суперники вже роздають стусани. Про якусь тактику чи контроль ситуації в такі моменти можна забути. Реагувати на загрози майже неможливо, бо доводиться чекати, поки система сама вирішить переключитися на потрібного ворога. І тут виникає лише одне питання: як це взагалі пройшло тестування? Як? І це особливо прикро, тому що сама бойова система (після патчу) має сильні сторони. Фехтування відчувається приємно, кожен удар мечем має вагу, блоки працюють переконливо, а звуковий супровід поєдинків заслуговує окремої похвали. Саме тому подвійно шкода, що настільки хорошу основу псує кривий лок. Попри цей недолік, гру все ж можу рекомендувати. Насамперед за її історичний антураж, увагу до деталей і можливість хоча б на кілька десятків годин зануритися в атмосферу середньовічної Італії.

TLDR it's a 6/10 game. Game play: Basic with some depth but it's easy to master then becomes a repetitive. For a UE 5 game it looks and runs OK. Not great and not smooth all the time. Doesn't look as good as other games either but it's passible for what it's trying to do. 4/10 Story: I love visual novel type games like Disco Elysium or Suzerain. Those games are also on the shorter side but the story here isn't as well written. There are pacing issues after "Act 1" effectively. The final boss is really really obvious before the beginning of "Act 2" and it spoils the already extremely short "Act 3". I do love lesbian stories but I've read plenty done better than this. The positive side is that the characters aren't idiots. They have clear goals and principals with logic for both main characters being valid for the time period they're in. Disappointing but not unenjoyable still. 6/10 Sound: The running sound was just 1 track that became very repetitive and hard to listen to. Thankfully the music was good and you can turn down the sound effects to mitigate that issue. All the other sounds like sword strikes and ambiance were just ok. The voice acting also really saved this score. They had amazing talent that did pay off. 7/10 Price: I paid full price because I wanted to support the clearly new devs and the voice actor Jennifer English. The game is not worth the full price though for the time spent or the quality imo. If you can get it for $15 I think that is a fair amount though for most people, even those not from the US. I do not regret my choice just giving everyone else a fair warning and review. 5/10 I think this is a slightly above average game. It is very short with a couple high points early on then falls of later. It's actually not a bad thing that it's so short. You won't feel like you're wasting a lot of time while still being able to get your money's worth by finishing it. Hopefully the devs learn from this and continue making games. They do have some good ideas that could be expanded on. I think the combat if given another couple years could be as good as fromsoftware souls likes or any fighting game. I think the story writing team given more time could polish and fill out act 2 or 3 making it more fulfilling. I think if they have enough money to get away from UE 5 that they could make a game the way they want to look with less bugginess and stuttering issues. Lots of ifs and potential. Anyways that's the review. Hope it was helpful.

The roman ruins are built very nice, i like the main character. The game is rather short and the end-boss is a pain, but i enjoyed playing it.