1348 Ex Voto GBAtemp review
Computer
Product Information:
- Release Date (NA): March 12, 2026
- Release Date (EU): March 12, 2026
- Publisher: Dear Villagers
- Developer: Sedleo
- Genres: Action-adventure
- Also For: PlayStation 5
Game Features:
On what started like any other day in 1348, a small Italian town was raided by brigands, leaving the settlement in ruins. The only survivors were Aeta, daughter of a noble and an aspirant knight, and Bianca, a servant at Aeta's family castle.
However, Bianca was kidnapped by the assailants, and this sets Aeta on a journey across Italy to fulfil her vow to save her closest one.
Step into 14th-century Italy
1348 Ex Voto’s medieval Italy is presented with a cinematic flair. Throughout the game, you’ll soak in sprawling, detailed Mediterranean landscapes, littered with vineyards, grassy mountainside, and walled towns, accompanied by an orchestral soundtrack. Some really scenic views can even stop you in your tracks just to appreciate their magnificence. The minimal UI, without on-screen distractions, and professional voice acting further complements this cinematic approach. These elements hint at a grand adventure that is never truly realised.
Despite the remarkable environmental details, 1348 Ex Voto suffers from flagrantly poor facial animation. The uncanniness, especially during dialogue, is apparent from the first cutscene, and this does not bode well for the rest of the game.
While I could overlook the poor animation, I couldn’t overlook the protagonist’s indulgence in monologues. Aeta doesn’t miss an opportunity to tell you what’s going on, even if you can tell from environmental cues. This stating-the-obvious monologue approach might work for Netflix shows, but for a game, it feels almost disrespectful to the player by not trusting them to connect the (very obvious) dots. A less chatty protagonist would have worked much better here, and I hope that this is not the start of the Netflixification of games…
1348 Ex Voto is also very devoid of NPCs. Save for the enemies you’ll engage in swordfights against, there are only a handful of characters that you’ll only see for a couple of minutes in cutscenes. Granted, the game is set in an era of pestilence, but having some NPCs in the overworld would make for a more lived-in universe.
As for the story, it is an original one that takes some darker turns while exploring whether the end ever justifies the means. However, it turns out to be a predictable tale with an anticlimactic final arc. Fleshing out some of the characters or areas further could have made for a more interesting narrative hook, but Aeta’s naivety doesn’t work as well here.
Become a Historical European Martial Artist
As an action-adventure game, 1348 Ex Voto will set you on a path to rescue Bianca across medieval Italy-inspired landscapes. It’s a linear affair for the most part, but the game mixes things up by throwing some light puzzles at you, and you can explore around to find some helpful items. These can include food to replenish your health or parts to upgrade Aeta’s longsword. There’s also a skill tree where you can upgrade Aeta’s stats and fighting abilities by using scrolls that you find while exploring to “learn” and unlock skills.
The highlight of the gameplay involves combat. It is inspired by Historical European Martial Arts (HEMA) and solely involves mastery of Aeta’s swordfighting skills. Whenever you engage in combat, your aim is to break the enemy’s guard in order to deal them damage. It does require some skill to emerge victorious in each encounter.
You can adopt either a one-handed or two-handed stance, with the former being quicker, covering more range but dealing less damage, and the latter being slower, covering less range but dealing more damage. The two stances also differ in the way you defend. With the one-handed stance, you will have to rely on dodging, while the two-handed stance automatically parries incoming strikes.
Combat can be challenging, with different enemy types requiring different attack approaches. The key is in the timing: when to strike, when to parry and when to dodge. It takes some trial and error to master the right manoeuvre and understand enemies’ weaknesses.
There’s a further layer of challenge with the need to manage your food supplies to replenish your health. Food can be quite scarce, so you have to assess when best to make use of this resource. By levelling up your stats or equipping trinkets, you can ease this factor, but every strike that you take feels significant.
Combat would easily be the best part of the game if it were executed right. In encounters with several enemies, Aeta’s focus would quickly flail. When I’m just about to deplete one enemy’s guard gauge and break their guard, she turns to another enemy instead. This has happened on multiple occasions, and the ability to lock on to one enemy would have saved a lot of frustrations.
While each of the nine chapters introduces new enemy types with different fighting styles, the ones that you encounter throughout each chapter are repetitive. There are some boss fights that bring some diversity, but these are few and far between. Furthermore, the final boss fight overstays its welcome.
1348 Ex Voto: a tumultuous experience
Developer Sedleo describes 1348 Ex Voto as being set in a tumultuous Medieval Italy, but the adjective is also appropriate to describe the experience playing this game. There are signs of originality here with the setting, and combat mechanic.
However, there are persisting issues that cannot be overlooked throughout its ~9h duration such as poor facial animations, annoying monologues, underwhelming narrative progression, and pacing issues. These might have been addressed with more development time, adding some features such as lock-on or simply restricting combat to one-on-one encounters.
I hope that Sedleo takes this feedback constructively to improve the development of their next project.
1348 EX VOTO - Launch trailer
Verdict
- Detailed scenes
- Cinematic presentation
- Historical European Martial Arts-inspired combat mechanic
- Annoying monologues
- Underwhelming plot
- Repetitive enemies
- Poor facial animations
