English
Gamereactor
reviews
Tchia

Tchia

A charming sandbox that can't quite paint over all its cracks.

Subscribe to our newsletter here!

* Required field
HQ

Tchia, the second release from the France-based New Caledonian developer Awaceb marks the studio's first open-world sandbox title. The game has a fair amount of weight on its shoulders immediately going in, as not only do the team at Awaceb have to impress with their first sandbox release, but they also are representing their home country of New Caledonia.

Tchia is, at its heart, a love letter to that small island in the Pacific Ocean. While it has changed the names of places, people, and animals, from the environments you roam to the food you eat, you'll be reminded of the place that inspired Awaceb and Tchia as a whole. The passion Awaceb has for New Caledonia is palpable when you're playing, and there is a strong sense that the creation of this project feels like a dream fulfilled.

Tchia

Playing Tchia, that passion reflects greatly through a multitude of the game's features. Its visuals make the island sandbox an incredibly beautiful play space, and it's worth highlighting the water specifically, which is enchanting enough to make a long trip on your raft feel as though it has flown by in minutes. The ways in which the water catches light during a sunset can be breath-taking. The look of Tchia's characters, animals, and more also have this cartoonish charm to them, which help throughout the game's lighter moments, adding to visual gags and physical comedy bits. These moments are supported further by the soundtrack, which is full of pleasant, calming tracks too for when you're making your way from one objective to another. Although it can feel as if you've listened to all the songs there are after a while, they're charming enough to be worth a repeat.

This is an ad:

Music is a big part of Tchia, as between main missions, you'll often find yourself gathered around a campfire playing either your ukulele or another instrument found within the area you've been exploring. These music minigames are fun enough, and it can be a challenge to get 100% on them, but with the cutscenes going on in the background, it can feel like you're missing out on story development as you play through some of the musical sections.

Apart from just wandering around enjoying the sights, Tchia does have a main objective. You, as the titular character, are out on a quest to save your father from Meavora, an evil being that has taken control of the islands you call home. On this journey, you'll encounter a few friends, some foes, and will have to traverse both land and sea in the hopes of getting your father back. While it might not be the main selling point for Tchia, its main story was perfectly fine. There were a few twists which managed to keep me hooked for the playthrough, and again that charm at the game's core permeates through, but it's not a game that'll have you playing the story over and over again. Which is fine.

Tchia

The real meat of Tchia is in its sandbox style of gameplay, which offers you many, many mechanics to try out within the game. Soul-jumping is a real highlight of the gameplay, as it allows you to possess almost every animal and object you'll come across, giving you plenty of options when traversing the map. Moreover, it's also how you'll defeat the combat encounters. They may not appear often, but if you want to add to your cosmetics or simply take down some fabric monsters, you're going to have to get stuck into the combat system. Combat in Tchia is essentially a more aggressive version of Garry's Mod prop hunt, where you have to launch flaming objects and explosives at the fabric enemies to burn them to a crisp.

This is an ad:

Beyond Soul-jumping to get around, there are a bunch of ways in which you navigate the world. From your trusty glider to your raft, you don't always need your Soul-jumping powers to make do, and one of the most fun ways I found to jump around was to hop from tree to tree, using the momentum you can gain by swinging back and forth on a treetop. While travelling in Tchia, you will have to keep an eye on your stamina, which also acts as your health. This can be expended through climbing, diving, using your glider, and plenty more strenuous activities. There are ways to increase stamina, but it drains incredibly quickly, meaning you can't be using it for more than a very short burst of time.

Tchia

Among the previously mentioned features, Tchia has a lot more put into it. There's a camera for you to take pictures, a rock-stacking minigame, a mask carving minigame, races, shooting ranges for your slingshot, and plenty more little activities for you to engage in. However, while Tchia certainly has a lot of moving parts, but the sum of those parts do not always make a working whole. It's somewhat of a struggle to point out the clear flaws in a passion project like Tchia, but the cracks are there. The open world, for example, isn't as full as it first appears to be. Besides the odd activity which can be completed quickly, there isn't much more to do besides pick up trinkets and fruits that'll increase your stamina. The world may be full of charm, but it's not necessarily full of life. There aren't any secrets you'll stumble upon through exploring, no side objectives that expand upon the world or its characters, and though there are people occasionally wandering the same paths as you, it's clear you're the only thing in this world with any agency.

There are a lot of gameplay elements as well, but not all of them stick the landing or feel like they make much of an impact on the overall experience. The camera, for example, proves useful in one mission but really it feels like that main objective was designed to make sure you didn't forget about the camera rather than feeling like photographs were a necessary solution to get around the problem you're given. The Ukulele also feels like it gets left out at some point, as music gradually becomes more of a cutesy side attraction than a necessary part of the game. Soul-jumping increases its importance throughout, but that only makes it feel as though this should have had much more focus put on it. Rather than having five different adequate things, one tremendous mechanic could've given the game less of a hectic feel.

A final mention must also be made to the visual bugs in Tchia, which are rare but appeared at the worst time. Without spoiling the story's end, the final cutscenes refused to load the environment, meaning that it looked as though all the characters were floating if they weren't stuck in a janky t-pose.

Tchia

Tchia is a game that has a lot of ambition, a great amount of passion, and heaps of charm. Yet, it cannot quite live up to the ideal version of itself. There is a lot to like about Tchia, and if you just want to explore a visually impressive world with a solid soundtrack go ahead. But, to really stand out in this genre, it seems it'll have to do a lot more. Here's hoping Awaceb continues to develop on the ideas in Tchia, as a lot of solid groundwork was made.

Tchia
06 Gamereactor UK
6 / 10
+
Great visuals, strong soundtrack, exudes charm
-
Can't quite be the game it wants to be, some saturation in mechanics,
overall score
is our network score. What's yours? The network score is the average of every country's score

Related texts

0
TchiaScore

Tchia

REVIEW. Written by Alex Hopley

A charming sandbox that can't quite paint over all its cracks.



Loading next content