Flightpath: Adventures in Venaris Review (PlayStation 5)

by Jim Smale · April 12, 2024

Flightpath: Adventures in Venaris Review, Welcome to Venaris, a small planetary system where an underground criminal organization known only as the Syndicate continuously terrorizes citizens while the corrupt planetary administration is ineffective at bringing the organization down. Three skilled individuals have now decided to take matters into their own hands!

Flightpath: Adventures in Venaris Review Pros:

Decent graphics.
703.4MB download size.
Platinum trophy.
You get the PlayStation 4 and the PlayStation 5 versions of the game.
Shmup gameplay.
Three difficulties – Easy, normal, and hard.
Ten save slots.
Game modes – story and endless mode.
Three playable characters – Kath the engineer, AJ the ex-detective, and Max the racer.
Skip tutorial option.
Collect coins from enemies.
The shop can be visited as you play and here you can buy primary weapons, secondary weapons, armor, shields, and generators.
Primary weapons can be attached to front A, front B, side A, side B, rear, and center front.
Wide range of weapons to equip, you see a video preview of them.
The story is told through text pop-ups and occasional still-art cutscenes.
Simple controls.
Initial optional tutorial showing the controls.
You can break elements and objects within levels.
End-of-level boss fights can happen.
Bullet hell elements.
You can freely move around the screen.
The game uses shields and a health bar system, which you can repair from pickups.
Your generator dictates how many weapons you can use at one time.
Branching paths can pop up and you move to your choice.
The game mixes it up with a bit of attack and defend sequences, hunt targets, etc.
Kill counter.
You see enemy names and health bars.
Clear easy to read Hud.
Bonus missions occur.
When you die, you take on a side mission for the team using a new ship and then once finished you get to go back to your ship.
Your health is persistent across levels.
Each character has their own story.
After you finish a story with a character you get a recall showing your choices.
Endless mode progress is based on how far you get in terms of distance and it is shown on the screen at all times.
In endless mode, you are always choosing a path to take and each one will give good and bad modifiers and weapons. You still earn coins and spend money in the shop.

Flightpath: Adventures in Venaris Review Cons:

Very basic almost pointless tutorial.
Enemies can come from behind and you don’t get any warning.
Has a slight grind to get coins for decent upgrades at the beginning.
No voice work.
Having constant comms coming through is more of a distraction than anything else.
Sucks that you have to find the shop and not be able to use it in between levels.
The whole generator/power for weapons mechanics is not straightforward to understand.
Boss fights are very bullet spongy.
Small claustrophobic sections.
Stop amd start game pacing.
You land up maxing your ship out and then have nothing to buy.
Particular missions can go on way too long like the defending ones.
Choosing. Apathy is not clear and takes ages to accept your choice.
You can lose pickups to the offscreen aswel as getting shot from off the screen.
The game is not good at letting you actually avoid the bullets.
No online leaderboards.
Not a huge draw for replayability.

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