Product Info

Platform

PC

Publisher

Colorgrave

Developer

Colorgrave

Genre

Action, Adventure, Puzzle

Players

1

Release Date (NA)

Jul 22, 2024

Purchase From

Steam

Veritus is a delightful, retro, top-down, indie action role-playing game (ARPG) that’s inspired by the Legend of Zelda series from the Game Boy handheld. Developed by Colorgrave, the same team who worked on Curse Crackers: For Whom the Belle Toils (a highly recommended title to play), they continue with Veritus, a sequel to their previous game, Prodigal.

Creepy Castle, Creepy Fun

Taking place after the events of Prodigal, you’ll continue playing as Oran, a miner who joins a team of talented adventurers looking to uncover the secrets inside the god of shadows’s castle. You and your team will navigate through the castle’s dungeons where enemies lie and the god of shadows himself awaits for you. With the help of your teammates, you’ll need to fend off and conquer dungeon floors in this Game Boy Color inspired game.

The review was written without any knowledge or playthrough of Prodigal. To have a better understanding of Oran and some of the game’s story, you’ll want to take a look at Colorgrave’s 2020 game. Otherwise, expect the story to fly over your head.

Mining Your Way

As a miner, you, of course, carry a pickaxe. However, that doesn’t mean you’re mining in caverns. Your pickaxe can take out enemies and can even power up your attack for greater damage. Along with your pickaxe, you’ll carry a whip to help bring enemies closer to you and to leap over pits.

You’ll have some help from your other party members but only for specific areas, such as diving in the water to unlock pathways, unlocking treasures, or being thrown across pits.

Other adventurers like the chief make an appearance during a mini game where you are thrown objects and you have to catch them and throw them into a giant bag. If you miss, you’ll have a piece of meat running wild and attacking you. You’ll also have to be on the lookout for enemies spawning at the same time. It’s a lot, but it’s a way to earn ingredients. When playing, if you get hurt, it takes away your health gauge, and if you die, you are warped back to camp. Perishing during adventuring makes sense, but perishing while playing a mini game is odd. If you die while playing the mini game, you can go back and try again. Thankfully, you don’t lose track of the items you found while questing. Phew.

Treasures you uncover are more about creating new gear, getting food, increasing health, and adding skills. One of the best and most useful skills is the ability to reset your location back at the entrance of the room. It’s necessary for many of the puzzles you’ll encounter.

Many puzzles offer a fun challenge, making you work your brain to proceed to the next room. For example, using your whip to travel across the floor to unlock the next room or moving blocks to move across the room.

Boss fights are also entertaining and don’t overwhelm and frustrate players. You’ll have more frustrating times when enemies respawn when you return to a room.

When completing a level, you’ll be warped to a new campground with your fellow party members. You can also exit camp and the new grounds to return to the castle’s main floor. There, you can visit rooms like those that let you swap out Oran’s clothing, which only changes the color of his pixels. You can also revisit dungeons if you missed out on secret rooms or finding all the treasures. One of the biggest gripes while adventuring is the lack of a dungeon map. It makes revisiting less appealing without some helpful guide.

What Do I Need?

You’ll have the opportunity to equip and build new weapons and armor by collecting materials in dungeons and combining them with the help of one of your teammates. You’ll need three specific ingredients. However, the game doesn’t go into detail about which ingredient goes in what slot. This makes it challenging to figure out what you need. Once made, the gear is automatically equipped. You can still go back and reequip another item if you think it’s better. It’s unfortunate that the game doesn’t provide more details on what kind of boost you received. All you get is a description of the item’s visuals, so you’ll just have to hope for the best.

Cooking is handled the same way as creating weapons and armor. Choose three specific ingredients, and the result can help boost your stats. Aside from the ingredient specifics, the game doesn’t tell you what effect you gained from your meal. Again, you’ll have to pay attention and learn the hard way.

You can purchase ingredients from another party member, but it’s a lottery pick, meaning you can’t guarantee what you’ll get. However, don’t spend all your money on this as many of the items can be found while exploring dungeons. There’ll be times where your money is needed to uncover a room. Spend wisely.

Game Boy in HD

Veritus looks and plays like a Game Boy Color game but made for higher definition screens. Using large pixel blocks to design characters, enemies, the dungeon environment and menu screens, Colorgrave does an excellent job executing a replica of the retro style. Colors are intentionally limited to match the Game Boy Color’s own finite color palette.

The movement and the top-down view feels like playing The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening. Fans of this classic game and its ‘90s handheld graphics should enjoy Veritus. The game’s soundtrack adds more value to the gameplay with its dark and upbeat scores. It’s no surprise that the team that made Curse Crackers created another smash soundtrack. Unfortunately, you can only purchase the soundtrack through Steam.

The Last Dungeon

Veritus is an enjoyable adventure using Game Boy Color style graphics and early Zelda gameplay mechanics. Its soundtrack and fair price adds more impact, making it well worth the pickup to your gaming library.

A Steam code provided for this review. Played on the Steam Deck.