In the 90s we were almost flooded with brilliant 3D platformers, but unfortunately the genre is dying out. It’s a shame, so it’s nice that someone is keeping the memories alive by making games like this as a tribute to the ancients. Raccoo Venture is one of these works and brings back memories of Pandemonium.
The game is structured in the traditional manner for a title of this type: you move along a series of usually linear paths, jumping onto platforms, solving simple puzzles, activating buttons, throwing fruits and bombs, and defending yourself against various types of enemies.
As usual with these types of projects, there are many hidden objects to find. However, there are many here that are so well hidden that you can easily complete a level without finding them. This is a bit unfortunate, because in exceptional cases these hidden items have to be used to unlock new levels.
These items shouldn’t be that important and instead should be something you want to look for rather than something you have to look for. As a result, you have to replay already completed levels many times while meticulously searching the map to collect enough hidden items to continue, and that’s not particularly entertaining.
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There are other places to wonder about game design too. Another example is that you don’t have a specific number of lives, but you lose 50 coins every time you lose. However, these coins are everywhere, so you are never in danger of running out of coins. It makes you wonder why it was done this way and why you can’t just have a certain number of lives, like was the case with projects like this in the 90s.
The graphics in Raccoo Venture are simple but pretty and very colorful and work as they should. Due to the fixed camera, it can sometimes be a little difficult to judge distances and see where to land on the platforms, but that’s not a big problem. The soundtrack is good, with enough music and good sound effects.
I’m a bit conflicted about Raccoo Venture. It’s a good take on classic platformers from the 90s, with a lot of variety and good ideas here and there, but they also made some strange decisions that make the game unnecessarily difficult to understand and downright frustrating at times.
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I would have liked to have enjoyed the time I spent with it more than I did, because we need good old platformers like the ones we had in the ’90s, but Raccoo Venture never quite manages that. However, Raccoo Venture might be right for you if you’re a big fan of classic platformers, and at around $14 you can’t go wrong.
