|| REVIEW || Nevaeh (PC)

 

Developed By : Alpheratz*                                              Published By : CFK Co. LTD
Category : Puzzle, Platformer, Action
Release Date : September 17, 2020

For as long as I can remember, the only games that ever interested me had some semblance of plot or story. Mario needed to find and save Peach; Diddy, Timber and their friends are trying to save the island from Wizpig; I could go on, but the examples are plentiful. This love and almost need for a story in the games I play is something I've mentioned plenty, but every day is a chance to learn something new. Even about yourself, and Nevaeh definitely helped me learn something new. 

The game's story takes place in a village who's light source comes from the glow atop the village's tower. The light begins to falter, and you play as the girl who ascends the tower to try and fix it. Inside the tower is a glowing butterfly. When the girl attempts to take the butterfly, the Queen of the Night prevents her from leaving, intent on killing her to take back the butterfly. The girl escapes, but only to find that the village is now plunged into darkness, it's former inhabitants turned into shadows. Now she must return to the tower, to bring the butterfly back, with the hopes that her village and its people will return. 

Nevaeh is a very simple platformer with some puzzle aspects to it. Your character, the girl, really can't do much other than walk, jump, perform a sliding dash, and after you get through the intro, command the butterfly. While her moves are extremely limited, making proper use of them all will be the key to navigating and surviving the tower. 

The main mechanic you'll be dealing with is using light to create shadows. The tower itself is very dark and using the light form the butterfly will help you in various ways. Scattered around you'll find many empty, dark globes, which the butterfly can gift its light to. Sometimes this is a permanent effect, other times it's limited, but either way, doing so will generally turn on some moving platform, or create a shadow you can use as a fixed platform. The light can even obscure things that would be dangerous, allowing you to pass over a floor that had been covered with spikes. 

While the majority of what you do will be focused on platforming, there are some puzzle aspects like I mentioned, but also a little bit of combat too. As for the puzzles, these rely heavily on the light and shadows mechanic, forcing you to use stationary objects in the world and use the light to line up their shadow somewhere specific.

Combat ranges differently if you're going up against one of the generic enemies in the tower or one of the bosses. For the regular enemies, not much really needs to be done. A quick Mario-esque stomp to the dome will take out just about everything. Bosses, thought, can't be attacked directly. Instead, you'll have more of the empty dark globes, and you'll need to use the light from the butterfly against one of the weapons in the level so it's shadow can deal damage. 

While Nevaeh is a pretty great game, I mentioned at the beginning that this game taught me something new. That new revelation is that a great story can be hindered by how it's presented, or rather lack of presentation. The way the game relays it's narrative to you is through quickly displayed image bubbles. No voice lines, no text, nothing, just small thought bubbles, so if you want to actually learn what the story is about you'll need to read the game's summary. 

Narrative delivery aside, this game is a lot of fun. I've reviewed plenty of games in the past where I've said that utilizing combat in a unique way is a huge plus for me, and creating shadows of weapons to fight your bosses in this game was a lot of fun. It kept every aspect of the game feeling like a puzzle which is how a game like this should be, at least in my opinion. It's fast paced, and it's very enjoyable so definitely consider adding this game to your library. 

Game Rating : 7.5 / 10

Pick up the game HERE on Steam

 

Also available on Nintendo Switch

 

A code for this game was graciously provided

to the site for the purpose of a review