Nevaeh (Nintendo Switch) Review

An important part to Nevaeh is the lack of dialogue. There's not even any story narration. The only words are instructions on how to play. This means that, while there are pictures to help indicate what the townspeople want her to help them with individually, it is down to the player to figure out the actual plot. It may fall to personal preference how much this style of storytelling is liked, those who prefer knowing intricate details will be left feeling frustrated by not having a full understanding of the situation.

Interpretation of story aside, there is a lot to like about Nevaeh. The age rating from Nintendo is a bit of a mystery, as the violence does not seem that explicit compared to other titles. There is combat, mostly by the girl jumping on top of monsters. Health is rarely an issue in easy mode where boss battles are clearly much easier, because they get defeated when there still seems to be some health left in their life bar. The girl recovers health by standing in the light from the butterfly, and the healing time is fairly rapid.

Boss battles use the environment to protect the girl from harm - by using a platform as protection from thrown items, for example, or to injure the boss itself. The butterfly is needed to light up specific areas, which then make certain parts of a scene move, or in the case of health reducing, spikes, cogs, and enemies disappear for the time that the butterfly is in what looks like a light bulb, which is appropriate considering a lack of light is the game's objective.

In the tower there are locked areas that need unlocking: the girl has to use the butterfly's power to find up to three keys to unlock the doors, and proceed on with the rest of the level or for the next. Some logical thinking is required. At least in easy there are plenty of points to recover health, and the way to solve a puzzle is made clear fairly easily, yet getting to the key can be tricky. Thankfully, there is no Game Over, or having to restart the whole level over, as if the girl should die, she returns to a point, retaining the items already found. The tricky part is timing some jumps, and making sure levers and pulleys are activated in a correct order to solve the puzzle.

Some puzzles are literal puzzles, where a picture is divided into squares that have been muddled up. Moving the pieces around within the picture frame involves a lot of concentration, and the elation upon completion adds a real sense of achievement throughout Nevaeh. Using the butterfly in certain spaces enables using the creatures' shadows as ledges to climb up or down to reach bonus items. Environmental elements such as wind and water are both used throughout the girl's quest, adding an extra layer of trickiness to it all.