The second release from Awaceb, the New Caledonia-based French studio, Tchia is the studio’s first open-world sandbox. The game carries a heavy load from the start as Awaceb’s team not only has to impress with their first foray into the genre, but also represent their home country of New Caledonia.
Tchia is basically a declaration of love to this small island in the Pacific. Although the names of places, people and animals have changed, from the environment you travel to the food you eat, you will remember the place that inspired Awaceb and Tchia as a whole. Awaceb’s passion for New Caledonia is palpable when you play the game and you have a strong feeling that creating this project feels like a dream come true.
When playing Tchia, this passion is largely reflected in the variety of game features. Its visuals make the island an incredibly beautiful playground, and it’s worth noting the water, which is mesmerizing enough to make a long rafting trip look like it’ll fly by in minutes. The way water catches the light during a sunset can be impressive. The looks of Tchia’s characters, animals, and the like also have a cartoonish charm that helps in the game’s lighter moments, adding visual gags and moments of physical comedy. The soundtrack also adds to these moments as it is full of nice and relaxing tracks that will help you get from one destination to another. Although after a while it may seem like you’ve heard every song, they’re adorable enough to be worth repeating.
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Music plays a big part in Tchia, as you’ll often gather around a campfire between main quests and play the ukulele or whatever instrument you find in the area you’re exploring. These music minigames are quite fun and can be challenging to 100%, but with the cutscenes playing in the background it can feel like missing out on the story while playing through some of the music sections.
Aside from hiking and enjoying the views, Tchia has one main goal. As the main character, you must save your father from Meavora, an evil entity that has taken over the islands you call home. On this journey you will meet friends and foes alike and must cross sea and land to find your father. While it might not be his forte, his main story was really good. There were a few twists that managed to keep me hooked throughout the game and again the core game’s charm is there, but it’s not a game that will make you want to repeat, which isn’t bad either.
The true essence of Tchia lies in its sandbox gameplay, which offers you tons of mechanics to try out in the game. Soul hopping is one of the highlights of the game as it allows you to own almost every animal and item you come across and gives you plenty of options when it comes to traversing the map. In addition, it is also the way to defeat enemies in battle. They might not appear often, but if you want to level up your cosmetics or just take down some stuffed monsters, you need to dive right into the combat system. Combat is basically a more aggressive take on Garry’s Mod’s prop hunt, requiring you to throw flaming objects and explosives at cloth enemies to burn them to a crisp.
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Aside from soul hopping to get around, there are many ways to navigate the world. From your trusty glider to your raft, you don’t always need your soul jump powers to get through, and one of the funnest ways to jump I’ve found was by jumping from tree to tree and using the momentum you can gain by swinging from side to side in the top of a tree. While traveling through Tchia, you need to keep an eye on your stamina, which also affects your health. You can spend this time climbing, diving, paragliding and many other strenuous activities. There are ways to increase stamina, but it depletes incredibly quickly, meaning you can’t use it for more than a brief moment.
Among the features mentioned, Tchia has many more. There is a camera to take photos, a brick stacking mini-game, a mask carving mini-game, races, shooting ranges for your slingshot and many more activities to take part in. Although Tchia has many moving parts, the sum of these parts does not always add up to a working whole. It’s hard to pinpoint the glaring flaws in a passion project like Tchia, but the cracks are there. The open world, for example, isn’t as complete as it first appears. Aside from the odd activity that can be done quickly, there’s not much to do other than pick up trinkets and fruits that increase your stamina. The world may be full of charm, but not necessarily full of life. There are no secrets to stumble upon as you explore, no side objectives to expand the world or its characters, and while people occasionally wander the same paths as you, it’s clear that you’re the only one with work to do This world.
There are also many gameplay elements, but not all of them fit together or seem to have a huge impact on the overall experience. The camera, for example, is useful in a mission, but it seems like the main goal was to keep you from forgetting about it, rather than taking photos as a necessary fix to solving the problem. The ukulele also feels like it was left out at some point, as the music slowly becomes more of a cheesy sideshow than a necessary part of the game. Soul hopping gains prominence as the game progresses, but that just makes it seem like it should have gotten a lot more attention. Rather than having five different right things, a great mechanic could have given the game a less hectic feel.
We also have to mention Tchia’s visual bugs, which are rare but appear at the worst of times. Without spoiling the story’s ending, the final scenes refused to load the environment, making it seem like all the characters were floating unless stuck in a weird “T-pose”.
Tchia is a game with a lot of ambition, a lot of passion and a lot of charm. However, it may not live up to its ideal version. Tchia has a lot going for it, and if you want to explore a visually stunning world with a solid soundtrack, then go ahead. But to really excel in this genre, it seems, you have to do a lot more. Let’s hope Awaceb continues to develop Tchia’s ideas as some very solid foundations have been laid.
