Veritus [Review]
Veritus will scratch your classic Zelda dungeon itch.
Veritus. Credit: Colorgrave
Colorgrave’s latest self-published game Veritus looks and plays like a Game Boy Color game. It’s a top down action RPG that you could easily mistake for Link’s Awakening. It feels great overall, and not just on the level of nostalgia for that era. While I didn’t care for the story or characters, I had a very good time playing the game.
Instead of structuring the game like its Zelda inspiration, Veritus eschews the overworld in favor of the best part of the classic: dungeons. You and your companions must climb the levels of the Castle of Veritus, where each floor is a themed dungeon with its own boss. Veritus doesn’t have a map feature for its dungeons, something I missed it at first, but each floor of the castle quickly became familiar and they aren’t labyrinthine enough to get lost. Each floor’s design is streamlined and mostly linear with limited branching paths.
Veritus. Credit: Colorgrave
Unlike Zelda, you’ll have most of your abilities available to you by the end of the game’s intro level ahead of entering the castle, so puzzles aren’t built around finding new items. In each dungeon, you’ll interact with new objects that make you use your abilities in creative ways while facing increasingly difficult combat challenges. You’ll use your mining pick weapon, a hookshot, a bracelet that lets you lift things, and a claw that teleports you to the start of a room. You can also equip special charge moves to your pick, including a jump ability. You’ll use these in the game’s fast-paced combat as well.
Each floor also has rooms that feature challenges you complete for your various party members. For example, you help your cook throw ingredients into a giant pot while you get attacked by monsters. Each character’s challenges get increasingly difficult as the game goes on; it gets quite hard to survive these by the end. Failing a challenge means death and being sent back to the floor’s beginning. I died enough to wish that the game would let you immediately do the challenge again rather than having to run back from the start of the floor.
Veritus. Credit: Colorgrave
On that note, I appreciated that death didn’t mean going back to the state of my last save. Anything you did before you died doesn’t get reset; puzzles remain solved, unlocked doors remain open. You just need to run back to where you were while fighting enemies, since they respawn any time you leave a room. You also get access to a teleporter that will take you from the beginning of the level to a room near the end, a godsend for a couple of the game’s bosses with large difficulty spikes.
Over the course of your adventure, you’ll find various crafting materials that you can use to make better picks, boots, and more. Crafting is a trial and error process as there are no recipes. You combine items from three columns and hope for good results. After making a new weapon or new boots, I lost access to what I had equipped previously; there is also no ability to compare stats between them. This is irritating, but not a deal breaker.
Veritus. Credit: Colorgrave
My biggest complaint about Veritus is its story. The game is a direct sequel to Colorgrave’s Prodigal, and my understanding is that several characters are from that game. It was clear that Veritus’ writing relied on some familiarity with the prequel’s story. I ended up speeding through the game’s wordy dialogue without reading it because near the halfway point, I still couldn’t bring myself to care. I just wanted the characters to shut up so I could go back to dungeon delving—definitely the game’s strength.
The art in Veritus looks exactly like you’d expect a Game Boy Color game to look if that system had a 16:9 aspect ratio screen. The wider presentation allows the game to smartly shift HUD elements to the left and right sides of the screen, leaving what would have been the GBC’s original 10:9 aspect ratio screen area completely open to the gameplay itself. The game’s audio combines old school Game Boy sound effects and music with more modern touches such as voice samples.
Veritus. Credit: Colorgrave
Veritus is a great action RPG dungeon crawler. If you’ve played The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening on the Game Boy or Game Boy Color, you’ll know exactly what you’re getting into. As a big fan of that particular Zelda game, I was really looking forward to Veritus and was charmed with its tribute—familiar yet unique—to the older game.
Veritus is available now for PC on Steam.
Overall Score: 7/10
Played on: Steam Deck
