Ved: Recure Screenshot
Image: SummerClip

For an upbeat action-roguelike with combat clearly riffing off mobile mega-hits like Honkai Impact, the opening of Ved: Recure (out today, from Chinese indie outfit Summerclip) sure is a mood and a half. Our protagonist here is burnt out, having worked 27 days of overtime, falling asleep at his desk after buying his 1000th game off Steam but being too exhausted to play it. Enter the (obviously feline) God of Games to spirit him into the world of the title he just bought so he can start clearing that backlog. But not after declaring that he's come down with the titular 'VED'... Videogames ED.

Okay, that's kinda dumb (negative), but this game, from the few rounds I've played so far, is mostly the good kind of stupid. Silly Steam Backlog Isekai shenanigans aside, this is a straightforward hack n' slash action roguelite where you fight your way through waves of evil robots, collecting perks and upgrades (via your usual pick-3 or reroll format) to improve your odds of survival in your current run, while unlocking new options, playable characters, and gear for them in the long term.

The basic combat here is clearly inspired by Honkai Impact, and maybe a bit of Genshin - simple hack-and-slash action with light, special, and follow-up attacks, but a bit more exacting. Healing often requires passing up an end-of-round perk, so the focus is on Bayonetta-like perfect dodges or parries with generous active windows, both of which can cancel out of most attack animations. While burning down enemies quickly is important, it feels like the optimal way to play here is never to get hit.

Burning down those enemies does get a lot quicker once you have a few buffs. Interestingly, rather than just applying upgrades to your character, you slot them into your various combat states. A whole round of effects is triggered when you finish a combo, do a dash or special attack, defend, or get hurt. Each state has up to five buff slots, although you need to unlock them using currency earned during that run.

With all that, on top of the seven playable characters and gear upgrades between runs, it feels like there's some real depth here, but it'll only really reveal itself after I've dug deeper. I'm not very far at all in the game (having only beaten 3 out of a total of 16 bosses, all giant humanoid robots), but I can say that this one's a looker. Normal enemies have well-telegraphed attacks and some personality to their animations, and the bosses are a treat to watch, with their exaggerated attack animations providing a lot of room to react and respond.

My only concern at this point is that as I get deeper into the game and my builds become increasingly absurd, all the elemental and explosion effects might obscure the combat, especially against the smaller enemies. I fully expect to lose some runs to death by a hundred barely-visible cuts, but I'm happy for Ved: Recure to prove me wrong. Beyond that, this one seems like some solid popcorn gaming. Not deep, not smart, definitely not narratively nuanced, but sometimes you just want to sword-fight with giant robots and make numbers go up. Is that not the essence of video games?

Ved: Recure is out now for £16/$20, with a 15% launch discount running until October 5th.