This review contains spoilers
I first saw this game in a Nintendo direct. I liked the art style and premise of the game from the get go. I personally love cooking and learning about other cultures and their foods. So I went in thinking this would be a cute game and maybe I could snag up some recipe ideas from the game. While that is true, what I didn’t expect was to be crying at the end of a 2 hour long video game about cooking.
TLDR at the end
The Premise
Venba takes you through the life of an Indian family that immigrated from India to Canada over from 1988 to 2017. The game is about a lot of things, but mostly about family and how food connects us and can remind us of home. I won’t go super in depth into the story of this game right here, since it’s only 2 hours long any in depth description of the story could be pretty big spoilers. But the game is very much about exploring the difficulties of an immigrant family.
Gameplay
The gameplay is relatively simple. In between story segments you’ll make a variety of Indian dishes. It starts off pretty straight forward as following the recipe steps but as the game progresses the recipe book you have is more and more deteriorated and it becomes almost like a puzzle game where you’re piecing together what to do for the recipe. None of the puzzles are super challenging, although I could maybe see it being harder for people who don’t cook at all that may not have a naturaling feeling of what order ingredients may go in at. But the game also has a hint button if you get stuck! The gameplay never really evolves into anything astounding but the gameplay isn’t really the reason you’d be playing a game like this. At least for me it wasn’t. For me it was the story, the gorgeous visuals and the fantastic music.
Not really big enough to be its own section but I did want to mention that the music that plays while you cook is fantastic and an absolute bop.
Venba Music 1
Venba Music 2
Story Spoilers & Personal Anecdotes
This story tugged on my heart strings. I’m not Indian nor am I an immigrant of any kind so I don’t have that angle of connection with it, but I think family troubles transcend things like that. And while the Venba (the mom), Paavalar (the dad), and Kavin (the son) aren’t a dysfunctional family there are very relatable and touching moments. Kavin throughout the game struggles with embracing his heritage and his mom is persistent about it. He won’t eat the Indian style lunches his mom gives him for school, he doesn’t want to speak in Tamil, and struggles to fit in and this over time makes him and his mother feel estranged. Towards the end of the game Kavin reveals all these feelings and feels like he hasn’t been the best son. This tugged on my heartstrings as I too have become estranged from my own mom. The game made me feel the need to reconnect with my mom. These were feelings I was already experiencing as I’ve been growing older and going through life but when Kavin reconnected with his mom and spent time cooking with her in India is what really pushed me into loving this game and having some overwhelming emotions.
TLDR
This game has a ton of soul and passion and I think a lot of people will be able to enjoy it. But I think depending on your relationship with your own family, with cooking, and where you are in life right now it has the potential to really hit you hard. I’m honestly in love with this game. I’m glad it came to Xbox Games Pass. I may not have played it until much later if it didn’t.
TLDR at the end
The Premise
Venba takes you through the life of an Indian family that immigrated from India to Canada over from 1988 to 2017. The game is about a lot of things, but mostly about family and how food connects us and can remind us of home. I won’t go super in depth into the story of this game right here, since it’s only 2 hours long any in depth description of the story could be pretty big spoilers. But the game is very much about exploring the difficulties of an immigrant family.
Gameplay
The gameplay is relatively simple. In between story segments you’ll make a variety of Indian dishes. It starts off pretty straight forward as following the recipe steps but as the game progresses the recipe book you have is more and more deteriorated and it becomes almost like a puzzle game where you’re piecing together what to do for the recipe. None of the puzzles are super challenging, although I could maybe see it being harder for people who don’t cook at all that may not have a naturaling feeling of what order ingredients may go in at. But the game also has a hint button if you get stuck! The gameplay never really evolves into anything astounding but the gameplay isn’t really the reason you’d be playing a game like this. At least for me it wasn’t. For me it was the story, the gorgeous visuals and the fantastic music.
Not really big enough to be its own section but I did want to mention that the music that plays while you cook is fantastic and an absolute bop.
Venba Music 1
Venba Music 2
Story Spoilers & Personal Anecdotes
This story tugged on my heart strings. I’m not Indian nor am I an immigrant of any kind so I don’t have that angle of connection with it, but I think family troubles transcend things like that. And while the Venba (the mom), Paavalar (the dad), and Kavin (the son) aren’t a dysfunctional family there are very relatable and touching moments. Kavin throughout the game struggles with embracing his heritage and his mom is persistent about it. He won’t eat the Indian style lunches his mom gives him for school, he doesn’t want to speak in Tamil, and struggles to fit in and this over time makes him and his mother feel estranged. Towards the end of the game Kavin reveals all these feelings and feels like he hasn’t been the best son. This tugged on my heartstrings as I too have become estranged from my own mom. The game made me feel the need to reconnect with my mom. These were feelings I was already experiencing as I’ve been growing older and going through life but when Kavin reconnected with his mom and spent time cooking with her in India is what really pushed me into loving this game and having some overwhelming emotions.
TLDR
This game has a ton of soul and passion and I think a lot of people will be able to enjoy it. But I think depending on your relationship with your own family, with cooking, and where you are in life right now it has the potential to really hit you hard. I’m honestly in love with this game. I’m glad it came to Xbox Games Pass. I may not have played it until much later if it didn’t.