The colorful planet surfaces create the right atmosphere. Idyllic beach huts full of nasty tentacles and overgrown temples with typical Indiana Jones traps immediately make you want to hop through the linear, slightly branching levels. Moreover, the paths wind around the player so nicely that you have to keep looking around to avoid overlooking any scattered kidnap victims, similar to Astro Bot Rescue Mission. Here, we're talking about young foxes from Ven's people waiting to be rescued in remote corners.
Such highlights aside, however, it becomes clear in many places that the young team has nowhere near the finesse of Sony Japan's Asobi Team. This already starts with the fact that hero Ven does not scurry through his environment as dynamically and nicely animated as fox colleague Lucky in his first VR adventure on his rescue mission against the creep Bruce Nelson. With the ponderous walking speed via analog stick, you simply don't feel the same momentum as you do in good 3D platformers like Super Mario Odyssey. The sometimes bumpy collision detection and the placement of turnoffs also don't always seem well thought out: Sometimes it's not obvious whether one of Ven's protégés is still hiding behind a dark undergrowth or whether there's just a dark abyss waiting there.
This is especially true for passages behind the player. Once the automatic camera has moved on, it becomes trickier than Astro to turn around and return. Furthermore, the variety doesn't come close to Sony's charming hero. Instead, there is only a classic bouncing program during the approximately four hours without any significant development of Ven's abilities. Only sometimes do you personally intervene in the action as an observing player - e.g. to throw energy projectiles at a hypnotized giant worm with your own hands, which works pleasingly precisely, by the way.
But even though some things don't seem so polished here, a passable jumping game atmosphere builds up, where you first look around relaxed in all directions and attack enemies like poisonous toads with very simple blade attacks as well as a ground stomper. Interested players should be prepared for regular escape tirades later on, despite occasional save points, since the difficulty level increases noticeably. The developers were inspired by Crash Bandicoot not only for the rolling stone wheels.
Conclusion
Unfortunately, you can tell from almost every corner of Ven VR Adventure that an inexperienced team is behind the game. The somewhat wooden controls, the sometimes fluctuating difficulty level and the not always ideally placed hiding places at the edge of the scenery had arranged. As a classic 3D platformer, Ven at least does its job better than Lucky's Tale did back then with its annoying focus on busywork and its not always nausea-free camera work. The idyllic backdrops alone, and the nicely paced seating - there's just something satisfying about leisurely circling your gaze, traversing all sorts of paths, popping a few tin cans in between, and discovering kidnapped fox aliens.
