One minute you're at a party with your boyfriend on his last day in the village before shipping out with the local order of warriors. Next thing you know, you're fighting trained assassins with a fire poker, finding out that 'dead' doesn't apply so much to the daughter of the Grim Reaper, and taking a trip to sixteenth century Venice.
Venetica is a Western Action RPG released by Deck13 in 2009 for the PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 in which you play a female character named Scarlett in a version of historical Italy that resembles real Venice in that it has a city, which has canals.
The game contains examples of the following tropes:
- Action Girl: Scarlett, of course, despite her initial claims of not being fighter material.
- Ain't Too Proud to Beg: Victor when you finally defeat him, begging you not to take his life.
- Artificial Stupidity: The AI in this game is lacking, to say the least.
- Attack Reflector: Shields can be used in this way with a certain skill. One of the boss battles can only be finished by reflecting boss' attack ray back at him.
- Barrier-Busting Blow: Hammers are a necessary part of Scarlett's inventory, because she needs them to break down doors to collect loot or proceed with questlines.
- Big "NO!": Scarlett's reaction to several plot points.
- Chainmail Bikini: Several of Scarlett's armor selection cover very little skin, yet provides defense against blades, hammers, and/or spears. The most obvious example is the Juma Warrior set that provides very good well-rounded defense against everything but blades, but covers the least amount of skin, while the modest and sensible full plate covers everything but only offers good blade defense.
- City of Adventure: Venice itself, being composed of several districts with a lot of quests each. In a twenty hour game, you're likely gonna spend a good fifteen in there.
- Contractual Boss Immunity: None of the bosses are susceptible to your necromancy, and will even be invulnerable to your normal weapons, making upgrading the moonblade a must.
- Courier: The role of the Hooded Wings, one of the guilds you can join, mixed with Venturous Smuggler, as they specialize in carrying messages and packages discreetly and with no questions asked.
- Creepy Crows: Necromancy is associated with ravens, and a few of Scarlett's spells reflect that.
- Crusading Widow: Crusading girlfriend, but Scarlett's drive is mainly Benedict's death. Whether it's to avenge him, or bring him back is up to the player.
- Dark Is Evil: Victor, the game's Big Bad, wears a black Dracula-like cloak. Contrast this with the white flowing robes and mask of Death, Scarlett's father and mentor figure.
- Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: Justified; as the daughter of Death, Scarlett doesn't quite stay dead when she dies. Unless you die too much, then not even metaphysical nepotism can save you.
- Defeat Means Friendship: Happens with Princess Chiamaka after her boss fight. She decides to stop fighting since Scarlett is "evenly matched" with her and agrees instead to remove her curse and help stop Victor.
- Dialogue Tree: They are present in the game in the common "good-evil-neutral" format, but generally allow little actual choice.
- Doomed Hometown: Before any gameplay, no less!
- Dull Surprise: Scarlett's acting, nearly every time she says something.
- Evolving Title Screen: The title screen changes depending on where and when Scarlett currently is, along with what armor she's wearing.
- Excessive Evil Eyeshadow: Victor has large black eyeshadow circles all around his eyes.
- Fetch Quest: There are couple dozen of those in the game.
- Fishing for Mooks: Due to the weak AI, ineffective blocking and your heavy vulnerability to getting stagger-locked in enemy combos, this is the most effective way to fight.
- Gang of Hats: The thieves' guild is composed of people with animal nicknames.
- Giant Enemy Crab: One of the enemy types in the Twilight World.
- The Grim Reaper: Averted. Death in this game has no scythe and is dressed in brilliant white robes and wears a mask over his face. Though the Moonblade does resemble a sickle or a scythe's blade.
- He Went That Way: You can do this after Scarlett blows up one of the Doge's ships. When a guard comes up to her and asks what happened, she can respond with this. He buys it completely.
- Heel–Face Door-Slam: Liora offers Leon a chance at redemption, to avoid making the same mistakes she did, and turn back before it's too late. He kills her, and is never seen again.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Early in the game, a group of assassin's almost crush Scarlett to death by dropping a set of pillars on her, but she's rescued by Don and Nesto, who are killed in her stead.
- I Just Want to Be Special: Leon wants to create good in the world be a hero, like his step-sister.
- In the Back: How Scarlett realizes that she really is the daughter of Death, and can't go down that easily. She's confronted by a guy who blames her for the village being attacked, and his buddy casually walks up and guts her from behind.
- Katanas Are Just Better: The Far East Long Sword is the most damaging non-quest or guild related sword in the game.
- Little Black Dress: The last outfit she can get in the game is this. It's stylish enough to convince both the palace guards and the steward that she's a Portuguese dignitary.
- Lockpicking Minigame: Nesto and Don guide Scarlett through a game of what amounts to Simon Says, where you need to click a set of four lock picks in the correct order to open a lock.
- Master of Unlocking: Nesto and Don, a pair of cousins who trained in mechanics, show they are able to pick nearly any lock. After their deaths, and after Scarlett gains the ability to see the dead, they act as guides whenever Scarlett comes across a pickable lock, giving her the same ability.
- Ms. Fanservice: Scarlett herself; only the strongest metal armor isn't revealing in some way. All her armor has to be tailored to fit her too, so either blacksmiths are horny or she just likes the revealing options.
- Multi-Melee Master: Over the course of the game, Scarlett is likely to have mastered swords, hammers, axes, and spears.
- Multiple Endings: The game features two endings based on your dialogue and quest choices throughout the game:
- Honorable - Scarlett has been mostly kind and diplomatic, and after defeating the Undead Archon, she leaves the throne room after giving a wistful look back at the throne, having resisted the allure of even more power.
- Villainous - Scarlett has been very aggressive and selfish with her actions and desires, seeking only vengeance and picking fights often. After defeating the Archon, she happily sits on the throne, claiming it for herself to rule as the new Doge with amazing supernatural powers.
- My Greatest Failure: Liora betrayed her allies in the hopes that their arrests would save their lives. Instead, they were executed.
- Navel-Deep Neckline: The Mistress of Assassin's sports one.
- One Size Fits All: Averted. Most of the armor you find has be altered by a craftsman to fit Scarlett. Often this is much more expensive than the armor itself.
- One-Winged Angel: The main bosses each get a monstrous form you fight in the spiritual realm.
- Otherworld: The Twilight world, which is the only place where you can fight monsters and Scarlett can cast spells.
- Puzzle Boss: Every boss has a first phase that plays out like this. They start either out of reach or protected from direct attacks, and you have to interact with the boss arena to work around it, usually by smashing something.
- Senseless Sacrifice: Benedict's sacrifice in the prologue. He thought he was going to save Scarlett, but he had no idea she was the daughter of Death, and thus nigh-eternal.
- Stripperiffic: Every one of Scarlett's armor choices, barring the full plate armor, shows off a lot of skin. Princess Chiamaka's outfit leaves very little to the imagination as well.
- Third-Person Seductress: Scarlett's a fanservice-y character, and her outfits are designed to be sexy.
- Thunderbolt Iron: The Moonblade itself was forged from a chunk of the moon, and you need it to kill certain beasts permanently.
- Unintentionally Unwinnable: The game doesn't specifically tell you that you will need a hammer to break doors and other large structures, so it's possible to end up selling off your hammer, not face any enemies that drop them, and be completely ill-equipped for a boss that requires destruction of wood supports or something to progress.
- Useless Useful Spell: Blocking is often of limited use, as the game has separate blocks for separate weapon types, and they have to be activated from the hotkey panel.
- Was Once a Man: Death himself used to be a mere mortal once.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: After Leon sides with Victor, he confronts Liora in her room for betraying his master. Despite Scarlett and Liora trying to enlighten him to his folly, he remains loyal to Victor, and Liora resolves to fight him and his accompanied guard. After the fight is over, Liora appears to be dead on the floor, and Leon is nowhere to be found and isn't seen again for the rest of the game.
- What Measure Is a Mook?: One of the Dervish masters you encounter in the sewers will plead for his life when you lower his health enough, claiming to just be a cook. You can either spare him or not.
- You All Look Familiar: Practically all bystanders on the streets are clones of each other.
