Tevi Preview

TEVI is a bullet-hell metroidvania, developed by Crespirit and was an utter joy to play. Full of fascinating systems, fluid combat, and some fantastic world-building, TEVI is a very interesting title.

At its core, TEVI is a metroidvania; however, it has interwoven elements from bullet-hell games and a combat system heavily derived from character action games such as Bayonetta and Devil May Cry. It is set in a fantastical world with a multitude of unique and interesting characters, from angels and demons to mechanical threats. Playing as TEVI — a girl with bunny ears — you'll join forces with a multitude of allies to figure out what's causing conflict across the land. Visually, the game is a pixelated 2D platformer, which also mixes in anime-esque elements for the character designs. There is a lot of visual variety to be seen, too, with a vast amount of different locales and landscapes, such as deserts, decayed forests, and palaces. The music is also a delight; very relaxing and well-crafted themes will accompany you along your journey. However, some of these tracks are a little short and can start to become a tad irritating after so many loops.

The combat is the real hook of TEVI, with a very combo-heavy nature, along with a combo ranking system like Devil May Cry, which opens up some interesting avenues. It’s incredibly freeform, allowing many attacks to be cancelled into each other or having specific moves which allow you to transition into differently-paced combos. For example, the backflip slash takes a grounded combo into the air, allowing it to continue beyond where the grounded combo would traditionally end. This is also accented by a lot of interesting and variable tools, such as the quick drop, a move which returns TEVI to the ground. If she lands on an enemy, she bounces off them and deals a little bit of damage, which is another interesting tool, not only for combo structures but also for movement and traversal. The combo ranking system works very much like in the DMC titles; however, instead of rewarding the player with more items or drops, there are “sigils”, upgrades the player can equip. These alter certain moves depending on the combo ranking, such as adding an after-image to increase the damage or other miscellaneous effects.

The world structure wasn’t something I managed to explore in much depth. Due to the nature of the metroidvania genre, I was relatively railroaded in this demo to avoid being able to access too much of the game. Despite this, however, what I did get to see and explore showed many of the trademark systems of the genre, all implemented well. None of the secret areas/hidden items felt particularly out of place or obscure purely for the sake of it, and there were clear paths for progression without any overly intrusive handholding.

TEVI is shaping up to be a fantastic metroidvania. Even in this early build, it showed an incredible amount of promise, and with some minor polish here and there, I can see this becoming a fantastic entry into the genre.