Before playing Neva, I finally played GRIS a few months ago. This was the first game from Nomada Studios. And it was a beautiful piece of art. The game told a surprisingly deep story and mixed it with some of the best art direction and style you can find in any video game.
As much as I love art and story in video games, I also need to enjoy playing them too. And while GRIS had its moments, it didn’t always hit the mark there.
Now, six years later, Nomada is back with their newest game, Neva.
Neva is just as beautiful as GRIS. Perhaps even more so. But it’s also clear that this time around, they wanted to build a game that was more fun to play. Unlike Gris, Neva has combat elements and actually leans into them heavily. The story is also a little less intricate and easier to pick up on than the last game.
On one hand, I enjoyed some of the changes here. This actually feels like a much better entry point game for anyone who is interested in this developer. But at times, Neva feels like a constant battle of one step forward, one step back. This ends up creating an experience that has different strengths and different weaknesses than GRIS. All of these changes ended up putting Neva roughly on the same level as GRIS for me. This is great in many ways, but it also left me disappointed that it wasn’t quite the massive step up that I was hoping for.
Please Stop Pronouncing It “Neh-vuh” On Podcasts. It is “Knee-Vuh”. Thank You For Your Time.
Neva is a narrative and artistic “experience” with a fair amount of action elements, as well as occasional bits of puzzle solving. You are on a journey to eliminate a dark presence that is invading areas where the main character and her wolf (named Neva) live. The game takes place over four chapters, one for each season.
As you might expect if you played GRIS, Neva is immediately striking. The watercolor style is gorgeous. The cutscenes are phenomenal, the character/animal designs are excellent, and the environments are equally beautiful. The music is quite pretty as well.
You navigate these picturesque areas with Neva, who is your wolf companion. Neva starts out as a puppy, and the game does an excellent job of quickly making you feel a bond with her. When she tries to jump and follow you across platforming areas, she will need assistance for some of the longer leaps. She gets nervous at times and needs encouragement. You can also stop and pet Neva whenever you like, which is a bit addictive, as Neva is a cutie.
While Neva is in her infancy as a pup, the game is also in its beginning stages. Much like taking care of any new puppy brings both joy and serious challenges, that happens here as well. Simply, through roughly 1/3rd through the game, I was stunned at how often I was kind of bored with what was going on.
Neva has a surprisingly heavy focus on its action elements, and those action elements are not great, especially in the early game. You have only the most basic of abilities (a dash, a basic strike, and a downward strike), and the sound design and visuals don’t really lend to any of these feeling as impactful or crisp as I would like. The enemies you fight are also pretty repetitive and uninteresting. There’s just enough here where in very small bursts, I think the combat would be painless enough, but encounters are far too frequent for how basic this is.
Perhaps that would still be OK if I was just consistently in awe of the visuals and storytelling, but that also was not the case early on. The storytelling in Neva is also just as straightforward as the combat, especially in those beginning portions. There is no dialogue here, and really, no deep symbolism to parse through like GRIS. And for as lovely as the game’s art style is, there was a point where some of the amazement at it started to wear out as I went along.
I Never Realized How Many Video Games Were About Parenthood Until I Became a Parent
But then, a shift happens. Much like when you start to realize your child is becoming their own little person, Neva starts to come into its own about a third through the game. The game shifts and starts getting more varied with the setting (the setting also continues to evolve as each season changes as well). While the story is never incredible, a few more interesting things start to happen there as you go on as well.
Most importantly, the game also starts to mix in more things that made GRIS great. Once you get into the back half of the game in particular, Neva starts to implement much more puzzle solving into the game. Much like GRIS, these puzzles make you think outside of the box a little bit. They have a really nice flow where nothing really tripped me up, but I still felt smart as I got through each section.
At times, the game also blends some puzzle solving with the combat, which is when the game is at its peak. This all leads to a few big, stunning moments that will stick with me whenever I think about this game again. I’m not sure if Neva reaches the absolute highest highs that GRIS reached in terms of the cutscenes and storytelling, but there are still some excellent moments that blend the visuals, story and music in fantastic ways.
Through it all, though, the star of Neva is… Neva. Earlier in the review, I discussed how you feel like Neva’s parent in so many ways. But the game doesn’t always stay that way. With each season, Neva gets older and bigger. As the seasons go on, she gains new abilities, which help make the combat a little more interesting. She also gains independence. Neva doesn’t need your help or encouragement all the time anymore as the game goes along. Seeing someone grow from someone that almost solely relied on you to someone who doesn’t need you at all leads to interesting feelings that I will probably relate to even harder one day as my toddler grows into a teenager and then an adult. One of the biggest goals of Neva was to explore the concepts of parenthood, and I think that they did a good job of exploring these concepts in a subtle way.
As great as the last 2/3rd of Neva can be, it does make me frustrated at how mundane the first 1/3rd is. Especially in a pretty short five hour game. I feel like Nomada studios wanted to create a game that had the best elements of GRIS blended with combat that could attract newer players and add extra depth to the gameplay. I think the game does get there, but it takes a touch too long to do so.
As beautiful as the story of parenthood can be here, I also didn’t think it was explored in as deep of a way as GRIS handled the concept of grief in their last game.
Right Back Where We Started
By the end of the game, I found myself with oddly familiar feelings. When I beat GRIS, I really enjoyed it, but I also saw a lot of potential for growth.
After I beat Neva, I once again really enjoyed it, but I still see a lot of room for growth. Yet, those areas for growth are a little different than they were with GRIS. I feel like they are so close to making something truly transcendent, but they haven’t gotten there yet, for me, at least.
Regardless, if you appreciate video games as an artform, Neva is an easy recommendation. Perhaps the next game will be the one that finally shatters the high expectations I have for this very talented developer. But we aren’t quite there yet.
Score: 8.0/10
Big Nerd Gaming 
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