Venture to the Vile is a *pitch-perfect* Indie Metroidvania | Launch Review
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- Опубліковано 1 лип 2024
- So I got to play VENTURE TO THE VILE (and it’s delightful)
#VentureToTheVile #Metroidvania #VentureToTheVileReview
Venture to the Vile is a charming and delightfully (and surprisingly) challenging Indie Metroidvania made by the Montreal based developer studio Cut to Bits. It’s their first release and it screams passion project from start to finish. I had the opportunity to play it before release (which is today, the day this video launches) and I found myself enjoying my time immensely.
This video is a hands-on review in which I share my experiences with it and I hope it helps you get an idea if Venture to the Vile is a game that might be up your alley or not.
Venture to the Vile on Steam
store.steampowered.com/app/21...
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Chapters
00:00 Vania Mania
05:08 We Can’t Stop Here, This is Vile Country
13:13 Venture Time!
24:42 Search Action: The Next Generation
__
Script:
Michael Saba, Ragnar Ulricson
Captions (en):
Mira Cox, Ragnar Ulricson
Sources
www.google.com/url?sa=t&sourc...
kotaku.com/game-industry-layo...
www.bloomberg.com/news/articl...
Footage Credits
Longplay of Super Metroid | LongplayArchive
• Longplay of Super Metroid - Ігри
Wait,...horns, masks, a nail-like weapon, a yellow glowy desease running through the land,...this is Hollow Knight with people! Wishlisted!
16:52 Ok, this was weird. I actually stopped the video and wishlisted Venture to the Vile, then I spotted Shin Megami Tensei III and also put it on the my wishlist, come back here and it gets name dropped...
"Geriatric Millennial" hurt my Gen X bones a bit more then it should
I believe another term that can be used is Xennial; mix of Gen X and Millenial traits. I think the main phrase for Xennial is "Analog childhood, Digital adulthood."
2 videos in less than a week??? My man, you ok????
I'm pretty exhausted, not gonna lie
@@RagnarRoxShow I'm too but take my energy anyway
you need it more than me
@@RagnarRoxShow All my love to you and your vids buddy, take a breath when you can :')
He’s dropping content like he’s Kendrick in the middle of a beef.
@@RagnarRoxShow hey, I pop in every now and then. Just want to say, thank you for your hard work.
Great video. Your point about the line "You flew the Gullfire over Leningrad" reminds me of Roy's final words in Blade Runner. "“I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain." The attack ships on fire and the Tannhäuser Gate are never elaborated upon, and yet adds such a feeling of world building and characterisation.
I find it amusing how the SMT III Matador is still remembered to this day. He sure left an impression on me, glad to hear I am not the only one.
The Matador is so interesting, because he's rather uncommon for how most JRPGs work (or, let's say SMT is rather uncommon) because most of the time if you get a roadblock, it's "ah I need to grind more levels", but in SMT, a good party composition and a deliberate use of skills, affinities, etc. is often more powerful than 2 hours of just plain grinding numbers up. So many people found Matador unreasonably difficult because just grinding didn't feel like a satisfying breakthrough - and without having learned what you need to learn to beat him at Par level, you'll keep running into more and more roadblock enemies that get harder and harder to outgrind.
what is smt?
@@Walczyk Shin Megami Tensei
@@Walczykit stands for Shin Megami Tensei, the name of the series the Matador is from. It’s a long-running JRPG series with a somewhat higher standard difficulty than most of its contemporaries (owing to its as-mentioned tendency to emphasize game systems over pure numbers as the ticket to victory) and a strong thematic emphasis on mysticism, mythology, and psychology. If you’re familiar with the Persona games, that series actually started as a spinoff series of SMT (and they thus share a lot of DNA), though it’s far eclipsed its parent series by now, lol.
@@guidofedeli851 o
I love how you are now using the Search Action term when talking about metroidvanias, hopefully it sticks.
I was sad when at first he only called it Metroidvania.
I remember hearing the “search action” term in the Control video that Sophie From Mars did back in around 2019, but nobody really used it after that.
I would also posit that this also fits neatly in the souls-like genre.
I had no idea that this game existed at all and search action is one of my favorite genres. I might have never found it were it not for this video, but I've picked it up and am super excited to play it. Thanks for covering it!
Thanks to steam family sharing I've been playing a lot of indie metroidvanias these last months. I didn't hear anything about this game, but it looks actually pretty good.
Dude I’ve been going down the list of all your videos and I love it, keep up the fantastic work!
Thank you!!
Yeah. The algorithm gives more value to clickbait thumbnails and titles. Meaning this channel is criminally underrated. Every episode is awesome.
I prefer the genre name "Castleroid", because it sounds like there's a cream for it.
i prefer the original genre name, before it got co-opted into sandbox games, Open World.
My proposition is Exploraction
@@1rez378
Acsploration?
@@1rez378 Ok this sounds kinda nice tbh
Heeeey, that's the word the lead dev of the hand-animated metroidvania Cookie Cutter likes to use :P
We love you, please take a break
about to :)
Another awesome Metroidvania game for me to play for the entire week. Thanks for giving me so much recommendation.
This game looks like a lot of fun, I'll have to check it out.
I will never give up the metroidvania moniker though.
Oh man, this looks like fun. I've been looking for a new metroidvania to grab so this might be next, thanks for the heads up!
RAGNAR thank you so much for all of your effort, these games you review are gems, i have played them all, thank you for you hard work you are the best
Life is good right now.
Got my tax returns.
Got my pay raise.
I'm sitting by the lake with a cigar in one hand and a whisky in the other.
And last but most certainly not least, Ragnar uploads a SECOND video just a few days after the last one. 😊
and another game wishlisted XD this makes the second game I found thanks to you. (first being world of horror) I love your videos and as weird as it sounds. they are some of my favs to have on at night to help my brain calm down to sleep.
another awesome video ragnar! thank you so much for always bringing such interesting indie games to the forefront, gonna add this to my must play list c:
Another great video and thank you as always
Sorry, I have to say this. I have seen some of your videos now, and I do like them, subbing with this video. Just an observation that I want out. :D
What I keep seeing recently is how many games are calling themselves Metroidvania games when they don't combine the 2. They are usually just Metroid Clones. So, Search Action, predominantly. After Symphony of the Night people started slowly calling the genre Metroidvania because it took what was good in Metroid and added to it. Added a full equipment system and a leveling system (To mostly eliminate the need for skill if the game is too hard) on top of the exploration and action. So combining the two, Metroidvania. I notice more and more games recently (Hollow Knight, Axiom Verge, Animal Well, Cave Story, etc.) are all being called Metroidvania games when they lean more towards the METROID side of the title, making it a Metroid Clone or a Metroid Like. I love the genre, when it mixes the RPG system because I do like doing challenge runs in them. However, I do not like Metroid Like games. Axiom Verge and Hollow Knight were not enjoyable to me because it was exclusively about skill and memorization of the map and a too heavy focus on exploration. Why does no one call the games Metroidvania Likes (Bloodstained) and Metroidvania Lites (Hollow Knight), like they do with Souls Likes and Rouge Lites? The games have diverged too much from what gained them the title, and the title Metroidvania now is near meaningless to me when searching for games to play, and I dislike that.
Thanks for covering this Search Action game! The skipping back and forth away and towards the camera to enter another plane of the action is reminiscent of some action adventure games of yore like Rambo or Friday the 13th for the NES.
Venture to the Vile is a badass title.
My first thought was how this game would be Helloween4545's jam. And looking at the masks, I'm now getting a strong folk horror vibe, a'la the original Wicker Man.
warms my morning to see a new RagnarRox video before work.
This looks very cool. I need to play it
“Gullfire over Leningrad” aka “Kos…some say Kosm…”
These set pieces are amazing!
Disney’s Hercules (PC&PSX) did the 2.5D moving between foreground and background way back in 1997. All I’m saying is that game deserves its own episode.
just discovered your channel, i wanted to suggest an indie game that is criminally underrated. wandersong is my favorite game of all time. it is a heartwarming story based 2d platformer where the universe was sung into existence by a goddess who is planning to sing anew song soon, which will overwrite the universe. you play as a bard who learns about this and sets out to learn a magical song which theoretically could allow your world to harmonize with the new song and continue to exist. solving all of his problems by singing at them, and making friends.
16:15 I learned this back in the Death Egg of Sonic 2- much respect to the devs for bringing back this deceptively good tactic!
I absolutely agree with your 3 rules of sponsorship. I'm sure however that does lower the likelihood of you getting sponsored but it means that you get to make the unfiltered videos that you want and we get to hear your true opinions of a game, including the flaws, and use that to help us determine if a good is worth our time instead of you basically being a salesman for the gaming companies.
If you can get over the visuals - i really recommend Frogmonster. It's 1st person atmospheric metroidvania with a alot of interesting locations and like 20+ unique bosses. It starts a bit slow in a sense that first 3 zones a pretty liniar, but after that it opens up and never stoppes. Sadly i think because of how it look most people overlook it, but it's a really strong entry in the genre imo.
I actually hate the "search action" term. Personally adored Metroidvania. It's got a weird sound of nerdy legacy to it which, personally, I value far more highly than literal descriptors. That's just me though. As for the actual game, I was originally going to pass it up because all I saw of it was the cutesy beginning bits, so I'm glad you made a video on it. Definitely excited to go give it a try.
always great to see a ragnarox video.
They indeed taste fantastic
I'm sold
Looks great
I really want to try this game! It looks amazing 🔥
I love your vidoes alot! I come back to the Rule of Rose one a lot just to enjoy the work some more. I remember once i was rewatchint it and mentioned in my guild chat that i was watching a Rule of Rose essay video and one if my guildies asked me to refer them because they loved RoR and is always down to watch more about it. I dont know if they watched more then that though...
Which games were you showing in the intro segment? I recognized some of them but not all.
I have like 10 unplayed metroidvania's (or search action if you prefer) in by library, looks like it's going to be 11. Thank you for making videos like this, so many great smaller titles slip through the cracks on steam, without you mentioning them many like myself wouldn't know they existed.
My boy just pumped out two vids in a week 💪💪💪💪💪
Next video tomorrow! (just kidding)
#ForeverMetroidvania!
New video so quick ?! I haven't even eaten my breakfast yet ragnar but I guess I must eat later rn
Thanks for the vid
god this looks so good. ive been replaying hollow knight recently and its been making want more Good metroidvania. sadly i'll have to wait till this goes to console (or mac? i wont hold my breath) but I'm so excited for it. thanks for all your honesty when it comes to games reviews
I played Hollow Knight when it first came out on PS and that game changed my life. In your intro all games are fantastic.
Thanks for the heads up for this one.
I'll be getting this on PS5
Please please check out withering rooms as well. That game gets overlooked so badly while its a pretty cool game made by a single dude. I simply bought it for the vibes it gave off. But i stuck around for the game itself. Even if the gameplay can be janky at times
Matt McMuscles introduced me to Search Action and it's what I've been calling them for a couple years now.
What a lovely afternoon for a cup of coffee and a new Ragnar video! ^_^
I think the good ole metrovania (not a typo) is just kind of the platonic ideal of conventional game elements and design.
Platforming? Check. Exploration? Check. Combat? Check. Puzzles? Check.
Though games have evolved over time to be able to have literally none of these elements they still, and I think to some degree will always, kind of form an ur bedrock of the medium.
Even if future generations wind up viewing them as primitive and childish things to build a medium upon. Though, honestly, I kind of doubt humanity will ever outgrow the enjoyment of recreational violence 😅
So long as our monkey brains enjoy exploring new lands, finding unexpected things and hitting back at the things that would do us harm, then the metrovania will always have a welcome place.
I do wish more folks would try to make fully 3d ones though. The core design principles carry over.
A Action Adventure Platformer I will try, if it got a Switch (2) release or at least a Linux version.
3:00 what is the music playing in background?
It's both depressing that your journalistic disclaimer at the start of the video is necessary, and admirable that you still take the time to provide full disclosure. You are one of the OG video game essayists on youtube, and it's astonishing how many of the "new breed" just don't even consider journalistic integrity in their work.
I've had friends laugh at me for using the the term journalistic/artistic integrity, not because they're mean or ignorant, but because they're so conditioned at this point to assume it's naive to expect integrity from journalists and artists. I digress. Great video as always ragywooozles. (I can call you that, right? lol)
Please please do an essay video on Signalis. That game was made for you
It's been almost 20 years... and still Matador PTSD is real. As soon as I saw that landscape, reddish tint and lightning in the background... I got a slightly bad gut feeling. I played a couple JRPGs beforehand, but that was the point when my JRPG cherry got truly popped
I see Ragnar I click like. I see Matador I have war flashbacks.
Two Ragnar videos in a week? We’re eating well this month friends.
New Ragnar dropping vids left and right! I promise I won't expect this moving forward, big guy.
Pleeeeease do a video on fear and hunger, i feel like that is just perfect for your style.
I talk about this at the end-credits of my Aconcagua video. Here's the link with timecode.
ua-cam.com/video/9DV-zu2GmMQ/v-deo.htmlsi=tYQGt8EgRRmmiuA_&t=2121
There's a game on kickstarter with seemingly very strong inspiration from Fear and Hunger called Solve et Coagula. Worth a look.
What are the games at 1:07 and 1:12?
Search action, I like it. Any chance you'd ever delve into Prey (2017)?
The way the characters talk reminded me of Hollow Knight actually, not exactly the same but the same feeling
5:35
This situation feels oddly familiar
Is Search Action a direct translation? Let's play with it a bit. How about Exploraction?
A SECOND VIDEO YOU BEAUTIFUL HUMAN? You spoil us.
also, fuck yeah sparrows
an interesting game, so far I am mostly turned away by two things: the map, that does not look very helpful to me, and the lack of quest markers. I've got a horrible sense of directions, so I usually need a good map and markers to not constantly run in a circle being lost. I also rather dislike this asymetric mask with only one horn... is there a way to get a different mask?
Still a shame that there are no more forgotten gems. I was hoping to hear your thoughts on the Shadow Hearts trilogy and how they represented regional folklore/horror.
Brother I don't know what you're eating for breakfast but if it means twice weekly bangers you have my approval lol
I don't think I can keep up that pace for longer, hah.
1:16 Indie renaissance? I don't remember indie games existing before that date to be considered a renaissance 😅
Ah yes...Matador.
The great filter
The name Search Action is going around more and more these days and I have to say I quite like it. It's not good to name a genre after a single game or series, it doesn't make it a genre that way, just emulation of a game it's named after, we know that problem. The second reason, it fits in a patern, we have Character Action, Search Action and so on, even Action RPG would make more sense the other way around, if it's basically an action game with some rpg elements, the Soulslikes come to mind, also still named after one title. Let's make Search Action more popular than Metroidvania and build an action game subgenre tree already...
MATADOR MENTIONED (I love Nocturne, and searching up your vids and only finding an unrelated Nocturne game made me sad)
Great review, definitely wishlisting this. I love the way it looks and I haven't seen a diorama-like true 2.5D game that loads its world seamlessly like this in quite a while. Amusingly, it reminds me of Super Paper Mario of all things, with the perspective shift. Also unrelated, but what's the game shown at 0:50? I'm a metroidvania enthusiast and it's the only one I don't recognize of all the ones shown
That's Sundered!
One day I'm gonna cover SMT games, but I'll probably start with Digital Devil Saga.
@@RagnarRoxShow that's wonderful to know! Knowing your channel primarily covers less known games and mostly focuses on horror, I thought SMT wasn't ever going to be your niche, but I'm super happy to be proven wrong by the man himself! And thanks for telling me about Sundered. I've never been into the roguelite metroidvanias (I like for my MVs to have a structure, with a clear end in mind and a full feature map full of secrets to explore, without necessarily having it be consultable), so that's probably why I either really didn't know about it or heard of it and promptly forgot about it. Shame, too, because it looks pretty cool. But I know I'd be bored of it within minutes
There's a hand-drawn animated metroidvania by name of Cookie Cutter that came out in late 2023. Very solid time in a world that's the summation of the lead dev's love for the media that he grew up with. Set in a dystopian sci-fi world that grew around a possibly sapient energy source and is inhabited by an amorous skeleton robot, tentacle mutants, soul-powered robots, a lady with giant scissors for weapons, chunky frog people, an angry floating computer server, a belly-mouthed Hindu demon and more.
I've looked into various interviews with the lead dev Stefano here and there including a video by an Italian YTer called Emalloru who told of the six-year dev progress with four of those six years being Stefano going at it largely by himself while also having a job on the side, and only in the last two years having a full team of about fourteen, fifteen people that he had to learn how to manage.
He also went over a hundred publisher interviews before he found one that was comfortable with just letting Cookie Cutter be as it is, with all its off-putting and less easily marketable elements and everything.
The lead dev recently shared it's confirmed they can work on CC again to further expand it with stuff like new weapons, areas, characters, enemies, bosses, story beats and the like.
Amongst the new characters and oncepts that Stefano has teased on twitter so far include a battle arena, some kind of pink sleepy mystical monk in quilted robe/pajamas with BIG sleeves, a many-eyed alien slug tourist, a crown-wearing hamburger in a Two-Face-type suit and a robot bondage gimp for a weapon that gets used as a whip, skipping rope and shield.
I'm excited to see where CC goes.
It definitely has a Little Nightmares vibe which I love
oh good. it has a parry mechanic.
I think we should rename the genre metvaniowwknitelda-like
That's a great suggestion. I'm going to use that term henceforth!
Lol, Metroi-knight- elda? 😂 I like the idea!
I'm sorry ragnar, I'd be behind you in any other task, but unfortunatelly, I find the metroidvania name very charming
Very Nice
The only thing that i do not like that much, is how the player character is animated. Dont know looks really weird during fights and while jumping
I'm not saying it's wrong nor is it right but to be fair. Comparing a skill tree from a Metroidvania game to one of a full "RPG". That's tilting the analogy odds in your favor lol
Your still the best
SEARCH-ACTION
0:42 what? When have they gone? Flavours of the month? Open world crafting and survival hasnt even stopped for a month since minecrafts release
So we Gen X are practically corpses now, huh! How are the puzzles in this game? Hard, easy, multiple screens to solve one, many and frequent, scarce and far in between? What if I totally hate puzzle games and games that are puzzle heavy like CrossCode?
Metroidvania is way better a name than search action, even if not as apparent.
Phantom Crash #Gemsuggestion
You had me at “Search Action game” ❤
This game mechanically and thematically seems right up my alley... but I hate that I cant stand the art style.
I've had a couple games like that, and honestly it's a fair opinion. Sometimes you can work through them and enjoy the game (looking at you Lost Ruins), and other times it just kills it (cough cough Ribbi Rabbi).
8:07 why are you so amazed by this? what kind of game explains their animal crossing nonsense voice? it’s obvious lol
Search action baby!
i'll gladly check out this metroidvania, tho i won't start calling these games "search action", i feel that name is akward, weird, cluncky, and just over all unappealing
Some elements reminds me of Kena. It was all fun and games until you reach the boss and have your ass handled to you in a rather unnecessary difficulty spike. Inconsistent gameplay to say the least