Nevaeh Review

Some tales don’t have to be told with words. Sometimes, there are other ways of communicating with each other as well, and a lot of things cannot be put into words. Nevaeh is one of those games that doesn’t contain any kind of dialogue, yet still stays with the player even after the credits rolled. To be honest, I didn’t have high expectations for this game when I discovered it for the very first time. Well, other than the obvious: It looks gorgeous. However, I was unsure whether it lived up to its interesting premise. So, let’s find it out!

What is Nevaeh about? Well, the story is very simple. There is a girl who tries to restore the lights of a village. In addition to that, the player plays as this girl. You see, she thought that she could fix the light for the village by taking a glowing butterfly in a tower. However, it turns out that the lights all disappeared instead. There are no villagers available anymore, but only shadows. Refusing to give up, the girl returns to the tower and tries to put the butterfly back, hoping the village will return. However, that task turns out to be more tricky than expected.

As aforementioned, there is no text available in Nevaeh. So how do the characters interact with each other then? Well, the answer is simple: With pictures and expressions. When the girl restores a part of the village, there are villagers appearing again, who have various requests she can fulfil. Most of the time it requires the player to experiment with the lights, and butterfly and I found that the tasks are really easy and not hard at all to complete. The objective gets displayed as a speech bubble above the villager, with a picture of what item they’re looking for.

The gameplay truly shines in Nevaeh. At the beginning of the game, the player obtains the butterfly, which they can use to light up light bulbs or make things disappear or appear thanks to the shadow of the butterfly. A small nitpick here is that the game doesn’t explain the features, besides a small tutorial of what button they have to press, so I was left confused, not knowing what to do. It took me some time to figure out the mechanics and features of the butterfly. Once I figured it out, I had a great time with this game.

There are difficulty settings available as well in Nevaeh, in case the player is either looking for more challenge or simply wants to experience the plot without getting bothered with dying. That being said, whilst enemies and bosses are available here, the player doesn’t fight them per se, but defeats them with the help of creating lights and shadows with the butterfly. I loved that feature as it didn’t feel like a regular platformer, but added a lot of charm, and uniqueness, to this game.

The graphics are lovely in Nevaeh. It’s rather simple, being black and white. However, I loved the design of it. Most of the time there are only shadows available, or very minimalistic designs of the environment. I have to say I needed a short while to get used to the style of Nevaeh, although I ended up absolutely appreciating it. On the other hand, a lot of regular enemies are getting reused a lot, but, fortunately, boss designs are unique. Overall, this game is so adorable, even with its dark theme.

Nevaeh is such a lovely game that I can highly recommend to anyone who is looking for a unique, and adorable, game. I had a lot of joy going through this game and am impressed with the butterfly mechanics as it’s so unlike any game I have played before, although I have to mention that the lack of explanation frustrated me at times. Regardless, Nevaeh is a hidden gem and an experience I won’t forget anytime soon.

REVIEW CODE: A complimentary PC code was provided to Bonus Stage for this review. Please send all review code enquiries to press@4gn.co.uk.