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Alright fine, Neva makes me want to pet the dogHappy now?
Happy now?
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Devolver Digital
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Devolver Digital
I’m not someone who’s ever been on board with the “Can You Pet The Dog?” craze that swept and/or still sweeps video games. As a heartless individual, I am more concerned with whatever the dog’s capable of: general savagery, a howl that replenishes my HP bar, letting me climb atop its glorious mane as it strides across the barren wastes. If it’s none of these things, I would much rather have a shiny turret on spindly steel legs skitter besides me.
Nomada Studios have, incredibly, thrust their hands into my chest cavity and given me a blood-pumping mechanism. Having spent some time with upcoming action-platformerNeva(the game) and Neva (the dog from the game), I have to admit: I did enjoy petting Neva (the dog).
One more thing I have to admit: our James was - and is always, to be fair - right. The Neva demo I spent an hour with was, I believe, largely the same as the one James played not too long ago, albeit with some more polish and perhaps some other sections. Go and readhis piecefor the lowdown, basically, but I’ll quickly offer my own thoughts.
Image credit:Devolver Digital
And those thoughts are of a similar note: Neva’s opening hour is a good time. It’s beautifully presented, as you’d expect from Nomada Studios, who worked on the very prettyGrispreviously. Protagonist Alba has strong platforming chops, with a nicely weighted jump into double jump. And I like how you can mid-air dash, too, which adds just a little complexity into the mix when you’ve got to string together these moves in sequence.
Image credit:Devolver Digital
And yes, James was spot on about the game’s combat. It’s alright early on, as you fend off the baddies with a basic sword combo and the occasional dodge roll. That’s your lot, in the first chapter at least, all culminating in a boss battle that’s quite Soulsy and a touch frustrating. I did beat the very large No-Face-Minion-on-all-fours hybrid on my first try (let me have this brag), yet I kept bumping into its legs and rotund belly and taking damage in the process. That’s all because I wanted to get close enough to actually hit the bastard with my sword swings, whose range was a bit piddly when it came to fighting a monster who didn’t stagger from my blows and thus gave me little leeway positionally.
It’s telling that in these moments, Neva doesn’t help, although apparently they’ll later join in combat-wise and do some mouth-clamping on those baddies. What’s interesting, though, is that as both Alba and Neva age, Alba’s abilities will remain the same (there goes James' hope for her sword swings to change somewhat). Nomada Studios' technical director Adrian Cuevas told me that Neva’s the one who’ll evolve to compliment Alba’s adventuring.
“What happens is that Neva evolves, she gains abilities, and that changes a little bit how you do your [Alba’s] abilities. But it’s mostly around how Neva behaves around you and how she helps you, more than Alba herself.”
Sadly we didn’t get to test this out ourselves, but I did learn something else. And that’s Neva (the dog) wasn’t actually a dog (technically, a wolf) when Nomada Studio first got their concepts together.
“Actually in the beginning it [Neva] was two persons, and at the beginning you could even control both of them”, Cuevas tells me. I asked creative director Conrad Roset about this, too, and he said that Neva’s initial concept was actually a boy and a girl, before it turned into a bird and then a bear, andthena wolf. “You can empathise more with a wolf”, Roset tells me, “although the programming team preferred the bird because it was much easier to play”.
Image credit:Devolver Digital
“Well, I guess, similar to Gris, we want them to have a fun experience”, Cuevas says. “We have this up and down, I don’t know what people will feel at the very end of the game. It will be interesting to know, but I think in general they’re gonna have this feeling of it was worth playing.” He goes on to mention something I think is rather pertinent, in this day and age of the all-consuming live service grinder.
“We just want people to play the game, enjoy it for a few hours and say ‘it was worth it’, because nowadays there’s so many games,so manygames. Sometimes you start playing it like, ‘do I need to keep playing this?’. And if they can relate their own stories with their kids or their dogs, and they feel something, it moves them a little bit, then that will be perfect.”
God, I care deeply about that virtual mutt. And no, even if none of us are ready for the emotional devastation its ending will inevitably bring, I can get behind Neva’s philosophy. A succinct experience - one I’ll be monitoring very closely as its release draws nearer.
