Ok I finished Neva.
I liked it very much.
It is in a genre I'm now going to make up called a shut-the-fuck-up-'em-up, which means a game that has none or almost no words to hear or say, no HUD, simple controls, no freakin' menus blech, and is about VIBE. The studio's previous game Gris obviously falls into this category but so do Cocoon (my 2023 GOTY), Jusant, Limbo/Inside, Little NIghtmares, A Short Hike, et al.
The best and worst thing about this game is how absolutely gorgeous it looks. It's mostly walking around with your doggy companion with lovely tinkly piano and string music playing and it's all very pretty, using that thing where it's mostly nature themes but somethings look mechanical so it adds a bunch of mystery.
The downside of all this prettiness without the tutorials is that sometimes I literally just could not see what to do or where to go. This was especially infuriating in a boss fight (oh yeah, there's combat but it's just attack/dodge basic stuff) where you have to dodge "through" it but there's nothing marking what parts were safe to dodge through. At this point i just chose the babbie no-death-in-combat difficulty because, f*** it, I didn't come here to fight I came here to vibe anyway.
There are other platforming sections where the whole thing sort of zooms out so that you get a gorgeous view that is also to give you the scope of information you need to figure out where to go. But then your character is really tiny and when you're dealing with literal shades of grey it can be too pretty for its own good where I had to get up and squint at the screen. So even though this seems like a game you can play on Steam Deck or Switch, just don't do that, you need a big screen.
That's the only negative, mostly this wasn't a problem and I was just loving hopping and dashing around with my doggy. The game is very short (I didn't bother to 100%, there's some collectibles with tough to reach platforming I just didn't care about).
The dog companion (Neva) is employed in a simple clever way that ties visuals, themes, and gameplay that creates the greater-than-the-sum-of-its-parts effect I look for in the best games. Neva starts out as a puppy, vulnerable and easily distracted, so it's like an escort mission for a bit. Then it grows up a bit and it is a self-sufficient assistant, like Atreus or Elizabeth. Then it gets bigger and is also a mount. Just real simple mechanical additions that also ties directly into the character relationship and plot- as it were- of the game. Lovely.
