Back at the very beginning of 2024, the very first title I wrote a review for NookGaming was an indie action-platformer named Tevi. The long and short of it for me is that as an action-platformer combining Metroidvania-style exploration, a dynamic 2D combat system, and enemies with bullet hell-themed attacks, Tevi makes for an incredible gameplay experience. While the game is incredibly polished, it has a share of spots that sadly felt unfinished as it built towards its conclusion, leaving a sense of “what could have been”. Fast-forward more than two years later, the game has received a new additional DLC chapter set after the events of the base game. As such, I immediately delved into this new chapter, Tevi – Fauna Arcana, to find out if it was able to turn “could have been” into “now is”.
Get On Up
The story of Tevi as a game was never a prime reason I would recommend it to people, but it was nonetheless disappointing how abruptly it ended, especially with its share of unsettled narrative threads that often concluded in unsatisfying ways. Tevi – Fauna Arcana at least sets out to tie up one of the more glaring storylines that was sort of hurried and never fully resolved. Narratively, it takes place six months after the base game’s final battle. The story sees the titular protagonist Tevi and co. heading off to a new location away from her home of Az, the land known as Rabina Island. She’s here to help a friend, as well as to get herself out of a bit of an emotional funk given everything leading up to this point.
As a follow-up story, this DLC naturally doesn’t really work without playing the base game, so I won’t be spoiling any significant details of either here. Considering I still greatly enjoyed Tevi and got more than my money’s worth out of it, it’s easy enough for me to recommend the base game, and I recommend reading that review as a companion piece to this one. While I don’t entirely love having paid DLC for the purpose of tying up parts of a story that maybe should have been finished in the main game, it’s better than nothing and just means more Tevi to go around, which I can get behind.
The runtime of the new scenario is a little bit on the short side, lasting probably around the equivalent of one and a half full chapters of the base game, which had eight in total. Fauna Arcana’s more limited scope keeps it from being overloaded with the surplus of characters it had, sticking to a relatively small nucleus of returning and new ones for a modest number of cutscenes. Tevi has changed and matured a bit as a character, but she’s still got at least some of her snarky gremlin energy, which is all I could really ask for with her.
Most of the new story and characters are still ultimately a means to an end, so I can’t say the story is really any better or worse writing-wise than anything in the base game, but its narrower focus at least keeps it from feeling overly ambitious. And thankfully, it ends on a much more graceful note than the base game does.
Bullet Curtains
Tevi – Fauna Arcana serves as a bit of a postgame chapter for Tevi’s gameplay experience as well. There are a couple of new maps to explore, though they’re relatively linear in scope and structured similarly to the main game. There’s not a whole lot you haven’t seen already with the first of these two areas, but the second one is considerably more distinct. One nice perk of Tevi’s progression system is that because of the way things scale, you can go to the DLC chapter and fare generally fine whether or not you got 100% of items and collectibles in the base game. This is good, because you are unfortunately trapped on Rabina Island for plot reasons until you complete this extra story. The game warns you of this at least, but it lasts for the entire DLC scenario, so you will be better off collecting as much as you can in the base game before tackling it.
There are five additional boss fights in this DLC, and several of them are noticeably more intense and involved. Though I have played a randomized version of the base game on its highest difficulty (Infernal BBQ), my original story file was done on the difficulty below it (Expert), and that was the difficulty I stuck to when playing through Fauna Arcana. Like the base game, it mainly affects enemy and player stats as well as attack patterns and bullet volume. I definitely had a harder time with several fights than I did in my initial playthrough of the base game, which was a bit refreshing to see. Some of it is a result of bosses having very elongated health bars this time that take longer to deplete, though that is somewhat to be expected for a “postgame DLC episode”. Not only are the bullet patterns still interesting in this DLC, but there’s also a unique chase-sequence boss unlike anything from the base game, adding a bit of welcome variety. If you’re feeling extra bold, there’s also an additional boss rush with the new bosses.
A particularly notable inclusion with Tevi – Fauna Arcana is her tsundere-lite inventor rival Vena getting a more prominent role. Vena served as an early game boss who would later sell you some useful items in the base game, but she always felt somewhat underutilized as a character. Having improved her own skills in the background, she gets a much more involved boss fight this time before tagging along with Tevi in some parts of her journey. It’s nice to see, and having an AI-controlled buddy for parts of your journey through Rabina Island changes things up in a way that’s relatively novel. Once you complete the DLC episode, you can take her basically anywhere and even play the base game with her as an assistant party member, providing a whole new way to experience the game in full. If you played the base game’s somewhat linear story mode but haven’t yet tried free-roam mode, I recommend it enough as is, and this new option makes for another fun way to clear the game.
There aren’t a whole lot of other major additions to the gameplay systems of Tevi. Rabina Island has a couple of new sigils (equipment) to find, but most of them are themed around the one mechanic they added to combat, the spanner toss. After a slide, Tevi can throw a giant wrench in front of her, which has some applications like area of effect and piercing damage. It’s a fun little addition, but even with the slight irony of additional augments going toward something typically considered a repair tool, the old adage of “if it ain’t broke, no need to fix it” very much still applies to this game’s combat. And given my high praise for the combat as is, more of that is absolutely a good thing, even if I’ll admit to some personal bias in favor of designer GemaYue’s sometimes eccentric design choices in the games he’s involved in.
Bringin’ It Back
Despite the more limited scope of Tevi – Fauna Arcana, CreSpirit and the Tevi team were able to get the voice cast back for their characters. Lynn once again brings moxie and snark to the character of Tevi, the unmistakable Rie Kugimiya reprises her role as Vena, Yoko Hikasa returns as Tevi’s gun-companion Celia, and so on. The professional cast definitely helps punch up the voice work quite a bit.
The game looks and sounds as great as ever. The art direction and character designs (of which several come sporting new fits) are once again courtesy of the terrific Ein Lee. Lee worked on pixel design together with fellow Tevi creator Waero as well as YoruZero, the latter of whom worked on another of my favorite indie titles out of Taiwan, Last Command. And of course, who doesn’t love cute bunnygirls?
The music team is smaller than that of the base game given the need for fewer tracks. Still, several composers from the base game return with several more fine tunes.
Verdict
Tevi – Fauna Arcana ties a little extra ribbon onto a game that really was more in need of closure than anything else. While it doesn’t fix all my issues with the narrative, it makes for a better conclusion to the game on the whole thus far. Everything else you see here is more of what already makes Tevi one of the best 2D action-platformers around. This DLC is absolutely worth a pickup.
TEVI – FAUNA ARCANA IS RECOMMENDED
If you’re looking for another indie action title, why not check out our review of NanoApostle?
The reviewer played Tevi – Fauna Arcana on PC.
Been playing games since my papa gave me an NES controller in the early 90’s. I play games of almost all genres, but especially focus role-playing, action, and puzzle-platform games. Also an enjoyer of many niche things ranging from speedrunning to obscure music from all over the world.
