Tchia nintendo switch8/23/2023 ![]() This extends to the musical numbers that Tchia can take part in throughout the campaign using her ukulele with a fully functioning chord-strumming minigame. All of these cultural aspects ground Tchia in a unique and specific setting, which is refreshing in an industry that usually hems closer to real-world recreations of Los Angeles or outright fabricated fantasy worlds. Everything seems authentic, from the cuisine the titular Tchia can freely consume along her journey to the island-themed music that serves as the game’s soundtrack. ![]() It struck me as a labor of love from the developer Awaceb, one that would fully embrace and showcase New Caledonian culture and folklore.Īnd now that I’ve played the release build of the game, those things still ring true. It looked adorable and warm and inviting, and also like it had a suite of cool traversal systems that would be fun to interact with. The game’s art direction is cute and cartoony, but it also comes off as low-quality in some parts of the open world.Tchia first blinked onto my radar in 2020 when it was revealed at that year’s Game Awards. Playing on a mid-spec PC, the game suffered from a poor frame rate with the game also occasionally tripping up with backgrounds not loading and invisible enemies we couldn’t kill. Other quirks include Tchia climbing the wall next to a ladder because she couldn’t figure out what a ladder does mini-games filling your inventory with junk trophies so you can’t pick up things you actually need (making me not want to do the mini games because of this) and the fact that your map doesn’t actually show your precise location, despite Tchia actually knowing precisely where you are since you can pin destinations to your compass. While many games encourage kleptomania in the player, I can’t imagine that’s really a side of New Caledonian culture that Awaceb was trying to showcase. Your side mission is to run around stealing them to gift to other people to progress the story. One case in point is that someone has been leaving braided trinkets on little shrines around the archipelago, seemingly as offerings. It’s just a shame that dips in quality hinder the overarching experience, and weird little quirks make certain things feel a little disingenuous. Tchia is a likeable character and the background story is pretty cool if you can get into it. ![]() Putting this glaring issue aside, Tchia gets full marks for accuracy, what with the local customs and talent being rolled into production, and the game is engaging when it wants to be. None of this helps the pacing, and it makes traversing the island feel like a chore more than the fun island-hopping experience it could have been. Like most open-world games, there is fast travel, but it’s the worst kind of fast travel - the kind where you have to first hike over to a fast travel point to warp to somewhere that’s not remotely close to where you want to be. In all, everything feels like it fell a little short of the mark. There is a mechanic here for flinging yourself between trees to keep up momentum, but you don’t quite get the reach you want when trees aren’t densely packed enough, and soul jumping between wildlife is difficult when the island is less densely populated. While this seems incredibly helpful, it comes with frustratingly long cooldowns - yet you still wait through them because it’s always faster to summon a bird than to start walking. Through learning different songs, Tchia also has the magical ability to change time of day and summon animals to help her get around the world she inhabits. It’s good to have this option here, but at the same time means that more could have been left on the cutting-room floor. Given that your dad has just been kidnapped by a half-worm, half-human demon who eats babies, why does Tchia keep sitting down to play the ukulele as everyone has a dance? It would be one thing if these songs actually meant something mechanically or in terms of stats building, but it just adds a rhythm game for you to play along to, and auto-complete button and skip buttons for when you get bored. The issue is that what follows is a whole bunch of sitting around campfires and singing (admittedly charming) songs before shlepping across mountains wishing this tropical paradise had a few more animals you could hijack. It is phenomenally slow to start despite a high-octane cutscene where you soul jump into a machete (not notorious for having souls) and fling yourself at the warlord’s face as he absconds with your father.
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