TaVRn's Takedown – Naheulbeuk Review: Punching Orcs Has Never Felt So Good

TaVRn’s Takedown – Naheulbeuk is a gorgeous, punchy VR brawler that nails the feel of smashing enemies, even if a lack of enemy variety and limp boss fights hold it back from total excellence.

In TaVRn’s Takedown – Naheulbeuk, your job is simple: beat the snot out of taverns-full of orcs, goblins, and humans, and restore peace to the watering holes of the land of Mliuej. You’ll do this with your fists, with powerful weapons and gear collected throughout your quest, and with whatever blunt objects you have on hand.

Smash skulls, drink booze, save the day. What could be simpler?

Presentation

The most immediately striking aspect of TaVRn’s Takedown is that it’s simply gorgeous. Visually, the game’s art style lands in that delightful zone of cartoonish fantasy epitomized by games like World of Warcraft, where characters are more like caricatures and the world is rendered as if it were a lovingly crafted theme park.

And then there’s the audio. TaVRn’s Takedown features talented voice actors that have appeared in media such as Baldur’s Gate 3, Kingdom Come: Deliverance, Stargate SG-1, and Hearthstone, and their pedigree shines through in Takedown’s script and delivery.

The animations are smooth, the lighting is nice, and everything looks and sounds lovely. For reference, I played my review copy on PC via Steam Link on a Meta Quest 3S, and the game ran beautifully.

Gameplay and Combat

The gameplay loop of TaVRn’s Takedown is fairly succinct. You begin the game in a small base which contains a friendly host named Margaux, a training dummy, an upgrade station for inspecting and equipping your card-based gear, and a diorama-like world map which shows fifteen-or-so orc-infested taverns (missions) that are available to visit. You select one of these taverns to liberate, and the beatdowns begin.

Each mission takes place in a tavern, and each tavern is overrun by malevolent creatures who are ready to attack you on sight. You’ll use your fists and any nearby weapons (barstools, goblets, trophies, brooms, buckets, mops, etc.) to knock out wave after wave of onrushing goons. This is the meat of the gameplay; punching your way to victory.

Combat feels great. There’s definite weight to every landed punch, while blocking and dodging adds (light) strategy to each encounter. Some enemies are small, some are tall; some have more or less health than others, and some wear armor that requires special attention. Hit detection is perfect. Scooping up nearby bludgeoning weapons is simple and reliable. And the physics engine does well to ensure that everything behaves the way you might expect (toss a knocked out goblin into an onrushing orc and everyone takes damage).

When you smash enough enemies and clear the room, another room unlocks and you repeat the smashing. Do this a handful of times, and you clear the tavern. Clearing a tavern unlocks the next, and you repeat the process until you clear all the major taverns and reach the final boss.

I’d like to say it’s a complicated system, but it’s simply not. You smash the faces of your foes until they’re no longer conscious, and then you move on and do it again. What makes it all compelling is that it just feels perfectly honed. It’s just fun to smash stuff, especially in a VR world that’s so well crafted.

During your runs, you have access to magical brews and special abilities acquired and equipped via cards earned in the natural course of play. These are varied and interesting, for example, some might imbue your fists with a charge-up shockwave ability while others allow you to shoot water in a ranged attack, or leave a slug trail of acid whenever you dash, or pull objects toward you from a distance (there are many, many more). Cards can also give you status buffs or gear with special attributes, like upgraded defense or increased damage against a certain enemy type.

Health is acquired by eating food scattered around the levels. While the game isn’t necessarily difficult, you’ll need to top up your HP fairly often.

Boss fights are a mixed experience, mostly coming off as uninspired. While bosses have their own unique attacks and motifs, for example, one has a penchant for poisons and another has a minor rage problem, they’re all pretty much dispatched the same way: avoid their attack and clobber them a lot.

You’ll move around a lot, you’ll flail your fists a lot, and while you won’t necessarily be challenged too deeply or have any sort of transcendent experience, you’ll at least come away from a session of TaVRn’s Takedown feeling like you achieved a light workout and saved a fantasy world in the process. The entire game takes about four or five hours to complete, while collecting all the upgrades and clearing optional taverns will add some time to the campaign.

What limits the game from being a truly amazing experience are the uninspired boss fights and the general lack of variety of both enemy types and combat. There’s just not enough strategy, not enough variety, and after a few taverns, everything starts to feel repetitive. You’ll dodge, close in, swing for the fences, without ever really changing tactics or behaviors.

I solved for this problem by taking breaks from the land of Mliuej, putting the headset down for a few hours until the urge to punch orcs cropped up again. And, don’t forget, it’s sometimes nice to mindlessly punch stuff.

What’s important, though, is that the urge always came back. I think that has a lot to do with the fact that the game is technically well-made and very artfully crafted. It’s a fun place to visit, and a fast and satisfying arcade-like brawler.

TaVRn’s Takedown – Naheulbeuk: Final Verdict

Despite a lack of familiarity with TaVRn’s Takedown’s source material, I enjoyed almost every minute I spent in its cartoonish fantasy world. I was captivated by the game’s high production value, its gorgeous art direction, and exceptional voice acting. While some boss fights were bland and I sometimes wished for more variety in TaVRn’s enemies and their tactics, its combat is immediately satisfying, and it’s a gorgeous and charming game.

TaVRn’s Takedown is available now on Meta Quest and SteamVR.

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