Venba Reviews
Venba presents a totally unique experience for players, with a touching story about the struggles of immigrants and the importance of culture, held back only by its short length.
Venba is an adventure that seeks to value the simple habits passed from one generation to the next. The title is especially suitable for those who want a touching and short experience. However, its short duration also leads to the feeling that it could do a little more with its narrative and mechanics.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Visai Games' narrative-cooking debut is a special case of over-relying on flavorful spices – music, art design, etc. – to compensate for paltry servings.
Venba is a great game and has an even more remarkable story. It gives us a brief glimpse at what an immigrant family goes through, the hardships and the joys. Venba also gives us an idea of how difficult it is to find the balance between adapting, fitting in, and still hanging on to your culture. It also touches on the universal idea that our children will not lead the life we do. This game has much humanity in the interactions between Venba and Paavalan, them and Kavin, the family, and the outside world. There are also simple moments of humor and love that feel so real that they could be someone’s memory. While Venba is short, it is also long enough to do what it sets out to do: tell us a story and make us want to hug our parents.
Venba is ultimately over quite soon, but I’d rather have a beautiful but small experience that will stay with me than one that lingers too long and wears out its welcome. There are a few parts of its story that could perhaps have been explored with more depth, but its story comes together to span a generation in the blink of an eye and leave players feeling satisfied with the experience. This is a game well worth experiencing, which even the busiest players should be able to fit into a free evening.
Venba is a triumph. Its representation of a culture rarely seen in video games is refreshing and sorely needed more. The story is both heart-warming and heart-breaking in equal measure and covers several scenarios that families with a similar history will no doubt resonate with on a personal level. Visai Studio has loving crafted a stunning recipe of puzzles, story, music and art that blend together in a rich, well-rounded dish that’s not to be missed.
Venba might feel somewhat too brief to fully do justice to its character paths, but it has a lot to say about the importance of preserving one’s culture, the difficulties of generational friction, and the excruciating irony of realizing the value of something after you’ve already lost it. Furthermore, as if all of that weren’t enough, you get to prepare some amazing-looking Indian food while watching the movie. Therefore, fans of narrative-heavy games with a twist might give Venba a look if they are willing to keep their expectations in check concerning the amount of information they get here.
Venba is not only an excellent video game, but a powerful sociocultural message. At one point, characters discuss how a piece of art had the potential to make a stronger impact with an audience in the way than a protest or traditional statement. Venba meets this potential, and then some. I'm hungry for more.
Venba is a small game with big heart that really captures a lot of the experiences that immigrants and their children go through. It tells a simple story, but layers it in complex and engaging themes. The cooking sections could have been a bit more involved, but, but Venba is a game with a great look, great soundtrack, and provides an experience that people should play to understand a world and perspective that is unfamiliar to them.
Venba is a game which explores cooking and eating as rituals used to form and access our memories.
I thoroughly enjoyed my time with Venba, even more than I was anticipating. I expected a laid-back cooking sim, but what I got was a deeply moving narrative about generational struggles with immigration and creating a home for yourself in an unfamiliar land. Solving the puzzles of the missing steps in each recipe is surprisingly fun as well. Even though it’s a short experience, taking only about two hours to complete, it still a journey worth taking.
Venba could have been my story. Or your story, if you know what means to be the son (or the daughter) of a couple who moved to give you a better future at the cost of giving up to pass on their roots. And it's awesome a video game could tell this very thing in about two hours of gameplay and stay in your memories forever.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Venba tells a beautifully intimate and reflective narrative about the nuanced experience of being a first generation immigrant. Its vibrant art-style and rhythmic Carnatic music come together to celebrate the cuisine of Tamils.
Rarely have I felt so many emotions when playing a videogame. I love the story of Venba, how the story is told and how Indian food is presented.
Review in German | Read full review
It’s abundantly clear that the developers of Venba poured their heart and soul into crafting this love letter of a game to share the hardship and adjustment period that comes with being a new immigrant.
Venba is a gorgeous-looking, sonically-rich game with minimal gameplay but a heartfelt and nuanced story about cultural identity, parenthood, and self-acceptance that more than makes up for it. A couple of omitted accessibility features and the short length aside, Venba is a beautiful representation of the immigrant experience, messiness and all, thus cleverly avoiding glorification in favor of authenticity.
While slightly too short for its own good, Venba is an exciting cooking narrative game exploring Tamil food. It tells an important, yet heart-wrenching story of a family as they struggle to fit in a new country.
Venba is a short, impactful, and beautifully presented look into the lives of an immigrant family that'll likely stay with you for a long time.
Through a exploration of Southern Indian cuisine and the preparation of it that's been given a slight puzzler twist, Venba manages to serve up a captivating story about culture, motherhood, immigrant life and more, spiced up with likeable characters and great dialogue, and topped off with eye-catching visuals and an ear-pleasing soundtrack. It's a short feast, but a filling one, so it would be wise to give it a shot. Would it help if we said that it might remind you of a rocket somehow?