Creatures of Ava Review

Games are usually pretty violent. Like, really violent. After playing DOOM Eternal on one device, Yakuza 5 on another, and knowing I had God of War: Ragnarök's blood-encrusted disc waiting for me in the near future, it may come as no surprise that I jumped at the opportunity to play something a bit… calmer. Enter, Creatures of Ava. This creature-saving adventure promised to be all about healing animals, taming them, and giving them a big ole hug, which seemed like just the detox I needed to avoid greeting my neighbours with a friendly suplex.

In the game, you fill the hopefully comfortable shoes of Vic (she does a lot of running in uneven terrain), a young nature explorer and conservationist heading to the titular planet of Ava. The planet is seemingly in peril, as a parasitic infection known to the locals as “the withering”, is filling the land and causing the local fauna to become violent. The origins of the withering are unknown, as are any methods of removing it, which is why Vic is here: she is determined to save as many of the animals as she can before they all succumb to the infection. Things go awry as soon as she descends toward the planet, as her pod malfunctions and she has a bumpy landing. Luckily, she’s no worse for wear and even meets one of the local people, a Naam named Nim’ar and manages to find an ancient artefact, a glowy stick called the Nafitar. Surprisingly, this device can destroy the withering and even heal animals afflicted by it! Newfound cure in hand, Vic and Nim’ar head to the nearby village.

While I’ll not go into more detail on the plot to avoid spoilers, what follows is Vic interacting with the Naam and learning about their culture and methods in animal taming: music. Everything in Ava, it turns out, has a song of its own which can be both understood and communicated with. Armed with her staff in one hand and a flute in the other, adding an admirable skill to pick up new songs, Vic sets out to save the fauna of the land by taming and then teleporting them to a BioArk that is orbiting the planet.

Creatures of Ava is very reminiscent of the sixth-generation console era of adventure games, with Starfox Adventures, of all things, being the first game to come to mind, right down to the staff! The game is divided into four distinct open-area levels with their own creatures to tame and puzzles to solve. Each area is also stunning to look at, with vibrant colours and beautifully sombre ambient music. The progression throughout the areas is metroidvania-esque, as locations are opened up via new abilities and story beats. Your main tool for both puzzles and “combat” is the aforementioned glowy stick, the Nafitar.

Tell me this doesn't remind you of Starfox Adventures? I even have a dino friend!

While it may look like the perfect tool for whacking some sense into any threats, your stick is actually used more like a traditional wizard’s staff: by firing a pulse of energy, Vic can connect a tether of power between her weapon and any source of the withering around her, be it luminous witherbulbs or any poor infected creature. Once snagged, the staff will slowly absorb the infection, either destroying a bulb and any vines it is attached to or curing an animal of its influence. As you progress, the artefact is upgraded with new abilities allowing you to access new areas and secrets.

The mechanics of taming the local beasts is rather simple: approach any wild animal until they turn to you, then bust out the flute. Sensing your intent, they will trill a few notes, which you must then repeat! Get it wrong and they’ll look at you a bit funny, allowing you to try again. Get it right and they will happily hop over to you, following you wherever they can as long as you keep the tunes up. Once entranced by your wondrous flute playing, you can synchronise your intent with a beast, allowing you to “control” them, in a sense. When controlled, each animal has a set of abilities you can use to solve puzzles or get some extra goodies. For example, the equine Uru can stomp certain plants down, allowing access to new areas. The required doots vary in complexity and length, with each of the game's four areas having progressively more demanding critters to serenade.

Eagle — or Ohol in this case — eyed viewers will have probably noticed how I’ve danced around the subject of combat so far. Creatures of Ava is very much a violence-free game, as Vic never does anything to hurt the inhabitants of the planet. However, the game does still feature combat in a sense, as any creature infected by the withering (and any wild carnivore) is still prone to attack if approached. In combat, Vic must attach a chain of power to each beast in order to cure them of the infection's influence. Each “enemy” has a separate withering bar, which slowly drains as long as you keep them chained, though any sudden movements or being hit with an attack will sever the connection. A fun aspect of the combat is how any creatures hit by the beam between you and your target are also enveloped, causing a literal chain of animals being cured at once! By upgrading your stave, you can even gain useful abilities, such as lifting your targets off of the ground to keep them from punting you around.

The combat itself is surprisingly brutal, with only a few hits being enough to take you out. Multiple enemies can also be quite a challenge, as it is difficult to keep track of them all at once! While I usually scraped by, the intensity of the fights felt a bit at odds with the general vibe of the game itself. Losing all your life is not a big deal, however, but it may set you back a bit of progress depending on when the game decided to save last, though it can be annoying at the best of times. Additionally, if you rescued some animals, upgraded your skills, or discovered something after your post-mortem load, you have to remember to do them all again.

And the doctors say blue light is bad!

While you gain the majority of your skills from story-based quests, you also gain experience from taming animals, discovering areas, and researching everything there is to know about Ava — Vic is a type of researcher, after all. Much like in Pokémon Legends: Archeus, each creature on the planet has its own set of research objectives to fulfil, from taking pictures of them with your phone to using their abilities and rescuing a set number of them from the planet. You can also photograph hidden chimes and named Naam characters, and investigate local sites to gain skill points, which can also be used to improve your capabilities.

Both the animals and characters of Creatures of Ava are, without a doubt, the best thing about the experience. Each animal is unique in looks and is absolutely adorable, even if they do share some abilities between them. Some are aggressive, some are skittish, and all of them have a unique “pet” animation which diligently performed on each and every friend. The interactions Vic has with her ally, Tabitha, are great, and the many Naam you meet are usually both hilarious and wholesome; the mismatch of Vic the human trying to understand their customs and vice versa is a joy to follow. They also keep giving her new nicknames along the lines of Stronglegs, which is fun. Vic herself is a good combination of compassionate and sassy, often chiding any beast that attacks her with a “come on, I’m doing this for you!”

However, even with the fun characters and enjoyable adventuring, puzzles, and animal taming, Creatures of Ava does suffer from a bit of bloat in terms of features. In addition to the aforementioned, there is also a somewhat simple crafting system in place. By combining the plants and resources of Ava, you can create healing items or a small array of support items. While this in itself is fine, if slightly unnecessary (healing items are found quite frequently), the game also has inventory management, meaning that you may be unable to gather a herb or item due to your backpack being full! While you can upgrade your capacity with items strewn about the world, I would have preferred to not have to think about space when you don’t even craft that much. Maybe it would make more sense if the items were needed in animal taming or had more utilitarian uses, nevertheless, they feel a bit tacked on in the current rendition of the game.

In a similar theme, Vic's mission to “rescue the animals” also feels a bit odd. One of your main goals in each region is finding, taming, and then shipping off animals to the BioArk (that we don’t see), which seems noble enough on the surface. However, as you perform this necessary duty, the world around you becomes more and more quiet and empty, making the many treks through the land very bleak. However, this may all be an intentional decision, as there are some themes of questioning Vic and Tabitha’s efforts, though as a gamer it does feel weird when each teleportation is followed by the uneasy question of “should I be doing this?”

In terms of performance, the game worked relatively well. Creatures got stuck on the terrain every now and again while I was leading them to a teleporter and sometimes I managed to jump my way past some minor obstacles in an unintended way, but I never got stuck on anything nor did I experience any major bugs. I did, however, run into a few one-off issues and one recurring annoyance: while trying to record gameplay via Steam for some other coverage, the game crashed after about eight minutes for no apparent reason. I also experienced a massive FPS drop in the first village that required a hard boot to fix, though these issues may well be due to my machine and not the game.

Ah, yes. Science.

The only repeating issue I had with the game was a weird habit of not opening up the menu when I pressed the start button. It may be a faulty controller that's to blame, but it felt more like the game was either loading something or ignoring my wrathful button-mashing. Often when you find something new or an item is updated, the game will prompt you to hold the menu button to instantly access it, so maybe something like that had gotten stuck? It’s difficult to guess. Since the map, upgrades, and research data are all within the menu, having to repeatedly mash the button to open it was beyond frustrating in an otherwise calm and enjoyable experience.

A final note I want to emphasise before wrapping up my thoughts is how amazing Creatures of Ava’s audio design is. Since everything on the planet has a song, the game has a constant ambient of dynamic music following you. When you enter a village, the ambient changes into a lively theme that incorporates chanting and multiple instruments, whereas the music in the wilds is more subdued and simple. Whenever you attract animals, your flute’s notes mingle into the current ambient, swelling and gaining power with each new friend, making you feel the “connection” to Ava. Similarly, I feel like some areas that are empty of animals also lose the ambient music somewhat, if not altogether. This may be my imagination though. All I know is, I’d often pull out the flute when running across the land just to hear the amazing music.

Creatures of Ava is a thoroughly enjoyable adventure with fun platforming and puzzling with a dash of adorable creatures and humorous interactions. While it does have its flaw, they are quickly forgotten when you're busy giving your newly-tamed friend a proper belly rub as Vic squeals in delight. If you have nostalgia for early 00s adventure games or simply want to relax with something a bit less violent, I can’t help but recommend.