Neva Review: Absolutely Beautiful In Every Way

Reviewed On: PC
Also Available On: Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X/S, and PS5
Price: $19.99 USD
Developer: Nomada Studio
Publisher: Devolver Digital
Release Date: October 15th, 2024

Please Note: A review code was provided for this review but does not influence the opinions stated here in any way.

Gris is one of my all time favorite indie adventures and it is one of the best looking indie games for in my eyes. I am very happy that I have a physical copy of the game in my personal collection. The game is just absolutely stunning, and now that team is back with their latest project, Neva. I was hopeful to see a sequel to Gris at some point, but a brand new experience from the same studio is also something that I will gladly take. Nomada Studio once again teamed up with Devolver Digital, a great powerhouse in the indie games scene. They created an absolutely insane experience that people really need to play as soon as they can!

The story of Neva is one that I am not going to spoil, but rather I will just say it is very good. You are a young woman named Alba who is bound to a wolf cub, Neva. What is interesting to me is, the game doesn’t mention the name of your character so I wouldn’t know she was named Alba unless I looked on their website. You and Neva must work together to overcome the destruction that is all around you from the decaying world by building a life together. The story goes through the four seasons, starting in the Summer, and each are different lengths for how long they will take. There aren’t many twists for the story, except for one I didn’t expect come the end of the game that I am not spoiling. The plot may not be super intensive, but the messages and themes in the game really got me hooked as there were many including, but not limited to, the destruction of the world.

There are a few different aspects to the gameplay that you will encounter throughout your 5 hour journey. A lot of the time you will be walking and exploring the seasons by doing a lot of platforming. Everything for the platforming is tight and responsive, and all around super well built. Within each season, there are collectible flowers in the game that range in difficulty to obtain; however, thankfully I obtained all of them, even if there were a few that took a few attempts to get. Part of the game will have you solving puzzles, and these were really fun to solve. One of my favorites is in the winter, and you have to use the mirror and ice to figure out where the path is located with hidden objects. The puzzles never stumped me and they were not tedious in any way, rather they were well crafted and enjoyable as a whole. They didn’t always have clear directions for you to complete it, but if you used a bit of your brain, it is pretty clear to see what was needed to be done. Puzzles and exploration aren’t the only things in the game, there is also combat.

The combat isn’t all that complex and its not like you have a lot of different attacks to work with, but it was just all around very solid. You have a normal slice attack you can do both on the ground and also in midair with a 3 hit combo. You also have a dodge that is critical to use during combat. There is also a downward slice attack that you can do if you are in midair that I personally found less effective than the normal attack. On top of that, you can also work with Neva later on to have them attack and hold an enemy in position for a minute while you take out another enemy. There are moments where you can be overwhelmed by how many are coming at you at once, but it never feels unfair to the player. There is an easier difficulty available in the game, but adventure mode felt more than fair to me. You get three hit points, with the ability to regenerate hit points if you chain enough attacks together without getting hit. Enemies are varied from aerial ones to basic ground weaklings. The combat in the game was a lot of fun, especially the bosses which provides a decent enough of a challenge to the player.

The visuals in the game are nothing short of majestic. The beauty of this game is absolutely sublime to the point that even images and trailers cannot do it fully justice. Seeing it with your own two eyes is more than what any captures can do for you. I am not saying the trailers look beautiful, because they absolutely do, but the visuals seeing it yourself directly is even more stunning! The colors of Neva are varied and diverse from the different looks like the darker reds and blacks, to the more bright yellows and blues. The art in the different areas are just terrific and I couldn’t stop being wowed by the visuals from the game. No two areas feel the same, and I think that is awesome that a game can be like that for one that is artistically pleasing as this one is.

In terms of the audio design of the game, I absolutely was floored with every minute of listening to this title. The world around you feels alive from the interactions between you and Neva, the environments with the animals and enemies, and everything else in between is just great! Alba doesn’t talk in the game as there really isn’t any dialogue, except when she shouts Neva, but it does sound great when you hear her voice on the rare occasion. The music speaks for itself in the game from the calming winter to the more lush sounds of the spring and fall. There are more intense moments including the different bosses and combat encounters as well. Some early sounds are in the clip below. Sometimes the game is just so good that it makes you stop playing so you can look and listen to what is around you!

The game runs absolutely terrific on my PC without any issues. I have a 3050ti and I was getting framerates of over 120 frames per second constantly though my playthrough. My PC wasn’t even consuming that much power from the GPU or CPU and the game doesn’t take much to run either, so many people can play it! The entirety of the game flows beautifully from the animations of the characters to the combat encounters that you will come across. The game was also practically bug free, which I was absolutely floored by in this day and age. There were zero crashes, there were no audio bugs, and there were no actual bugs during exploration or combat either… and that is something I haven’t been able to say in a long time; so I absolutely commend Nomada Studio and Devolver Digital in achieving that.

Honestly, I had extremely high hopes for Neva to be good. I am glad that it turned out to be as wonderful as it did. The story and messages in the game were great. The gameplay was solid and tightly crafted from the combat to the platforming and puzzles. The art, visuals, music, audio design, and performance were absolutely terrific in the game. The lack of bugs, issues, and problems in the game that I encountered makes it one of the most polished experiences from the year thus far in 2024 that I have personally played and finished. There has yet to be any confirmation of a physical release coming for this game, but I hope Devolver Digital does do one; even if they combine it with Gris to make a double pack, I would be more than happy to pick something like that up!

If you enjoy 2D adventures with tight controls, solid gameplay, a heartwarmingly beautiful world and story, and/or beautiful visuals and audio design; you absolutely need to pick this game up immediately! A $20 price tag for this game is an absolute steal and no brainer in my book. I think it should be a no brainer for those people who want to support more creative teams and worlds in the games industry in 2024. Also, if you played Gris and wanted another game like it, definitely check out Neva, and in some ways… this may be even better than Gris in my personal opinion; which I never thought I would say about Neva originally!