By Zyha Colon

Awoken, now banished into a strange world, a sword-wielding girl follows a winding path. She walks, finding monsters in her way but is quickly able to fend them all off. She moves farther, until stopping in front of a large cliff not knowing how to get up. It takes a second but finally she realizes the hat on her head is now another part of her. She jumps, now becoming one with the hat, leaping up high onto the cliff, only to fall into a pit. The girl looks up and sees a large monster in her way.

She fights and fights and yet can’t prevail. She dies, then awakens, needing to figure out exactly how to escape a world that’s unknown to her. That is the first look at Never Grave: The Witch and The Curse, which I played on the Nintendo Switch 2.

Never Grave is not a story-heavy game. Instead the game focuses on its various bosses/entities, as well as rebuilding a village that seemed to be destroyed before the protagonist had gotten there. The village is the game’s safe place, it’s where you will upgrade, craft and farm up materials in order to grow stronger for the arenas ahead. It’s also used as a way for players to have a bit of fun outside of the fighting, since the village allows the player to build structures to their heart’s content. This was extremely fun once I was late into the game. Being able to build and organize let me feel way more in control with what I was doing.

But since the game has so much going on, it could make you feel extremely overwhelmed.

As the game progresses, the player gets more used to fighting enemies and grinding for materials. It gets clearer what the biggest part of the game is, and that’s the replayability. Like rogue-like games, you have to be able to repeat dungeons/bosses over and over in order to gather materials to continue progressing through the game.

This isn’t unique to Never Grave, but I still couldn’t help but get hooked on the grind of repeating bosses. After the tenth time of going back into the same arena, my movements were easy and quick, I was already used to what I was going to see and when I would see it. Games where you’re able to upgrade and get faster in an area are super enjoyable. While yes, that repetition could get tiring after a bit, it’s something about the adrenaline of finally getting that last piece of material that makes the grind all the more worth it.

The art style for games is what drives it home. If your game is trash but has a good looking style, there is a chance there will still be praise for it. Never Grave is absolutely gorgeous to play through, the different areas all have varying aesthetics. From the messy ruins to the breathtakingly glowing Academy, each area has a completely different look that makes first impressions all the more enjoyable.

This doesn’t stop at the environment either because every arena has a final boss with amazingly unique designs. While I love all the designs equally, the final boss of the game takes the absolute win. The biblically accurate angel look meshed with scars all over its body made this last foe look so amazing and exciting. I love when games aren’t afraid to be scary looking even with cute artstyle. In fact, more games should have this! Similar to a lot of mascot horror games, where they take inspiration from kids shows and turn them scary, this can make bosses and creatures in games look ten times better. This game is not one to fall flat on amazing boss designs, and not a single one failed to amaze me during replays.

Music is huge in games like these. The music should be able to mesh well with the story. In boss fights,there should be this overwhelmingly fast dark tempo, and for normal areas it should be calmer, fitting in with the place you’re exploring. Never Grave is able to do this and so much more. As a person who is frequently muting the sound when playing games, there were moments where I kept the volume at max simply because that soft soundtrack was able to pull me in. Now this isn’t always the case, because while the music is gorgeous, the game has you replay sections so frequently that hearing the same songs over and over gets draining easily. However, that’s not to say that the music for this game shouldn’t be praised any less.

Never Grave truly is one of the best Metroidvania games of today. The bosses, awesome graphics, amazing replayability, all make me say that this game made me want to come back for even more. If you’re a fan of Metroidvanias or rogue-likes, and need a new game to immerse yourself in for 20 hours, then Never Grave: The Witch and The Curse should be your next game.

Zhya Colon, our newest intern, recently graduated from The Lab School for Finance and Technology, where Zhya was the editor of the school newspaper.

---