Available on: PC (Steam), Xbox
Played on: PC (Steam)
Inspired by Avatar, animal conservation, and Pikmin, Creatures of Ava is a throwback to the 3D platforming era of the early 2000s. The alien planet is visually rich and interesting to explore, while gameplay stubbornly remains simple and repetitive — mediated by a nice story and refreshingly short runtime.
Read on for our review of Creatures of Ava!
Songs of Ava
Environmental research scientist Vic crash-lands on an alien planet — thankfully the one she was heading to anyway. Ava is in the grips of an ecological disaster: a plant-like infection called the withering is destroying the world, and turning its normally docile creatures into angry monsters.
Vic’s task it to rescue as many creatures as she can, while investigating the cause of the withering.
She’s accompanied by her friend and fellow scientist Tabitha, as well as Ava’s instantly likable native bird-people, the Naam.
Throughout her journey, Vic travels to different biomes, meeting different Naam, learning about their culture, as well as the human researchers who came before.
The writing is snappy and enjoyable — many of Vic’s interactions with the Naam are charming and funny. And I appreciated having solid voice acting (mostly Vic and Tabitha) in critically important cutscenes to really drive the emotion.
The story reaches a satisfying crescendo near the end, though it does alter the gameplay for the final area in an unsatisfying way. I don’t want to spoil the revelation, but it’s an emotional story that deals with nature on a planetary scale, and the hubris of humanity.
The Cleaner
Early in the story, Vic gains access to a magic staff, her sole weapon in the game. The staff fires a chaining beam of healing energy, purging the infection from creatures, and the environment.
The world features some light metroidvania: Vic gains new abilities for the staff that allow her to unlock previously gated areas. But the game makes the cardinal sin of not marking these areas on the map, discouraging me from hunting them down again.
When encountering infected creatures, Vic has to fire her healing beam at them until they’re healed, while dodging their attacks. But Vic’s dodge is pitifully small and short, and often she’s forced to deal with multiple creatures at a time. Tougher creatures can poison, blind, or fire sticky globs, creating a frustratingly challenging experience even on Normal difficulty.
To cure these effects, Vic can craft a variety of potions and antidotes from harvesting plants. These potions become critical to surviving many battles. But I wasn’t a fan of constantly quaffing health potions after repeatedly getting knocked around in nearly every encounter. And I never figured out the difference between Stamina and Health (Vic can run forever).
A late game ability completely turned combat around for me. Vic gains a crazy powerful shield power that makes her immune to attacks and damage, and can be used again after (or even before) it expires. As long as I dedicated one of my power buttons to that shield, I suddenly became nigh unstoppable, a dissatisfying pendulum swing.
Once creatures are purged, or wild creatures tamed, Vic can directly control them. Each creature features different abilities, though I was disappointed that there’s a lot of overlap and only a handful of truly unique features, such as moving blocks, breaking down fungal barriers, or digging up treasure. Creature abilities are rudimentary, and never reach a satisfying level of intricate puzzles or combo abilities.
And no, you can’t control creatures to attack infected creatures. This isn’t Pokémon!
But you can definitely pet them all!
The music angle for taming is a nice touch that fits the theme, but can quickly become frustrating. The game uses a true C scale, demanding players repeat rapid button presses. Even as someone who is musically inclined, I often struggled with a controller to hit the right notes. Thankfully purged creatures don’t have to be re-tamed, or I may have completely lost my patience with it.
The Rating
Creatures of Ava has been rated E10+, with Fantasy Violence, Tobacco Reference, and Mild Language. It’s extremely light on violence — Vic cannot (and would not) attack creatures directly, even those trying to harm her. Infected creatures will try to defeat her, and it can often feel overwhelming when dealing with multiple infected creatures. The music segments could also be very challenging for younger players.
The Takeaway
On the plus side, Creatures of Ava features an emotional story, a likable protagonist, and an intriguing setting with a rich color palette. But almost every gameplay element leads to frustration, or disappointment, from the punishing combat to the simplistic creature abilities. It’s short enough to recommend for the story and writing, but it’s the rare game where I’d suggest playing on the easiest difficulty and focus on the story.
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