We Are Eva Review

Eva isn’t happy with me. In fact, she’s rather disappointed, so much so that she broke the fourth wall just to tell me to stop dying so much! You see, I’ve been tasked with helping Eva navigate interdimensional travel to repair rifts between different worlds and figure out why those dimensions are beginning to shatter, except I’ve died, oh maybe… a million times. Well, not exactly a million, but I’m getting there!

Developed and published by Ukrainian indie game studio, Totally Normal Creature, We Are Eva is a charming 2D precision platformer with beautiful pixel art, a sarcastic yet likeable protagonist, and challenging colour-based gameplay. If you love tight platforming mechanics from titles like Celeste and Super Meat Boy but also want the humour and frustration you’d get from a game like Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy, you’ll find a lot to love here. In my case, I don’t consider myself great at precision platformers, and, thankfully, We Are Eva paces out the progression of difficulty quite well, so newcomers to the genre can find their footing in this colourful, mind-bending world without being too overwhelmed.

The initial levels serve as a basic tutorial, introducing you to your movement controls and placing an easy-to-reach portal at the end; if you’re playing on a keyboard, you’ll use C to jump and double-jump while Z lets you grasp onto walls. Then you’ll encounter two different coloured worlds, which introduces you to your primary mechanic: switching between dimensions. In We Are Eva, worlds are defined by their specific colour, and Eva has the unique ability to exist in each one at the same time by changing her own skin colour, kind of like an interdimensional chameleon. However, this also means Eva can only be physically present in a location that matches her — if she’s currently green, for example, she’ll pass right through a pink platform in a ghostly fashion. You’ll have a few safe spots spread out across each level, though, in the form of black platforms that the game calls the “world-in-between”, where dimensions overlap, letting you stand on or cling to them no matter your current colour.

According to Eva, something is causing the worlds to collapse into each other and mysterious dimensional gaps have begun ripping through space and time, rudely interrupting Eva’s daily schedule of sleeping, sleeping, and… more sleeping. It’s your job to mend at least one of the two colourful rifts you see in each level, at which point Eva will let you travel to the next location as you both seek out the source of the chaos. But there’s a gambit: you’ll have to make sure you match what colour the rifts are in order to close them; this makes it quite rare for you to reach the end of the level without having to hop into another dimension. More often than not, a rift will be located next to its opposite colour, so you’ll have to be precise with your timing as you travel between worlds to avoid dying at the hands of your screen borders.

There are a wide variety of dimensions you’ll discover: yellow is a world of slippery glass, which makes a smooth landing impossible; blue makes the game physics feel floaty as if you’re underwater; the light green world suffocates you with toxic slime, limiting the amount of time you can stay in that dimension; purple inverts your left and right arrow keys, and it’s one of the most difficult locations out of the bunch. Overall, you essentially have a rainbow of tricky dimensions, which are all unique in their own way. The best — and most challenging — part about this design is that you’ll face interesting duos, such as switching between the world with reversed controls (purple) and another where you can’t see anything (red) or hopping from slippery platforms (yellow) to sticky ones (brown). As a result, each level feels varied, dynamic, and fun to run through.

Even death has its own surprises. Whenever you die, the layout of the level transforms into something different, often by adding or removing platforms, which ultimately changes the route you planned to take to the rift and/or portal. Traps also appear where they weren’t before, as well as enemies, including goblins, worms, ghostly monsters, and more. I was particularly surprised when I encountered a ball of faeries that changed which dimension I was in, causing me to fall to my demise — such mischievous tricksters, those faeries. With all these variations and different obstacles to overcome, We Are Eva manages to stay fresh all throughout, and the moment you solve a seemingly impossible level, it’ll feel like you executed a perfect dance — it’s so satisfying!

That’s not to say that dying doesn’t get frustrating, though many of my deaths were often the result of trying the same strategy over and over again, even if the level changed around me. When you’re on a failure streak, Eva will either give you helpful tips, such as reminding you to take a deep breath, or some snarky commentary about dying dozens of times in a row. The lighthearted comments are a welcome reprieve from the difficult levels, and the sarcastic ones are a nice touch, fleshing out Eva’s personality rather well for a game that’s primarily focused on gameplay versus dialogue.

It’s a feat to create a game that appeals to newcomers and enthusiasts of a genre alike, and I believe Totally Normal Creature accomplished this with We Are Eva. It’s a solid platformer with an intriguing premise, delivering smooth colour-based gameplay with a fun, loveable character at its centre. The challenges will draw you in, and maybe push you away in moments of frustration, but you’ll keep coming back for Eva’s meta-commentary about videogames — they won’t disappoint!