Neva

I played Neva while my dog has been recovering from a surgery to remove their cancer and I cannot tell you how just helpful it was for me. The depth of their relationship is so much like my bond with Pumpkin. The storytelling is gorgeous and the symbolisms… 🥺

画面，音乐都不错，流程短

What a beautiful piece of art, it feels like playing in a painting. I really enjoyed the puzzles, especially in the DLC. The music is also on point, from meditative to stress inducing, especially during certain fights. Some parts can be a bit challenging and require some trial and error to get the mechanics down. I will protect this pup at all costs.

**I'm including my experience with the prologue DLC as a part of my thoughts here** [h1]Rating:[/h1] 8.5/10 [h1]TL;DR:[/h1] If you played Gris, you should play Neva. If you liked Gris, you will more than likely like Neva. It's a great game with amazing visuals and a touching story, with a light dusting of combat, platforming, and puzzles to make sure you are always engaged with something outside of the visual spectacles. [hr][/hr] [h1]Pros:[/h1] + Visuals: The game is visuals. Visuals are the game. Just like in Gris, nearly every single screen in the game is basically a wallpaper. It's a beautiful game and while it's more than just visuals, the visuals are the largest piece of the experience pie for sure. + Atmosphere: The visuals and the music pair insanely well together to just create a perfect little experience. This is not a game to play while you watch something on a separate monitor or listen to music. None of that ADHD nonsense here. Giving this game 100% of your attention is for sure the best way to experience it. As a bonus, I sync'd up my Hue lighting to my monitor screen and that REALLY took the atmosphere to the next level. Sitting in my office and having everything like up green or yellow or red really helped me to buy literally everything the game was selling. + Plot: The plot is sort of minimal. It's for sure there. Things are going on that aren't good and you need to stop it. What exactly is happening and why exactly it's happening are not just explained. You have to do some inferring and pondering on your own for why exactly the baddies are baddy-ing.[spoiler]I found it helpful to sort of compare it to playing through a plot similar to Princess Mononoke.[/spoiler] + Collectibles: This game has some collectibles and a few achievements you can miss. None of them super critical, but finding all of the main collectibles does give you a little extra scene at the end of the game. It's not some sort of extra scene that will explain everything, but it was still nice to see and added a smidge more context. The main collectibles are flowers that you find across your adventure. The game will tell you if you've gotten all of them in a specific chapter, which is super helpful, and it's usually clear when you're near one. Getting them isn't more complex than just going the opposite direction of progress or completing a platforming puzzle. It's a perfect fit for this game. Nothing to upset the overall vibe and it won't drive you crazy trying to find them all. That would be antithetical to the vibes this game puts out. + Platforming/Puzzles: If you played Gris, you know what these are like. And they're good. Platforming is generous because of your movement abilities and the "puzzles" are infrequent and not super difficult to figure out. Nothing here should have you stuck for hours as you try to pull it off. They're tuned in such a way to give you just the right amount of stress/difficulty, without your mood shifting. + Length: I am a firm believer that games built as a service can be fun, but are only the future for giant corpos. Actual good and fun games can end. They can be an 8 hour experience that you enjoy and then put down. This game is that. I beat it and the prologue in a little under 8 hours. Got all of the main collectibles too. It was a delightful and fun, complete package of an experience. + Dog: It's got a dog. You can pet the dog. You have a button specifically devoted to interacting with the dog. [hr][/hr] [h1]Mixed:[/h1] +/- Combat: I was surprised that there was actual combat in this game. You get a 3 swing combo, a strike down from the air, a dodge roll, a double jump, and even an air dodge. It's clear your character is a competent fighter. The combat feels good and the enemies in the game present just enough of a challenge to make sure you use all of your given options. The reason I would say it's mixed is because it feels like it was maybe missing one more thing. Like maybe a parry? The enemies telegraph their attacks super aggressively, so something like a parry would feel satisfying. Maybe a juggle instead? An average enemy takes like 6 or 9 swings to go down (combo is 3 hits so 2-3 interactions) so it could feel good to launch them instead of knocking them away every 3 hits and chasing them down. Not sure really. It doesn't need TOO much in depth combat, because I don't think that's the intent, but like 1 more combat ability might have made it more engaging of a system. [hr][/hr] [h1]Overall:[/h1] Neva is a good game. I sincerely hope Nomada Studio gets to keep making these puzzle platforming, visual experiences. I hope they get to keep experimenting with adding mechanics and even more difficulty, while maintaining those immaculate vibes. I hope they get to continue telling these engaging stories about grief and depression and environmental disasters in their unique and specific way. I thoroughly enjoyed it the whole way through and can't wait to see what they deliver next. So far they're 2/2 so I have no doubt they can go 3/3. It took me longer to get around to this one that I would like to admit, but, as they say, better late than Neva.

This game is beautiful and it has just the right amount of action. The controls feel good for my brain. :)

Vibe parecida com Gris, só que com combate. Assim como Gris, esse jogo é uma obra de arte! Visualmente muito bonito e vai te arrancar algumas lágrimas.

Lo stile, la colonna sonora, la trama: pura poesia! <3