Inverge and Chibig’s action-adventure game is an ambitious and heartfelt exploration of culture on a planet in peril.
By Mark DelaneyTwitter: @markdelaneysays on August 5, 2024 at 7:00AM PDT
I didn’t expect I’d review two games about pied-pipering friendly and fantastical animals around a beautiful world in the span of just a few weeks, but following the recent release of Flock, a somewhat similar game has arrived. Creatures of Ava, however, is a much bigger and more ambitious game, and usually reaches the surprisingly high benchmarks it sets for itself. From a pair of relatively unknown studios, this open-world creature-saving game is touching, gorgeous, and ultimately serves as one of the best family games of the year.
Creatures of Ava stars Vic, a researcher who arrives on the planet Ava to help complete an ark project that intends to rescue the world’s animals from the withering, a planet-wide infection that is slowly corrupting life itself. Even before I knew what kind of game Creatures of Ava would be, I was taken aback by how pretty it is. It’s one of the best-looking games I’ve played in 2024, with a vibrant color palette of bright oranges, pinks, blues, and more that is immediately striking.
Additionally, the game’s way of carrying players through a story that involves four distinct open-world sections, each with its own biomes and aesthetics, means new surprises and sights are regularly debuting. I was genuinely excited to conclude each chapter just so I could see what remarkable vistas the game would unveil next.
It doesn’t just look pretty, either; it feels alive. Though Vic can sprint endlessly, I sometimes slowed myself down just to soak in my environment–to listen to animal calls from the lush magenta jungle or stand atop massive yellow flowers in the swamplands and watch the local fauna from a distance.
I couldn’t do that forever, of course. The mission is to extract a great number of animals from the planet and onto a BioArk meant to give the planet’s various species a second chance at life, a sort of futuristic take on the biblical story of Noah’s Ark. For Vic, this becomes an interesting and even welcomingly mature internal conflict. Is it enough to simply save a few of each animal? Is it possible to instead save the entire planet? As Vic grapples with her company’s intentions and her own limitations, the local human-like denizens interact with her in various ways, too.
Initially, the game’s premise seemed like a minefield for problematic tropes, like a savior arriving in a land of “natives” and fixing everything for them, or an animal-friendly game that routinely depicts exploitative treatment of the animals. I was really impressed to see how the story rejects these. Not only does it seem to be aware of the pitfalls and mindfully avoid them, but it does so while adding some interesting wrinkles to both the story and gameplay.
This isn’t the climate change allegory it first appears to be, and even as other surprises are found along the way, I’d have felt sure that would at least be true–but by the end, it’s not. Even the typical “cozy” game cards weren’t played, other than the ability to pet any animal in the game. Creatures of Ava is a lovely family game, but it doesn’t shy from hitting you in the gut pretty hard in its final act, and it does it in ways you won’t see coming.
Its large cast of characters is well-written, though sometimes poorly performed. I could often hear the splicing together of dialogue which was distracting, albeit not terribly annoying, and some line reads don’t carry their intended weight. Fortunately, the game actually benefits from most dialogue being text only. The writing of many unique and more human-like denizens of Ava comes off stronger for it, as the game’s meditative, comical, or argumentative group leaders, and others, aren’t sullied by inconsistent voicework.
But more than the mesmerizing visuals or the heartfelt story, it’s the moment-to-moment gameplay that surprised me most of all. Creatures of Ava repurposes years of action-adventure mechanics to create a nonviolent world that is still full of action and compelling progression. Its combat system is built entirely around evasion and defense. As Vic seeks to cleanse the animals with a magical staff she receives from her new allies, the corruption has them on the offensive, but Vic’s entire moveset consists of dodging, leaping, rolling, and otherwise stifling the animals’ attacks, but never paying back any damage in kind.
The firehose-like staff takes time to purify each animal, so each combat encounter becomes a round of crowd control, as you must avoid damage until the animals are freed of the infection. A clever touch to this system is how that hose-like stream of cleansing power allows for other animals to get caught up in it too, should they cross the stream, thereby creating a chain of what you could arguably call playful exorcisms.
The camera often gets in the way during these encounters, as it doesn’t automatically keep Vic centered when animals run off the screen to flank her. This sometimes makes it feel like I need a third hand—or at least an extra thumb—to steer the camera while also moving, firing the cleansing magic, and using her other abilities.
Different animals have unique attack patterns and defenses, and Vic’s abilities grow over time to keep up with the ever-evolving list of “enemies.” This includes tools that help her slow, lift, freeze, and more quickly cleanse the creatures. None of these actions harm the animals, which is evidenced by the lack of traditional HP bars. Instead, their infection levels are quantified and drained as you succeed. This inventive approach feels vital to the story’s themes, and I’m grateful the team found a way to avoid long-held video game traditions of pummeling the badness out of an enemy.
It’s also important to take photos of the animals, both with and without infection, as it reveals details about each species, including their abilities. This results in a Pokedex-like device filled with information and custom photos, making it fun to line up the perfect shot even if a creature is charging at you. Once cleansed, Vic can play melodies that train the animals to follow her, allowing her to use them to solve environmental platforming puzzles and eventually lead them to pick-up zones to cast them onto the ark.
None of the puzzles are especially difficult, but there’s an enjoyable learning curve in observing an obstacle and figuring out which animals to charm in order to advance. However, I occasionally struggled with navigating the world, as its map can be a bit confusing, and some areas can only be accessed by specific routes that are easy to miss or forget.
That said, this wandering was not entirely in vain, as the four open-world hubs are littered with sights to see around every corner, be they lore-filled collectibles, upgrades to Vic’s health, stamina, and inventory space, or more ways to level her up and unlock more skill points to spend on abilities. I beat the 11-hour game in two sittings because, despite its imperfections, I found it hard to put down.
Many of the side missions are especially memorable to me, as they allowed me to get to know even more characters, like an elder of a village who could no longer make the trek to a beloved waterfall. A simple photo mission thus became a much more memorable act of kindness, as they were so grateful when I returned with a picture of the locale for them to appreciate. There are many missions like this one, and I spent the time to see a lot of them through. Creatures of Ava is gifted with a heart as vibrant as its world.
Thanks to its blend of platforming, puzzles, and “combat,” all set in a colorful world, Creatures of Ava reminds me of a kind of action-adventure game that is seldom made anymore. It’s both nostalgic for yesteryear while also creatively reinventing traditional elements of the genre. It routinely defies tropes in every corner of its world, yet still feels like the sort of game that is approachable, familiar, and easy to love. With a story that goes harder than one might expect and gameplay that routinely throws new tools and challenges in front of you, Creatures of Ava is surely one of the year’s coolest surprises.
