Venba Review: Short but Sweet (Switch)

There are a lot of narrative games, as well as cooking games, but what about games that incorporates both? That’s what Venba is, a game from Visai Games. It may not take very long to complete, but one thing’s for sure, and that’s it won’t leave a sour taste in your mouth. Read this review of Venba to learn more about this charming narrative cooking game with puzzle elements.

Venba is available now on PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X | S, and Nintendo Switch for $14.99.

Story – An Indian Family in Canada

What makes Venba such a great game is how the story and gameplay work beautifully together. In the 1980s, the titular Venba and her husband Paavalan immigrate to Canada from India. Like many immigrating families, they hope to start a wonderful new life. However, while they are a loving couple, they face struggles such as homesickness, the unfamiliarity of living in a new country, finding work, and money. When their son Kavin comes along, they face a new test, that of family woes as Kavin has to deal with fitting in at school, somewhat embarrassed about his parents’ traditional Indian food and preferring North American cuisine such as pizza.

As you watch the story unfold, you also get the option now and again to pick the dialogue. I’ve only played through this game once, so I don’t know how the dialogue options you choose influence the game or the story. However, you do at least feel as if you get to have a say in how you want the story to go, or at least how a character responds.

I don’t want to spoil any stories in this review, but the story of Venba and her family is really what ties this game together. Everything you cook in the game has a deep meaning behind it, serving as an important moment in the family’s journey. It goes deeper still when you attempt to cook food from an old recipe book – and I mean “attempt” because the book is damaged. By this, I mean parts of the pages are smudged or torn, even whole pages in some cases. That’s where the puzzle element comes in.

In Venba, the story takes place across roughly 30 years.

Gameplay – Cooking Meets Puzzles

Venba is a narrative game, but it is also a cooking game, and cooking is at the heart of the game, the story, and the characters. It is as major a part of the game as the story and characters.

Before I started playing Venba for this review, I wasn’t sure what to expect regarding the cooking gameplay. Would it be similar to other cooking games I’ve played such as Cooking Mama? To be honest, I was more expecting something like the cooking mini-game I experienced in another game I reviewed, Dordogne. As it turned out, the cooking gameplay was more similar to Dordogne than Cooking Mama – but it was also its own style.

When I was presented with the first cooking segment in Venba, I assumed the game would just tell you everything you needed to do to cook the recipe, like some games do. However, that was not the case with Venba. It was a case of, “Here’s the ingredients, here’s the equipment you need, and here’s the recipe. Off you go!” I have to admit, I was a bit thrown by this, and to begin with, trying to cook the first recipe was a bit trial-and-error. Once I got into the swing of things though, I was into the cooking as much as the story. Never once did I feel annoyed, frustrated, or stupid for getting anything wrong. 

Everything you need to cook a recipe is given to you. The rest is up to you to work out what you need to do with it all.

Not Going to Make It Too Easy

This is how cooking in Venba works. You’re given all the ingredients you need for that recipe, as well as the cooking equipment and utensils, plus you have Venba’s trusty recipe book. Sounds straightforward, right? It isn’t. The thing with Venba’s recipe book is that it’s been damaged since the family immigrated to Canada. When you open the book, you’ll find that the page with the recipe is smudged or partially missing, meaning that important information for making the recipe is missing. On top of that, the game doesn’t walk you through the recipe. It’s up to you to read the recipe and work out how to cook it. You have to figure out which order to put the ingredients in, which ingredients you need, what order to do things in, what to do with the ingredients, etc.

This particular recipe page is mostly intact, but doesn’t tell you when to use flour or coconut. That’s up to you to work out.

A Helping Hand

With Venba, if you mess up in a step – which is likely to happen at least once at some stage – then the game will inform you and it will automatically undo that section, prompting you to have another go. You have to try again and again until you get it right. This might sound like a pain, but it isn’t really. It actually made the game more fun than just duly following the instructions the game gives you. You also don’t get penalized for messing something up, except having to restart a step in the making of a recipe.

If you get really stuck or aren’t sure what to do, you can always ask the game to give you a hint. It’s not a vague hint either; it practically tells you what you need to do. You have to pay attention though, because it can tell you a lot, and you have to remember it in order to do it right. You can always ask the game to give you the hint again though.

So, while Venba doesn’t hold your hand while cooking, it doesn’t leave you completely in the dark. It also doesn’t allow you to completely mess up. It’s not like Cooking Mama, when you do something wrong, Mama doesn’t get mad and say she’ll fix it and then that affects your final score. There’s no scoring system in Venba. It’s not a competition. It also isn’t harsh when you make mistakes. It’s more of a case of, “You didn’t do it right, but never mind, try again.” The game is much kinder and more forgiving than Cooking Mama. 

If you ever get stuck, Venba will give you a useful hint.

A Satisfying Experience

The cooking segments in Venba are impressively realistic. You feel like you have complete control, and while this feeling can be overwhelming at first, you do grow to appreciate it. It doesn’t feel restrictive, except having to follow the recipe correctly. Working out the correct order to do things, filling in the blanks in the recipe book, and ultimately completing a dish makes you feel pretty clever and like you’ve actually achieved something. Plus, I love that feeling when the radio in the game is cranked up, marking the start of a new cooking segment.

So far in this review, I’ve given a lot of praise for Venba. I don’t really have anything bad to say about this game. If I did have to say one thing, I wish it was a bit longer. You can complete this game in less than two hours. Even with me messing up cooking segments, I was still finished with this game surprisingly quickly, and I didn’t try to rush through it. I feel as if Venba could have done with an extra hour or so’s worth of story or gameplay. It would have been nice if there were more recipes to cook, even if they weren’t part of the story, being a nice bonus. Still, I enjoyed what was on offer, and the fact that I wanted more after I was finished is a good thing.

Graphics and Audio – Charming Authentic Style

When it comes to games, deciding on a graphical style is important. It can make a lot of difference to a game, whether the developers choose to go with something realistic, cartoonish, or stylistic. With Venba, going with a vibrant, colorful and bold art style was the perfect move. It fits the game beautifully. I don’t think going with a photorealistic look would have worked in the context of this game. The graphics make Venba come to life, including the characters, setting, and not to mention the cooking. The food looks gorgeous in this game, as it should.

We have to talk about the music in Venba as well for this review. You can’t cook Indian cuisine with an Indian family without authentic Indian music playing. It really sets the tone for the whole game, not just for when you’re cooking. When you hear the striking music play, you can’t wait to get cooking.

Venba was reviewed on the Nintendo Switch.