Creatures of Ava

Saving a planet full of cute creatures!

Watch the whole review or…

Read it here!

Title: Creatures of Ava

Release: August 7^th, 2024

Platform: PC Xbox X|S

Developer: Chibig / Inverge Studios

Publisher: 11 bit studios

Genre: Action Adventure Third Person

ESRB: E

Reviewed on: PC

Time Played: 10.5 Hours

Intro:

Creatures of Ava was a fun game about saving an alien planet from a fast-working infection by evacuating all the inhabitants. You will explore different ecosystems and meet plenty of unique characters and cute creatures, some cuter than others. I finished the main story and some side quests in around 10 hours and would love to share with you what you can expect from the game before giving my personal

thoughts and ratings. So please, stick around and enjoy.

Can the kids watch

This game has a well-earned rating of E for everyone. The language was clean, and there wasn’t any blood or extreme violence to worry about. The combat sequences, if they could even be called that, involved holding a beam on creatures while they were cleansed of the Wither, and avoiding the incoming attacks of the angry creatures.

Where it starts

You will play Vic, a scientist on a conservation mission to save the inhabitants of Ava. After a rather bumpy landing, Vic is forced to explore the wilds, equipped only with a camera. Fortunately, she quickly makes a new friend and archeological discovery, an ancient staff with special powers, a necessity for the trials to come.

The Nafitar

Vic’s handy dandy new staff initially had very few uses, she could use it to disperse the Wither blocking paths or stuck on creatures. Eventually, with a little help from the ancestors, the staff could acquire new abilities like levitating targets, or slowing time down. Skills useful for traveling the wilds of Ava or cleaning the infected creatures.

The Goal

Vic would like to save every living being on the planet, the easiest part being the capturing of the creatures first. Scattered throughout the play areas were special robots that could send healthy creatures up to the BioArk, a special craft used as a sanctuary for saved creatures. The different areas you play in will have a preferred number of creatures to save, not to say you can’t save them all, there was an Avapedia to fill out after all.

Avapedia

The Avapedia was a journal of sorts, a book for you to fill out with facts discovered from research. Every creature will have so many actions needed to fill out the research, including taking pictures and petting them. There was also a section for world characters, I didn’t realize until the end that every new person met should have their picture taken, so they can take up a spot in the Avapedia. Getting a 100% filled out Avapedia was quite a daunting task, but enjoyable.

Dealing with Naam

The local inhabitants of Ava were the Naam, very nonchalant beings, living their best lives at one with the planet. Some were quite welcoming of the humans, giving them fun nicknames and enjoying their company, while others were quite contempt to deal with you. Whether they like you or not, they will still have some requests to make, side quests that would take you all over Ava and build the history of the Naam and their planet.

Saving Creatures

Before Vic could save creatures, she had to learn the song of the locale. Using a flute Vic could speak with nature after hitting the perfect note combination. If a creature is healthy and Vic pulled out the flute, they would sing a few notes, wanting Vic to mimic those notes back, once done they would fully trust and follow her while she was playing the flute. If a creature was infected, all Vic had to do was cleanse the infection before they fully trusted her.

Solving Problems (puzzles)

Once a creature trusted Vic, she can view the world from their eyes, giving you control over their movement and actions. Every creature will have some ability that can be used to open new paths to explore or to break dirt mounds for usable items. Sometimes you would need the help of creatures to move the game forward, other times you would need them to open a way to the nearest robot for transportation.

Crafting

While trying to save the planet you may find yourself wounded by nature, either dangerous environments or infected creature atacks, you will eventually take some damage. Thankfully you will have access to potions that could heal you, or even recharge stamina and other various uses. Some potions can be found in the wild, but you would also have the ability to create your own at crafting stations.

Building Skills

As you rescue animals, take pictures, and finish objectives you would receive some experience points you could put towards skills in Vic’s skill tree. At the start there were very few options, but as the game moved forward and more abilities unlocked for the staff, there were plenty of options to choose from. There were skills to help with crafting or dodging, and staff related skills that would significantly help with the cleansing of wither.

Moving Forward

Every section of the game will take you through a different ecosystem with unique creatures and environments. The game was designed to show the changes of the world as the wither moved forward, so when it was time to leave an area due to story, you were locked out of the area for the rest of the game. Thankfully the game tells you what quests you would permanently fail to help you decide if you were really ready to move forward.

Outro:

If you have any thoughts or questions about the game or my review, I would love to hear from you so please let me know in the comments below while we move forward to my personal thoughts and ratings.

Creatures of Ava was a cute and easy game to get through. If you’re looking for a challenge this isn’t the game for you. Regardless I still liked quite a few aspects of the game. Some of the creatures were absolutely adorable, and having the ability to pet every single one that trusts you was so awesome and exciting. I liked a few of the puzzles, I didn’t have to think about solutions so much as find all the creatures in the area. When looking through their eyes if they could interact with an object, it would shine blue, being a good indicator for where the hidden areas were or how to move forward. I did run into a few minor bugs, the worst being a robot not showing where it should, keeping me from getting 100% research done for one creature, after that I didn’t care to work on my Avapedia anymore. Other than that, the game ran good.

The Visuals were great. There was almost a Borderland’s look to the characters, and the cut scenes were shown through a very nice animation. Starting out the bright colors and beauty of the world really showed, and I could feel how bad the wither was in the drabber areas of the world. I’m giving it a 4.

The story was phenomenal. I loved the characters and lessons involved in the whole thing. It really brought the feels. There aren’t many games that make me feel, but there was a point where I had watery eyes. Really good stuff. I’m handing out a 5.

The gameplay felt like it played out as it should. I never got to whack anything with the staff, that was a little disappointing, and there were some creatures that did not follow Vic very well creating a time-consuming headache of running back and forth. Other than those few things the controls worked great and moving around was easy. It’s getting a 3.

Not a big replayability value on this one. The story was great, but the gameplay was repetitive and I don’t feel a need to go back through. If you wanted to 100% this game that could easily be done in one playthrough, earning it a 1.

Starting the game was fun, when everything was fresh and new. But after a few hours of gameplay a lot of it felt the same, the only thing keeping me engaged was the creatures and story. I rushed the final stretch of the game just to get it finished. I’m giving it a 2.

Giving Creatures of Ava an average score of 3 out of 5. Earning it’s home right there on the Midshelf. Another wonderful title available with Xbox Gamepass, if you have that it’s worth checking this game out. Considering how much they put into the game and everything you could do; I feel it’s worth the current asking price if you wanted to play it right away.