Something is interesting about a point-and-click adventure that has a strong LucasArts 90s vibe to it. There’s nothing quite like that era of gaming, where good stories and puzzles led over graphical prowess. That gameplay formula generally meant a good time. See games like The Dig and The Secret of Monkey Island for details.
I mention all the above because developer Gametopia has thrown its old-school hat into the ring with its flavor of P/C adventuring in its release of Verne: The Shape of Fantasy. While the game doesn’t physically function like a point-and-click adventure, mainly because there is no pointing or click with a mouse, rather WASD for the win, it still has that essence of storytelling and puzzles to harken back to a more civilized gaming time. Does it do a great job of emulating what LucasArts perfected? Not entirely, but it certainly showed it was on the right track.
So, put away 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, pay attention to what’s going on, and let’s solve this review puzzle.
Story
The story of Verne: The Shape of Fantasy revolves around the player taking control of Jules Verne and his plight to stop Captain Nemo and his nefarious plans to take the flame of Hephaestus and seek his revenge on The Nation, who killed his wife and child. Forgive me for the size of that sentence…those details needed to be there. Anyway, the drive to find power, take revenge, and not think about the consequences equals some pretty heavy stuff for a game, but certainly perfect for a Jules Verne story.
The story created for Verne: The Shape of Fantasy is an interesting one. It wants to bring some familiarity to those who know of Captain Nemo and Jules Verne, while at the same time sprinkling in the possibility that none of what the player sees is real, rather it’s Verne imagining things. That ‘sprinkle’ helps to keep the story interesting and engaging, making the player wonder if everything that’s being laid out for them is a deeper layer of storytelling that opens the door to a bigger world. It works in a sense, as the story keeps the player in the moment with Nemo and his crew, while occasionally reminding him that almost none of what the player is trying to do could be real. It’s like the game is gaslighting us in a fun way.
I enjoy that type of uncertainty in my storytelling, especially when the primary story is interesting and engaging. Having Nemo seek a power to take down a bigger enemy creates such a storytelling conundrum. You must enjoy the evil villain while hoping the more evil-er villain gets the justice they deserve. It also creates a question about what justice truly is. Would you do whatever it takes to seek revenge on a person who destroyed your loved ones and previous life? It’s a tough call, especially when you put your people at risk and count their existence less when compared to your motivation. Very real-world shit.
Now, about that gaslighting bit, the game wants to install some uncertainty in the player’s mind about the story unfolding. Is it real? That’s the main question as the adventure starts to show its stripes. I love that type of story, as casting the possibility that you’re not there makes for a fun time. It’s why I always loved Life on Mars (BBC version), where you suspect that you know the answer to what is real or fake, but the story won’t fully confirm the reality. That type of story is rewatchable, even when the inevitable is revealed.
Now, having said that I think that Verne: The Shape of Fantasy doesn’t sprinkle in that uncertainty as much as it needed to during its gameplay. While people Verne encounters begin to lay the foundation for the possibility that the entire story is in Verne’s head, and they do so cruelly at times, the reminder doesn’t come quite as often or consistently for the player to remember or consider that the reality they’re playing isn’t the reality that Verne is living within. Sometimes that lack of reminding hurts the experience, as the story will twist and turn, sometimes dipping into an emotional moment and then all of it is disrupted with a sprinkle of ‘it’s not real…maybe’ into the scenario. When you are inconsistent or when you create an imbalance by laying down a secondary storytelling breadcrumb path, you risk pulling anything meaningful from the original path. It’s like doing a task all day and then having your boss come up to you randomly and say that you’ve been doing the wrong thing. Even though you might have finished the task, you now have wasted your entire day and effort on something that didn’t matter.
In short, commit to telling a story of Verne and Nemo, or commit to telling a story about Verne imagining Nemo, but still living within it. Anything beyond those borders and the story becomes a potential jumbled mess. Thankfully, Verne: The Shape of Fantasy teeters on the latter type of story and it works for the most part. It just needed a bit more breadcrumb trails leaning towards the possibility of Verne living in his imagination so that the players are kept on their toes with the story.
Anyway, I enjoyed the story more than I didn’t.
Puzzling puzzles
A huge part of the gameplay with Verne: The Shape of Fantasy is puzzles. I dare say it’s the main part of the gameplay beyond some minor QTE moments. The puzzles in this game are incredibly difficult. Some of that difficulty is clever, while some of it is unintentionally made. There were more times than not during my gameplay experience when I honestly didn’t know what the game was asking me to do. Again, going back to my original LucasArts comment, having a difficult puzzle isn’t anything new to the P/C adventuring genre. LucasArts made a living off making it difficult for a player to progress. But, that said, they left some detailed hints on what the player should be focusing on. Maybe those hints were not the greatest hints all the time, but they usually created a proper direction for the player to start their puzzle-solving moments. Verne The Shape of Fantasy had moments where it simply presented a puzzle and said, “There it is”, and left the player to figure out what ‘there’ might be and how to get beyond ‘there’.
When you create puzzles, you must give the player some sort of push. It’s fine to create a difficult puzzle, but it’s not okay to just slide something in front of them without any guidance. For example, there was a puzzle where I had to synthesize some blue blood for a weapon. What was presented were three vials of chemicals, and I had to put them to create the blue blood transformation. The only hint provided was for me to pay attention to Nemo’s note. The note simply said: Danger (red), 1 (yellow), 2 (green), and blue was synthesized. While I don’t want the game to hold my hand, this note meant nothing to me. Do I avoid red completely? Do I put in one yellow drop? Do I put in two greens? Do I focus on yellow and green because combined they make blue? Nothing here was obvious, nor did it immediately lead to a solution. Admittedly, I don’t consider myself the smartest person in any room, but I do consider myself logical and generally can scope out exactly what a puzzle is asking for and what tools it provides. I was lost in this puzzle. I eventually did figure it out, but that needed push that the gameplay was supposed to give never happened. It needed to happen. I just happened upon the solution for this puzzle, and I still don’t understand how that worked. Because of this, the puzzle solution never felt earned, and I never felt like I deserved that progression.
This is one of a few puzzle examples where I just didn’t get what I needed to do. The game didn’t provide a clear path to what it wanted, and it didn’t lay out any details on how to get me to the puzzle’s finality. In short, a good chunk of the puzzles in this game were frustrating at times, and not in a good way. Granted, Gametopia did provide some hints, as stated above, but most of what they threw out to me never stuck helpfully. I wish this was a bit cleaner. Hell, I wish there was an easier mode that I could downgrade myself to and have more direct hints. I would have been fine with that option, and most games of this type do that nowadays. I just wish the puzzles contained a bit more direction and clarity, especially the latter.
Of course, not all the puzzles went this way. Some fun and easy puzzles opened the story. There was a set of puzzles in a part of the story that dipped into the past with Verne and Nemo, one which finds them underwater. Those puzzles weren’t easy, but they also weren’t difficult. When I finished them and the story bit unlocked to reveal some details of the past, it felt rewarding. All the puzzles in this game should have been this way.
If Verne Could Turn Back Time
Now, as for other aspects of the gameplay, the game does have some moments where Verne whips out a flame, turns back time on a situation, and tries to get through before disaster happens. There are scattered moments for this gameplay item, and they’re all built into the story progression.
Occasionally, Verne will find himself in a sticky situation that he literally cannot get beyond. That indicator means that he whips out this blue flame and reverses the moment. Once the flame is whipped out, a quick-time event begins where the player must hit the WASD buttons in a random order that is called up on the screen. If Verne fails, the scenario restarts and the player tries again. Cleverly, to keep the QTE interesting, Gametopia randomizes the order of the buttons with each try. So, if W-A-D-S was the original QTE before you failed, it might be S-D-A-W this time out. It keeps the success of the scenario rewarding when the QTE is finally figured out. I can appreciate that effort.
Related, we don’t get to use that flame at any given moment. The flame is attached to the story and doesn’t act like a gun or a sword. It is simply a McGuffin to progress the story. It’s a shame it wasn’t available more often for the player, as it would have been cool at times. Now, that said, I can’t imagine the amount of complication that would have created for the devs in trying to implement that type of item in every possible scenario of the game. It would have been fun, though. Anyway, it’s a nice story-progressing item, but it doesn’t way too heavily on the gameplay beyond its sporadic use.
Running Around
When Verne isn’t figuring out puzzles or whipping out flames to reverse time, the story has him running around areas trying to gather items, find people, and backtracking a lot. While younger gamers will not know the joy and excitement of figuring out puzzles and then racing back with the solutions to progress, I certainly appreciate that about this game as it opens up explorable items and areas and creates a sense of space for the gameplay. It’s an old-school concept for adventure games of this type and it works well with Verne: The Shape of Fantasy. It gives the game a good chunk of exploration while making the constant back-and-forth rewarding. It also provides a chance for the game to show off its feathers.
This Peacock Contains Gorgeous Feathers
Running around and exploring unveils the girth of the levels created by Gametopia and their unique art style that flows well with the gameplay. The game is a visual masterpiece of 90s adventuring and having Verne traverse the huge levels, especially the Nautilus, is a treat, even when repeated multiple times.
There were so many times during my review period that I just sat in awe in how good the visuals were in this game. It certainly ignited that need to return to my LucasArts games and enjoy some well-made, and detailed pixelated art. If Verne wasn’t sent on constant exploration missions to gather intel, items, and whatnot, then I’m not sure I would have fully seen the beautiful scope that Gametopia laid out with this one. It was breathtaking at times.
What was also breathtaking was the sound engineering in the game. It has been a long time since I appreciated sounds in a game. For Verne: The Shape of Fantasy, whoever engineered the environmental sound effects deserves a raise. The sounds of the ship, islands, hulking large Nation boats, and a general sense of surroundings were so well done. The sounds put the player in the environment, and I couldn’t get enough of the ambiance created with them. It was a master class in sound mixing.
On the acting side, it was good. While I couldn’t help but notice some mispronunciations of words, maniacal being one, I felt like the actors did a great job of selling their roles. I liked their sounds, their emotions, and their character pushes. They did a good job.
Now, on that note, let’s wrap this review up.
Conclusion
Verne: The Shape of Fantasy from developer Gametopia is a fascinating adventure that uses a classic author within their own classic tale to push a good story while supported by beautiful visuals and sounds that harken back to 90s-style gameplay. That gameplay works for the most part, though some more direction with puzzles and a more balanced story could have worked a few more wonders for the overall gaming experience.
