Making games for a specific audience is sometimes the best way to really achieve your own vision. There are too many titles that dabble in this or that in order to connect to everyone: adding a crafting element to an action game, dabbing a multiplayer aspect on a solo adventure. Instead of being welcoming, it just comes across as worthless pandering for the sake of distraction. But with Tevi, the danmaku metroidvania from CreSpirit, their target is crystal clear: people who just love misery in the cutest form.

Tevi is the tale of a bunny girl in a world of beastforms (people with animal ears), actual angels and devils, magic, living machines, and every other anime trope you could throw at a game. You play Tevi the bunny girl, who is out to find a bunch of ultra important magical MacGuffins that are scattered throughout the world. You’re joined by a buxom angel and a himbo devil who live inside your magical attack orbs that follow you around. Players run into a vast number of characters who all have some kind of funny little quirk about them, and you procedurally get dragged further and further into a world of arcane mystery and devious domination plans while wondering why the hell you can’t just use the teleporters to go straight to a designated area.

There are so many hats on this game that it’s impossible to slot Tevi in just one. Primarily it’s a side scrolling action adventure that asks you to retrace your footsteps as the story unlocks. There’s also a ton of sigils to unlock that then add to your combat in micro-fine detail, down to different percentages based on the timing, condition, and position of the fight. You have a passive crafting situation that becomes essential the more you want to upgrade your character/not die in the field, and then there’s the boss battles themselves. If you’re really into the Touhou lifestyle for how to deal with bosses, great news: this is the biggest mess of bullets, lasers, and projectiles since Demolition Man: the Musical.

From the beginning, Tevi is rather captivating in appearance and production value. Voice acting is consistent on any/all scene breaks where Tevi and company need to create exposition, and I was a bit surprised at the quality that comes through. The voice actors have done their due diligence, and, when we’re in a static cutscene moment, the delivery shines. The portraits on normal conversations are a bit off putting – it feels like everything is too long – but it’s not bad by any means, it simply isn’t my cup of tea.

In the same vein, the soundtrack for Tevi is legitimately excellent. Though there is probably some element of it that’s done to death by another standard, I really enjoyed the anime level of ambience and drive throughout. The opening track captures a frantic but powerful feeling. Intermingling violin with electronica to convey a real aural concept of the game: the ancient magic of it all with modern machinery. It’s got a very real Final Fantasy VI throughline in terms of what the plot and the music seek to deliver, though I have to admit it’s nowhere near the standard of what Uematsu would produce.

Speaking of plot, it’s vital that you either decide to be passively aware of things that occur throughout Tevi or to just be fine with errant, confusing moments of frustration. Tevi herself encounters all these characters and figures who you think are going to be vital to the overall story, and then just fade away without further explanation. Rivals, evil henchmen, living waffle robots…they’re all delightful to discover, seem to have a backstory and connection with Tevi, and then just wander off into the sunset while Tevi makes another comment about Celia’s boobs. Right, if you have a character with a noticeable chest, be sure to bring it up in every conversation possible. Even Compile Heart is more subtle about their characters’ “assets.”

Graphically, players are going to either feel a bit cold or love the display, because I got massive Maple Story vibes throughout. The chibi sprite work that makes up the majority of the gameplay is wonderfully juxtaposed against the different degrees of post apocalyptic that exists throughout. From bombed out villages to overgrown forests, there are sinister – if bite sized – enemies that fit the biomes well. I sincerely liked the different boss designs and grunts, and the only annoyance that came was the constant respawning when you left and re-entered a room: but that complaint has nothing to do with how they looked or felt.

The three main spokes of the gameplay come down to customization, exploration and boss fights. Customization is easily the weakest point because it is so complex and intricate but, unless you play at higher difficulties, it’s a bit needless. While the details about what happens when you create a defense break at the right moment or successfully chain a combo from ground into aerial are interesting, you can ignore that at difficulty levels of normal or lower. Thankfully, other sigils give passive bonuses as well (healing between rooms, more item drops) and so the system doesn’t go completely to pot. It’s like owning a Steam Deck to play Suika Game: okay, but why?

Exploration for Tevi is a decent situation that gently swings between natural and a bit cumbersome. While it’s easily dealt with and explained early on, not being able to jump down from certain platforms a la Super Metroid is still a little frustrating: I can jump up through this floor, why not descend? Thankfully, many of the pathways are clear enough to allow for easy backtracking and navigation so that it doesn’t become a consistent thorn when you want to get someplace but have to take “the long way.”

Also, my snark about the teleporter is really misplaced, as the fast travel spots are exactly where they need to be. While Tevi and crew need to constantly jaunt back to one place or another to received additional details, there aren’t any of the maps that are so massive or twisty that you’re left bored trying to retrace your steps. Plus, even from the very beginning, you’ll see hints of additional relics and items that you can return to get later, so that’s definitely a plus.

What players really need to remember with Tevi is that everything – the plot, the items, the crafting, fighting, and fetch questing – is just a wrapper for delivering the main crux of it all, the boss fights. The developers have put so much work into making sure that the boss fights from the very start all have a unique and respected fighting style that comes in multiple waves. Even the first major boss (a rival tinkerer) starts out slow and then explodes into the third act with multiple lasers and explosions that need to be weaved through and timed carefully in order to succeed. As much as I dismissed the sigils, it did become important to rely on ones that catered towards defense the further in you got, through I still feel the fine detailing of it was unnecessary.

But that also becomes a bit of a double edged sword. Since the focus is the boss fights, you realize that your time spent hunting around and trying to develop other things is just a means to an end, which takes a bit of the fun out of the experience. Sure, I still liked romping around and meeting new people – Tevi is a charismatic character, and the plot is fun if threadbare – but I always had to get ready to either bash my head into the wall for several minutes or ratchet down the difficulty to “cakewalk” so I could get things over with and move forward. Meaning players really need to be ready for some Takkoman level of nonsense for trying to make bullet hell work in a non-vertical world. It’s not soulslike, it’s just throwing the kitchen sink at players and expecting twitch reflexes and growing migraines to serve as your game’s bonus features.

Tevi didn’t disguise what it was: a 2D exploration game with bullet hell elements. I knew this going in, and I was ready for it. The parts that aren’t boss battles showed me a fun world with some great characters, decent crafting and a light meal of a metroidvania: pleasant to map out but it won’t fill you up. I appreciate the developers offering the lower difficulty settings to allow for boss accomplishment, but I didn’t love having to jaunt back to Tevi’s home to toggle it. It gave the feeling of needing to run home, crying, because the other kids were mean. I say grab it if you want to try on a different form of metroidvania, but be warned that pain awaits, and it comes in multiple waves.

 

Graphics: 7.5 Fantastic sprite work for the characters and enemies, well designed biomes for exploration, and a unqiue style for the portraits for each and every character. It’s sometimes a bit off putting how long everyone looks, but it works for the world and I didn’t hate it in the end.	Gameplay: 7.0 When I was exploring, fighting and beating up random baddies, I loved it. When I was eyeballs deep in ass whooping from an assassin full of lasers and spite, it was distinctly less fun. Probably would have bounced off it if I wasn’t reviewing it, but everything that isn’t danmaku is great.
Sound: 8.0 Absolutely banger of a soundtrack. Opening track will grab you hard, and the overall score underlines the mystery and the magical tech wasteland that is Tevi. Bonus points for some really solid voicework from all characters, particularly Tevi herself.	Fun Factor: 6.5 I feel like all the pieces for an amazing game were there, but they just fit together so oddly. The boss fights were unbalanced, the exploration got wonky and I didn’t need all the sigils, though I appreciated them being there. I feel like this game is for a lot of people, but I’m just not one of them.
Final Verdict: 7.0

Tevi is available now on PC and Nintendo Switch.

Reviewed on Nintendo Switch.

A copy of Tevi was provided by the publisher.