izigame.me

Neva is a decent game. You should buy it. It is a gorgeous looking game, with okay combat, okay platforming, okay puzzles, good but not memorable music and an okay story (though it makes a logical error in its narration; more further below). It is a bit on the short side, though.
Why, then, do I give a negative review? Because I think that there are big flaws that need to be addressed that nobody seems to talk or think about. I also do not want my critiques to be buried beneath the mountain of positive reviews.
First point of critique, the game took a lot, maybe even too much, inspiration from Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away. Especially in the first half. You play as a girl with a big white wolf. You fight a possessed boar, multiple times even. The black goo spirits are basically an evil version of No face from Spirited Away. The black goo spirits rattle their heads like the Kodama in Mononoke do and even produce a similar rattling sound when doing so. The antlers on the wolf are reminiscent of the antlers of the deer God in Mononoke, though there are visual differences. When is an artist inspired by, paying tribute or making a reference to something and when does he or she blatantly copy? It is a tough question. In any case, it gets way too close for comfort here, in my opinion, for very front and center elements, such as main character designs and critical plot points.
Second point of critique, the opening of the game is very problematic in terms of narrative clarity. It basically ruins the game in terms of narrative logic. It leads people astray that actually pay attention to such things, including me. A lot of people are unaware, though, it seems, given that only a few mention it online. Let me say this: If you are one of many (have a look on reddit) that thought the plot had a loop in it (I did too, at first), well then, you thought wrong. Spoilers up ahead.

The game opens with a cinematic of two wolfs, a mother and its pup, where the mother wolf gets killed by the black goo spirits. The young pup survives and you embrace the young pup. The names of the wolfs are not mentioned in the cinematic and there are no indications that cinematic contains stylistic devices, such as foreshadowing, in media res, et cetera. The cinematic ends. It switches to gameplay. You wake up next to a young pup and you start raising it, the pup getting bigger each season. Now, in my stupid monkey brain, when I see these events happening back to back, I conclude: A) The mother is dead and B) I am now raising its pup. Welp, big mistake. This is wrong. I am dumb for thinking this, even though I am applying basic logic based on what was presented to me by the game. I am actually raising Neva, the mother, the entire game. Until the spring chapter, when a pup named Bruma joins the family, there is no logical way for the player to deduce this. And because this cannot be done, the opening cinematic recontextualizes everything until the spring chapter. Here are some bits: Once I got to the shadow wolf in the underworld, my first thought was, 'hey, cool. I am fighting and rescuing the spirit of the mother wolf that got trapped in the underworld somehow after she died. I might have a chance to resurrect her!' Nope, wrong, since I am raising the mother wolf. Neva is not even dead yet, since the events in the opening cinematic are yet to happen. Would have been cool, though. You then meet the black goo queen. My thoughts when meeting her: 'I have not met you before, lady, but you probably are the leader of the black goo spirits and therefore are responsible for killing my mother! I am here to take revenge!' Of course, this is wrong as well, because Neva is not dead yet. And then you arrive in the spring chapter. You see that the wolf has gotten a pup. I am like, great, history might repeat itself. Am I in a loop? Is every new pup destined to fight the black goo queen some day when all grown up? Is Neva destined to die, like the mother wolf in the opening cinematic now that she is a mother too? Is this something akin to the rebirth of seasons a la the greek myth of the Abduction of Persephone?'. This bit would have been very cool and also fitting and way better than what we got. The chapters are seasons, so it fits. You also have the theme of renewal now. (There, I fixed the third point of critique down below of having a weak theme). And then, you get the ending cinematic. My first thought is 'wtf, I have seen this before. My renewal theory is correct'. And then a moment later, I realize that this conclusion cannot be, because A) it is obvious that Neva is the mother wolf of the opening cinematic, since they look exactly the same, scar and all B) the opening and ending cinematic are exactly the same, except for a few extra shots. See now how adding the opening cinematic completely breaks everything in terms of narrative logic? Just remove it entirely. That fixes everything. The game can do without. Or make a sequence that does not break the narrative logic.
Minor point, the extra shots and information in the ending cinematic hardly add anything, narratively speaking. I already know that the wolf is killed by the black goo spirits, seeing the final blow does not change that. This is the reward for 3 hours of gameplay. Give me a twist. Recontextualize the ending. Do something cool.

The third point of critique is about that which a story rests on: themes. The developers have the disadvantage that they are making this game after their own hit game, GRIS. Why is this a disadvantage? Because a lot of people, myself included, were wondering if and how the developers were going to surpass their previous game. GRIS, unfortunately, is better in every regard. Not only does it have more diversity in puzzles and environments, more memorable music (I love Gris Part I and II from the official soundtrack and I still listen to these songs from time to time), but most importantly, GRIS had a far stronger UNDERLYING THEME. Apart from a stronger theme, it also integrates the theme far better into other aspects of the game (audio, visuals) than Neva does. In GRIS, you go through the five stages of grief. Each level there has a distinct color pallet and reflects the stage of grief the main character is in. The music in a level reflects the stage of grief and therefore the theme. I dare to say that GRIS is a prime example of how one should integrate theme into your visual and audio aspects of your game. What is the theme of Neva? Life versus death. As plain and blunt as it gets. The chapters are seperated by the four seasons. For example, you have a winter level and some puzzles involve ice. *snore* Okay, using ice as mirrors for platforming is a neat idea, but I am not blown away here. The question is, is it a problem to have a simple theme for your game? No. Does every indie game need to be about depression (insert meme here)? Again, no. But I wish the developers had given Neva another layer, like they did so expertly with their previous game. I have no idea why they chose to not do so in Neva.
As for the critiques other people give:
Is the combat shallow? A bit, yeah, but the game is not trying to be Devil May Cry here. It is an atmospheric, story driven puzzle game with combat elements and I doubt the developers were going for an in depth system.
Game mechanics feeling incomplete. Yep, I agree. You could have done much more with every ability. More puzzles per game mechanic, expansion on each mechanic as you go. For example, using the wolf as a projectile. Maybe expand into a grappling hook, different types of shots, et cetera.
In summary, inspiration is good, directly copying is not. Remove the opening cinematic or change it completely. Have a stronger theme. For example, make the story about renewal and borrow from the Abduction of Persephone (the rebirth of seasons). Expand upon the game mechanics. Thanks for coming to my TED talk. Nomada, hire me.