From its gorgeous landscapes, gripping acting, and historically inspired combat animations, 1348 Ex Voto makes a strong first impression in its opening moments, seeming to promise something bold is about to follow. It doesn’t live up to that promise at all, however, quickly abandoning the interesting bits of its story and leaning most of its gameplay on shallow and shoddy combat and mission structures. Even it’s beauty is compromised by bugs and glitches that make playing through it a burdensome vow to keep.
The story of Aeta, the knight errant we pilot through this blood-soaked Black Plague-era hack-and-slash, and her charge Bianca is a bit of a mess. On the whole, it’s pretty straightforward: Bianca is meant to be shipped off to a convent because her low-born parents can’t afford to raise her anymore – but before that happens, their village is sacked, Bianca is kidnapped, and Aeta pursues the bandits to get her back. It’s played like a standard damsel-saving endeavor for most of its brisk five-hour runtime, and the backdrop of the closest thing humans have to a real post-apocalypse makes for a promising setting for such a tried and true tale.
But its attempts to upend this classic trope, specifically through Aeta’s gender, land pretty flat. A woman as the gallant knight is certainly subversive, and she spends the first half of the story being identified by others as a boy and not correcting them. This is an interesting thread that’s left bare early on – and when it is eventually pulled around midway through, it immediately unravels before the concept is dropped completely. Same goes for the mild implications of a queer romance between the two leads. Aeta’s pining can be read as infatuation, but as the story progresses, there’s less and less room to call what these two women have a romance. It’s far easier to interpret her one-track minded mission to save Bianca as a desperate need to not lose the last person left in her life, as the rest of her high-born family have been killed by the ongoing pestilence. And look, I’m a cis, straight, not-Italian man – I am no expert here. But this feels more disappointingly platonic than anything else, unless you think Samwise Gamgee and Frodo Baggins’ relationship is romantic, in which case you know what? Fair, and I wish your AO3 account many blessings in the future.
It’s all at least very well acted, unsurprising considering the main pair is played by Alby Baldwin and Jennifer English, but even the sparse few minor characters that get more than one speaking line are delivered with gusto. The camera work and shot framing really speaks to how inspired by prestige film Ex Voto is, and while this is no A24 cinematic event, it does a great job filling the blanks in the story with palpable tension and tone. Some animation glitches really mar the affair though, specifically how mouths and eyes twist and bulge unnaturally during moments of heightened emotions. The way the lips curl on a certain sinister flagellant about a third of the way through was uncomfortable to the point of comedy in a scene thick with very not funny drama.
