VRML was definitely weird / ahead of its time. Reading about it at the time, and only having modest hardware, I was under the impression that the powerful machines back then could render VR in realtime. Heh 20+ years later and we're still not fully there yet.
Back when VRML was trying to be a thing, I suggested "they" stop wasting their time on uber nerdy games with arcane controller patterns, and just produce a 3D window manager with really nice transitions to use for ordinary desktop things.