Review of the game Creatures of Ava

In the days when everyone is busy killing and killing in shooter games and slaughtering bosses, Creatures of Ava is released to take the mind of gamers from the noise of AAA titles for a while. Today we want to review the new work of Inverge Studios to see how successful it was.

The story of the game begins where you take on the role of a young explorer named Vic, and after an emergency and not so successful landing on the planet Ava, he discovers that the planet is struggling with a contamination in its ecosystem. does This is where our adventure on this lovely planet begins.

The story of Creatures of Ava does not have a special twist and we did not expect anything but this, but it could have had more emotional charge. Also, in the middle of the game, there is not much tension to finish it. In a few parts of the game, animation-style cutscenes are shown, which are interesting in their own way.

But there are problems in other elements of the story that we can mention. Unfortunately, outside of the game's cutscenes, most of the dialogues are silent, which may be boring for gamers, especially young audiences. Also, the direction of the cutscenes is mostly not at the level of a well-crafted game.

The magic of Creatures of Ava

A magic wand, which is provided to the player from the beginning, will become his main tool for interacting with environmental factors and taming infected animals. Different powers of this cane become available gradually during the game, which are 4 in total. In addition to solving puzzles, these features can be used on infected creatures.

In addition to the cane, another instrument available to the player is a melodious flute. At the very beginning, you will probably have fun with this flute for a few minutes and try its different notes. In addition to taming the creatures that are not infected, Flute also plays a role in the mini-games of the game, which gives a good variety to the gameplay.

Each creature has its own sound pattern that can be tamed by repeating the notes on the flute. After that, if you use the sound of the flute, these creatures will follow you, but that's not the whole story; Each of the animals has special abilities in solving the game's puzzles.

You can use the sound of the flute to enter the body of the animals you have tamed and gain control over their movement and strength. Of course, all animal powers are reduced to a few specific ones and have repetitive features with diverse appearances.

Since the target community of this game includes young gamers, so you can't fault the simple puzzles; Although they could be more diverse. Even though the game introduces new mechanisms in the gameplay until the end of the story, it ends up repeating itself in its stages.

Three of the four game areas have a mission called Rescue quest. In this mission, you have to tame a certain number of animals in that area and send them to the base using special robots. Completing these missions is necessary to advance the story, but it doesn't hurt the experience, and conversely, it keeps the sense of exploring Ava's planet alive.

The side missions of the game are not as appealing as the design of the main stages, but doing them is not without pleasure; Because the interesting dialogues and characterization of the inhabitants of the planet can alone be a good reason to finish the missions.

We see the skill tree in which the capabilities of the staff as well as the character itself can be upgraded as desired. These upgrades can be done with experience points (XP) earned by completing missions and exploring the planet Ava. The arrangement and nature of the items in the skill tree is quite clever and their impact is evident in the gameplay.

In addition to the missions, there are side activities on this planet, but because they don't feel like a pressing need for XP, they don't really motivate the player to fully explore and do them. They are mostly considered as things that we visit only if we are in the main path of the game.

The ability to craft and make different potions can provide you with various advantages. The effects of potions include filling the health and endurance bar (Stamina) and neutralizing environmental damage. Of course, potions can be found in the corners and around the game environment.

Stamina is depleted only by diving; These dives are effective for avoiding the attack of infected animals. So you can run easily even if your stamina bar is empty. If we want to be honest, taming the animals that are present in the last area of ​​the game is usually more difficult, but with the difficulty level of Normal, there is still no need to use potions (except the potion to fill the health bar).

The strange thing that we came across in the use of potions was Pheromone potion. This potion prevents infected creatures from attacking you for 12 minutes, but the problem was that this potion applied a disturbing visual effect to the game image, and there was no way to remove its effect during the 12-minute period.

The plants that are in the game environment are the ingredients needed to make potions. Although plants have a wide variety of appearance, they are divided into several general categories, which seems to be the right decision.

The inventory section has a nice and simple design that is not confusing at all. You can also store unnecessary items in the inventory in the same places designated for cooking potions to have more space in your backpack.

Moving on the map is possible only by walking and there is no mention of vehicles or riding animals. But Fast Travel becomes possible in the middle of the game. This feature is made possible by using ports in certain locations on the map, and thanks to the SSD on 9th gen consoles, it's done as quickly as possible.

The void in the design of attractive platformers is quite tangible in the stages and puzzles of the game. There is limited platformer stage design in Creatures of Ava, but this is exactly one of the things that could have saved the gameplay from being repetitive.

In terms of visuals and artistic graphics, we are facing one of the most beautiful games of this year, which has the same graphic style as the Jusant game. As we mentioned before, the game has 4 different environments in total. Each of these environments, in addition to a different ecosystem, has its own atmosphere. One by one, these areas are spectacular and pleasing to the eye, and seeing them, the lack of Photo Mode is felt more than before.

In the absence of photo mode, a photography feature is included in the gameplay, by photographing animals, plants and game characters, you can identify them and find out their characteristics.

Music and voice acting are the factors that complete the magic of the creators in creating the world of Ava. Diverse and relaxing music, along with the attractive and detailed sound of the forest, can immerse you in this planet. It's a pity that this part could have been as perfect as the game's visual effects, but it's not!

The problem that can be seen in the use of music and some ambient sound processing is that they are not flexible in playing and stopping. For example, at one point you hear the sound of the river flowing and only one step away there is no sound of the river. Or, at one point in the environment, the music starts playing and at another point it stops or changes quite suddenly, which is not very pleasant.

Unfortunately, the Xbox Series S version of Creatures of Ava has not been very successful in technical terms. In locations that open mid-game and later, significant frame drops can be seen, some of which may last for several seconds. In addition, it has a handful but annoying bugs that hurt the gaming experience.

The first problem that was noticed during the game experience is that the camera starts to move suddenly in some places and this problem is solved only by the movement of the main character. The next bug that you may sometimes encounter is creatures getting stuck in the corners of the environment, which can sometimes lead to wasted time or reloading the game; Because you need the special abilities of some creatures to pass the stages.

Another problem we encountered in the game was that sometimes the handle vibration would not stop until the game was reloaded, and it is surprising that such a problem has not been resolved after some time has passed since the game was released. It should be noted that in the first days of the game's release, there was a bug that prevented some players from continuing at the beginning of the game, but this bug was fixed with the release of the update.

This title has been tested and reviewed on Xbox Series S.