Rise of Venice Review

Let's face it, a trading simulation game is only ever going to appeal to a small portion of individuals. So it seems a little odd that Kalypso have opted to create a new IP, set in the Renaissance Mediterranean, that looks to strip down the complexity of the Patrician series in an effort to attract a wider audience. It's even more odd that despite this move, Rise of Venice is still an unnecessarily complicated game, at least to begin with. Not only this, but the core mechanics of the game fail to really make an impression and will likely leave even the most die hard trade sim fan wanting much more.

The base mechanics will be familiar for anyone who's played the Patrician or Port Royale series. Build up a fleet of convoys to send across the mediterranean and use them to build up a trade empire based on financial power. This means directly sending your convoys from city to city and choosing what goods they should sell and buy, all based on supply and demand. Earn enough cash, as well as the respect of the senate in Venice, and you'll rise through the ranks from lowly trader to the richest and most powerful individual in the city of bridges. Of course, the system is more complex in action, as you'll need to work out which goods are best to buy as well as work out the best places to sell them. What's more, as you advance through the ranks you'll gain the ability to control multiple convoys; changing the game from easy going trade sim to multitasking mayhem.

A complex game is by no means a bad thing; as a big fan of Paradox Interactive I'd argue that complexity makes a game all the more engaging and exciting. The issue with Rise of Venice, however, is that new players are pretty much thrown into the deep end (of the Mediterranean). You're encouraged to first play the story mode, which is essentially a glorified tutorial that includes a little tale of a once great merchants son. There's a brief video at the beginning to show you the basic principles but beyond this, and the odd tooltip, you have to work it out for yourself. Early on you're tasked with ranking up your trader by gaining a certain amount of money, but so early into the game it's tricky to understand how to gain decent profit margins.

I have to confess, I've not had a lot of experience within the trading business (or trading games to be fair), so I was a true noob from the start. Regardless, the game did little to ease me in and I was left to continuously learn from my annoying mistakes. Of which there were many, for quite some time. The sad thing is that the further I got into the story mode, the more I just wanted to quit and move on to freeplay, it's just annoyingly difficult. Not because the game itself is tricky, but rather the difficulty curve is essentially worsened by poorly designed goals and hints. It's not a great way to kick off a game and is particularly poor when you consider the fact that Rise of Venice is intended to be a more focused and widely appealing title than any of Kalypso's previous trading sims.

With the story/tutorial behind me, I moved on to free play, which is the core game mode in Rise of Venice. Everything feels more relaxed and manageable here, and once you've gotten over the initial sense of bewilderment during the story mode, it's a lot more fun. Unfortunately, that's not saying a whole lot. The challenge of finding the right goods in each city and building up a good collection of items for one big trade is highly rewarding and the UI is good for understanding this process. Outside of the base sense of ranked progression, however, there's little to really keep you interested in playing.

The trading process can often feel repetitive as you send your convoy back and forth between a certain set of cities to trade the same goods over and over. This is often the best way to make plenty of money quickly so you'll find yourself doing this often. Not only this, but managing your convoy can become incredibly dull. It's simply not fun to be guiding your ships back and forward performing the same tasks inexorably. It's a slightly different ball game once you're managing multiple convoys but the same basic principle of filling up your ships with the cheapest thing and selling them where they're scarce still applies. It's more challenging, sure, but it's still not fun. Considering this is the core mechanic of the whole game, it's an unavoidable issue. Compared to the variety found in other strategy titles, Rise of Venice is severely lacking.

In an obvious attempt to remedy this problem, the developers have included other elements such as missions and the ability to purchase buildings and land. The missions provide a bit of variety but due to their reliance on the base mechanics they aren't particularly fun. In fact, they usually task you with simply trading a certain resource from one place to another, changing up absolutely no element of gameplay. Buying buildings in foreign cities is another almost pointless activity that'll help you gain some more cash, but little else. The power system, in which each member of the senate of Venice has a personal opinion of you, is also poorly executed. The only real way to get them to like you early on is to bribe them, which means you just need to trade some more. Later on you can complete missions or hire people to increase your popularity, but it's never an interesting or enjoyable system. The issue is that you need their approval to advance in rank, so it's an unavoidable element of the game.

In an unusual turn of events, Rise of Venice is actually a good looking game. The whole thing is handled within one continuous map of the Mediterranean and adjoining land that fits perfectly with the theme of the game. Cities can be zoomed in to and are not separately loaded entities and ships are constantly sailing across the ocean. It's nowhere near as technically accomplished as the campaign map from any of the more recent Total War games, but it serves its purpose well. While I did mention that the UI for trading is good, the rest can feel a little cluttered and often I struggled to find what I was looking for. Sound is mediocre at best and features the classic repetitive soundtrack that seems to be present in just about every Kalypso title. Sadly, the rest of the game isn't up to the standards set by their more successful trading sims.

Thrown in is also a combat mechanic which allows you to attack other trade ships or defend from pirate attacks. This is a separate part of the game that feels disjointed at best and the battles themselves are pretty poor. They present a mix between the strategic battles of Sid Meier's Pirates and the sea fights in Total War, but minus all of the fun (although to be honest neither of these examples were fun to start with). Thankfully, it's not all that often that you'll encounter combat situations and even then you can auto-fight them. Another obvious, but failed attempt to appeal to an audience outside of trade sim enthusiasts.

Rise of Venice isn't a bad game. But it sure is boring. The core elements are all functional and do a decent job of recreating a Renaissance era trading business, but there's a reason it's a job people got paid to do, not pay for. I had some good moments with the game, and enjoyed the challenge of building up my wealth without waging war on everything that moves. However, after 10 or so hours the game became a real slog. I was repeating the same tasks over and over with little sense of gratification; the added mechanics like missions and power play all became equally repetitive. A leaderboard mode provides a different challenge in which you have to get as rich as possible without saving the game, but it's ultimately the same old thing. Rise of Venice aims towards a new audience, but in the same move it has simplified itself to a point where trading fans will find very little to interest them. I wouldn't bother unless you're really into wine selling.