Nivalis Nights - A Review

Nivalis Nights, a game which came out earlier this week, is sadly a bit of a let down. The worldbuilding and writing is as good as their previous game, however the gameplay is really missing things or is generally bugged to disastrous levels. Despite numerous delays, it does feel like an early access game. Nothing against ea games, but its a shame this was really advertised as a 1.0 release when its clearly not. For example, farming is really useful to growing free ingredients instead of buying them, however harvesting and planting crops takes a LONG time due to the need to run to your greenhouse and watch the 2 animations needed to harvest and plant for each cultivator you own. There is a late game machine that does this automatically... apparently. It seems no one has yet found where to actually buy this machine once you get to max level in the farming skill (which still takes a long time).

The management side is somewhat fun, but a bit tedious. I opened a second location and it was just a bit formulaic, which has already gotten repetitive. Hire some staff, put food on the menu, fill the place with ingredients and devices for cooking and done. Some NPC staff do have interactions and opinions, but these have no bairing on the running of the place. There's actually quite a few 'events' that aren't ever seen and have 0 impact on the game. I found out recently one of my locations had been raiding! This didnt really mean anything as nothing had changed. I'm not sure what updates could change it. Like I said, it feels like early access.

On top of that, there are lots of 'quests' to do for NPCs. Lots is an understatement really, as you can quickly get bombarded with quests for all sorts of random people, many seeming a bit odd to be given to a restaurantur. This means your HUD is full of quest locations that are just numbered and become really messy. NPCs also only talk to you during quest steps, NPCs that you can 'make friends' with. Sadly, this means once their quest chain ends, you often cant interact with them again. From what I've heard, this includes romance options! A real shame for something thats meant to be an immersive experience!

The quality of writing is really nice, even though some voice actors are rough around the edges. Cloudpunk, the devs previous game, was really good for this and its what kept me playing that game. Some story beats are really nice, the visuals are lovely (although the smooth player models do clash with the voxel art style at times) and the audio is very immersive. Its just a shame I dont think the gameplay will keep me playing this until 'the end', and actually might push me away from it.