Vane Reviews
Check out Vane Review Scores from trusted Critics below. With 23 reviews on CriticDB, Vane has a score of:
When it comes to games like Vane, knowing what you’re getting into beforehand is both a blessing and a curse. This is a game you can finish in a couple of hours, but that’s provided you figure everything out right away as you move through its abstract story. If you take a wrong turn, get distracted by your surroundings, or things simply don’t click right away, it could be a much more ponderous experience. Either way, Vane is a rare title that trusts your instincts, and almost never tells you what to do. It’s up to how you react to your surroundings, and of course there’s some light puzzle-solving as well. It’s hard to speak of Vane with authority, because so much of it is unraveling what happens in front of you, and interpreting it for yourself. This is not a straightforward story, nor is it your typical indie puzzle-platformer.
Like so much fine art, this piece loses its luster when you start to dissect and interpret it. So don't. Because it's fucking dope.
As Vane opens, a powerful storm rips apart a mysterious landscape, and you control a child clutching something to their chest. As the storm breaks the ground below your feet, you sprint to safety and the dark, synthwave soundtrack kicks in, accompanying your journey to a building in the distance. When you arrive at the door, a mysterious cloaked creature wearing a plague mask blocks your path, pushes you to the ground, and you are lifted into the air by the storm you were trying to outrun. Everything fades to black. Vane establishes intrigue early and asks many compelling questions during these moments, but it is not equipped to answer them. Frustrating moments pepper the experience, but a few high points almost make the full journey worthwhile.
Vane exists in an enormously stressed and jagged world of puzzle-platforming. Simply moving around feels rough and unfinished, and that's not always on purpose. If only Friend & Foe had more time to incubate its creation.
I really wanted to make some sort of pun. You know, "you're so vane, you probably think this review is about you." Something cheesy like that. But I can't make jokes and besides, Vane makes me sad. It's such a struggle to come up with constructive, concise criticism when it's such a miserable game to play. Not because the themes are sad, no. It's just because playing it will make anyone sad.
None of the problems break Vane, indeed the lack of guidance is what defines it, gives it its uniqueness and differentiates it from hundreds of other puzzle platformers. It’s often a game that’s easier to admire than actually play though; a challenging piece of art that makes almost everything else you’ve played seem like a spoonfeeding popcorn movie. The closest comparison is probably Jonathan Blow’s The Witness, but even that gave more guidance than Vane and was far more linear, too.
Winds only partly favorable.The arthouse game is a tricky prospect. In a medium founded on fun challenges, how much room is [...]
An atmospheric and often perplexing exploration game that suffers from bugs, uneven level design, and an unwavering dedication to leaving you to your own devices.
Vane is a strange game. Its art direction and visual design frame a grandiose, otherworldly affair, but its puzzle design and narrative squash those expectations, ultimately providing a frustrating experience with fragments of its original vision.
Overall, this game lacks any specific direction beyond what you have to figure out for yourself. You get no introduction to the character or the situation they face. There are game breaking bugs and things that cause frustrations that make someone not want to play the game anymore. That being said, this game has good environments and music. The game is now available on PlayStation 4 and is priced at $24.99 USD. If you like clunky, buggy games that look good but make you fight for any meaningf...
While visually impressive at times, Vane suffers from an unclear purpose and far too many technical issues to recommend it.
Vane is an atmospheric adventure about unraveling the secrets of an unknown land, finding your place in it, and pulling at the threads of the world to make a change.
It can still look visually striking when viewed from a distance while its audio design, with a brooding electronic score, can also be wonderfully atmospheric. Sadly, it’s not enough to salvage a wholly disappointing experience that never reaches the lofty heights it begins with.
Friend & Foe have released an abstract game that tries to stir the linearity of modern games, but its execution leaves players confused and disinterested. Vane may have strived to create an immersive experience for gamers, but its technical flaws leave it feeling disjointed and unpolished. It feels like a disappointment for what it could have been and it is hard to recommend the game in its current state. Fans of the genre may appreciate the artistic style of the game and find value in the at...
Vane has a very strong opening, some unique visual ideas, and an atmospheric electronica soundtrack. Unfortunately, all of this is quickly muted by aimless and frustrating gameplay. Though Vane‘s abstract approach to storytelling is genuinely liberating, the player remains caged with simplistic gameplay tropes, immersion-breaking technical problems, boring puzzles, and a terrible save system. Point your wings in another direction.
We were something like six hours into Vane when we glanced down at our phone to see what time it was, and realised that we'd only been playing the game for forty-two minutes. How was this even possible? It was like when Matthew McConaughey visited Dr. Miller's Planet in Interstellar: a world catastrophically affected by the intense gravity of a nearby black hole that slows down time so much that standing on the surface for ten minutes accounts for seven years passing back on Earth. It was that, but in reverse. Mere minutes had gone by in what felt like hours. On the plus side, that meant that this author's tea was nearly ready, and Lauren was doing risotto.
I normally don't have problems with experiential games like this; in fact, I love games like Inside, Ico, and Shadow of the Colossus that Vane is clearly pulling from. That being said, Vane just ends up being a mishmash of impressive visuals and a few intriguing concepts that never really materialize into anything truly worthwhile. At its currently high price tag, I would definitely recommend skipping out on Vane and just marveling at some of its beautiful screenshots, removed from the technical problems and frustration Vane brings when playing.
A beautiful world begging to be explored falls victim to unclear direction and clunky controls, making for a disaster instead of a delight.
Despite its deceptively intriguing prologue, Vane quickly goes from a journey of discovery to a laborious chore, mainly due to the abundance of technical issues and a lack of a decent save system. The game is relatively short–maybe four or five hours, sans glitches–but some parts can feel unnecessarily long when you’re meandering about with little sense of purpose or direction. The puzzles are lackluster, and whatever abstract narrative the game is trying to convey never really comes together at the end. Vane honestly feels like it could have used some extra care or attention to detail. You should probably steer clear of this one. Fly, you fools!
Vane's first fifteen minutes are amazing. Then the game plummets in quality faster than a diving bird. Tons of glitches, obtuse puzzle, terrible controls, an awful camera, and stuttering frame rate keep Vane from being worth your time.
Vane opens by throwing you at the base of an enormous tower as an intense storm tears the structures around you apart. Carrying…soooommmeethiiinng, you brave the storm and debris as you make your way to the single light pouring from a doorway into the tower. When you arrive, you’re rejected at the door by a tall, cloaked figure, whose voice is powerful enough to send you flying, dropping whatever it is you’re carrying. The door seals itself before you get sucked up into the storm, and the screen fades to black.
Vane begins with me joyfully soaring above sun-bleached sand drifts. But it gently dissolves into me slowly pushing a giant rock from one tiresome puzzle to another. This feels like an apposite visual juxtaposition for my entire experience, which slides from admiration to mild boredom.