Neversong

Genre: Puzzle-Platformer

Players: 1

.

Review:

Neversong is a Puzzle-Platformer released on PC, mobile devices, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch in 2020. It follows the story of a young boy named Peet who falls down a well with his childhood friend Wren only to fall into a coma. When he awakens, his surroundings have become bizarre and frightening, all of the parents of his hometown have gone missing, and he sets off on a quest to find and rescue Wren.

The one thing I think this game gets the most right is its presentation, which uses desaturated hand-drawn 2D imagery in a somewhat “off” cartoony style to depict a once-childish world turned nightmarish. This is combined with an at-times tonally dissonant soundtrack and fully-voiced characters. The writing here is excellent too, with the other kids being fittingly either callous and cruel, or too absorbed in their own interests to help Peet, and with dark forces at work to prey on the kids. Suffice it to say, the dark themes of this game get very close to being an outright Horror game.

The puzzles here are pretty good too, though they’re widely spread out, which can make for problems due to other issues the game has (which I’ll get into for a moment). However, at least conceptually, some of these puzzles are quite clever and require a bit of thinking to solve.

While the puzzles are good, the platforming leaves a lot to be desired, and the combat has unreliable hit detection. However, what really brings down this game is the pacing. Not only is everything spread out, requiring a lot of walking around, but the load times here are atrocious, making exploring the game’s world a pain. Also, in at least one or two places, I noticed considerable slowdown. This last issue was thankfully brief, but I felt it deserved a mention.

If you have the patience for its loading screens and slow pacing, Neversong is a wonderfully dark Puzzle-Platformer with good puzzles and a fantastic story. However, those pacing issues are a huge drag on the game, making it a more grueling experience than it needed to be. Be aware of that if you decide to pick it up.

tl;dr – Neversong is a Puzzle-Platformer where players take the role of a young boy recovering from a coma and trying to find his kidnapped friend. This game’s story is wonderfully dark, and its puzzles are good. Unfortunately, the pacing is dreadfully slow, and this is made worse by some nasty loading screens. If you’re a fan of the genre and can take the bad with the good, this game is still worth looking into.

Grade: C+

^{You can support eShopperReviews on Patreon! Please click HERE to become a Sponsor!}

^{This month’s sponsors are Andy Miller, Exlene, Johannes, Homer Simpin, Ilya Zverev, Eli Goodman, Kristoffer Wulff, Gabriel Coronado-Medina, Francis Obst, and Seth Christenfeld. Thank you for helping to keep the reviews coming!}