Creatures of Ava Review (IAmDoot)
I submitted a ticket because I had issues with completing my Avapedia or the all creature achievement and refused to spend 20 more hours on what was a very preventable issue. I couldn't complete it because 1. Tehra'ba has exactly one chance to appear healthy for photos, that doesn't involve cutscenes. It supposedly shows up once you travel to the first biome, and signals it by roaring. I am deaf, and there are no captions for this, so I was unaware that I had no more opportunities to photograph it. My other issue that also remains unresolved started in early game and persisted to end-game. Also required to complete the Avapedia, I ran out of bridges and flowers for Ohol and Huhu to use their abilities on. The fix for missing creatures works fine & helped a ton as I teleported a lot throughout my playthrough (usually once I'd finished the quests in a biome), and I acknowledged this. However when I submitted the ticket explaining that I purchased the game after the fix had been implemented, this was my exact response after a brief intro (this was from Aleksander):
"If you have cleared the requirements for the achievement before the fix then, unfortunately, you will need to trigger them again."
Excuse me? Did I not just mention that the patch went out before I even purchased the game? Plus, Tehra'ba's Avapedia is required for three different achievements, and the Ohol & Huhu are also required for the Complete Avapedia achievement. I didn't bother responding and uninstalled the game, accepting that I won't 100% it unless they fix major issues (and I don't normally 100% games, I just felt like it was doable after seeing the achievements while in the Jungle -- I'd already hardlocked myself at this point and didn't know it until I encountered the issue with Ohol & Huhu after returning from the Jungle).
Seeing the devs respond this way in email as well in discussions, I am extremely disappointed. Players are essentially told "tough luck, try again," when it can take several hours just for one little thing. In other games, that might be okay if the achievement itself was very complex (generic example: capture 500 of one species), but this is a simple, linear game (nothing wrong with that! I liked it, actually) that tells you to take it slow as well as reminders that there are collectibles remaining when preparing to leave a biome. I spent ~23 hours (unsure why Steam says 21 though
The exception is failing to mention the Kraj sculptures. I get that it's an Easter egg, but it could be left as a very vague hint, perhaps something like this: "There's a mystery object missing!" Of course it shouldn't be obvious, but just a tiny little hint that it even exists would save so many people from ripping their hair out over it. So many of these issues with hardlocking achievements could be resolved by implementing an open-world post-game for sandbox play (which can have the creature interactable objects reset).
There were also a handful of bugs, but they were mainly a nuisance rather than game-breaking. The primary one I experienced was a camera issue that whenever it lagged, it would force Vic to start running in a different direction, usually getting hurt or die of fall damage (even if she was running in a straight line). I did notice that the frequency of this picked up quite rapidly as the infection spread. However, this may be chalked up to PC specs as my CPU isn't the best.
I did have a another issue that went completely unanswered, but fortunately, it fixed itself during story progression (an NPC was missing, but they reappeared during end-game).
TL;DR:
I loved the game, the incredible storytelling, and the beautiful graphics (not the mention how freaking adorable some of those creatures are (especially Yekembo, my beloved)! But it's far too easy to hardlock yourself out of achievements without ever knowing, and the devs know it. The devs also respond poorly to the dozens of people who have spoken up about the mentioned issues, basically a "tough luck" attitude. There are TONS of posts on Steam, Reddit, and even other discussion boards discussing how the easily missed achievements need to be fixed, with many players outright quitting the game due to such issues and the devs refusing to improve quality of life. I'd advise all people interested in the game to read these first.
Do not buy this game until the issues are fixed. Would be a great cozy game & I would recommend only if the issues are largely rectified, if not completely.