1348: Ex Voto

1348 Ex Voto makes a promising first impression that it doesn't live up to at all, leaning most of its gameplay on shallow and shoddy combat and mission structures.

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1348 Ex Voto is a cinematic adventure set in the late medieval Italian countryside that, despite its highly intriguing premise, ultimately ends up feeling unfinished, poorly paced, and flat.

Third-person action adventure set in the Italian late medieval period that falls short of its expectations

1348 Ex Voto is a game that had some good ideas with a stance-based combat system and an interesting medieval Italian setting. However, the execution here is incredibly poor and it feels as if you’re walking between two places and fighting a few enemies before doing the exact same thing again with added frustration and annoyance the second the enemy numbers ramp up. Boss battles are infuriatingly difficult and the game is just simply not fun at all to play because it’s fighting you back with its mediocre mechanics and unpolished gameplay.

1348 Ex Voto wastes a fantastic setting and excellent voice acting on a fundamentally broken gameplay loop. The 14th-century Italian countryside looks gorgeous, but the erratic lock-on camera, unreliable dodging, and technical bugs turn sword fights into a constant struggle. Even at a budget price, it’s hard to recommend picking this up until the controls see some major updates.

Much like Aeta’s quest, players of 1348 Ex Voto have some challenges to face in getting through to the end. If you power through the various bugs and design issues with the combat, you’ll find a decent 7 to 8 hour game that gives you a bleak look into a plague-ridden Europe. Buboes and all, 1348 Ex Voto’s strong voice cast, great environments and lighting might not be enough to avoid a big white X on it.

Sedleo is a small development team, and *1348 Ex Voto* is their debut title. This, in part, may explain some of the game’s shortcomings. The team likely bit off more than they could chew; it would have been better to lower their ambitions slightly and develop something less ambitious. *Ex Voto* does have a solid plot, compelling storytelling, and graphics that are visually striking. But beyond that, there’s little else: gameplay that’s far too linear, an imprecise and frustrating combat system, progression that fails to engage the player, and a series of inexplicable bugs that sink the game. It’s a shame, but perhaps this can serve as a starting point for the development team to start over and show us gamers what they’re really made of.

1348 Ex-Voto is one of those games that puts us in an awkward position: its flaws are obvious, but we can’t bring ourselves to completely dismiss it. Because yes, the flaws are numerous. The narrative constantly falls apart, the combat is more interesting in theory than in practice, and… so much more. There’s too much that “doesn’t add up” to call it a truly successful game. And yet it had, at times, an inexplicable hold on us. Because all it took was a vineyard, a church, a country road, to captivate us with a very specific imagery. Perhaps its charm lies precisely in this constant contradiction: seeing clearly everything that doesn’t work, and yet continuing to believe that beneath those cracks lies something precious.

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