Turns Out TCHIA is a Wonderful Little Game
Rehab
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
As we all collectively wait with baited breath for the sequel to the greatest game of all time to come out, I looked for something with a similar wild sense of exploration to play and enjoy in the meantime to scratch that particular itch. And although on a completely different console than the awaited game, there was a recent Sony State of Play that showed off a cool looking indie game set to release for PS4 and PS5. That game has since come out and is also free for Playstation Plus Premium and Extra users. And it turns out to be pretty damn good and every bit as pleasant and enjoyable as the trailers hinted at!
https://youtu.be/lbuZbzO5ghU
https://youtu.be/rdAGrXZC2iQ
The best pitch for the game though is certainly the Quick Look in which Dan praises the game and says the exact things I needed to hear in order to make it a "must play" game.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXlBJ5dEsns&t=1763s
The developer Awaceb actually responded to the YouTube upload with the comment: "Thank you so much for playing! 😍 Happy you're having a good time. That hiccup with the sculpting stand and the shrine door is being fixed in an early patch (it's stuff you're supposed to unlock a bit later on, which is why it's locked for you) Thanks again! Cheers 🥰"
Speaking of, here is their official website: https://www.awaceb.com/tchia
From which I am going to lazily copy some of the games "back of the box" bullet points:
Soul Jumping
Take control of any animal or object
Unique gameplays and abilities
over 30 playable animals, hundreds of objects
Exploration & Traversal
Smooth traversal with free climbing, gliding...
Sail your boat to cover longer distances
Vast archipelago with varied biomes and weather
Ukulele
Fully playable (picks, strums, bends...)
Story-specific rhythm segments
Unlockable melodies that affect the open world
Story & Music
Diverse characters inspired by New Caledonian culture
Fully animated and voiced cutscenes
Original orchestral score infused with local sounds
Customization & Items
Hundreds of unlockable cosmetics
Customize your boat
Useful items (flashlight, slingshot, compass, camera...)
The Spirit Jumping in particular is a really fun mechanic. Like the special effects and powers granted by the ukulele it works on a cool down timer when its meter runs out, but refills rather quickly. You can basically chain Spirit Jumping from one animal to another in some really fun ways too. Swimming around in the ocean looking for pearls to collect I Spirit Jumped into a fish, then exited the fish and possessed a nearby dolphin, and then exorcised myself from the dolphin and captured a nearby sea turtle, going from one to the other almost seamlessly.
For the completionist there are plenty of collectibles too and it is satisfying to search the world for them. There are various Point of View "scenic overlooks" located in high places that you can shout from to reveal plenty of points of interest in the nearby area too. These will mostly consist of food stands, docks, pearls, trinkets, and chests. Most of what you find will add to the abundant customization options for the look of Tchia herself and the boat that you use. There are some fun mini game style objectives to be found pretty much everywhere as well ranging from shooting galleries, diving challenges, and races.
Mostly the exploration itself and how fun and creative you can be with it has been the biggest highlight so far. Some really cool stuff that changes how you play in a very meaningful way can be found in hidden places. One ability that I found early on in particular has already been incredibly useful in exploring areas that were previously a fair bit trickier. From some of the higher vantage points the game looks really amazing with its use of color and overall art direction. The weather effects, rain in particular, can also really get you to stop and admire the visuals when they kick in. Very much a game that showcases skillful art direction over sheer production values and bleeding edge tech.
Given how this game suddenly got its hooks in me just typing this up makes me want to play so I'm going to go ahead and get back to said exploring. Last thing I will mention for now is that not only does Tchia pass the test of "can you pet the dog?" that all games should aspire to, but it lets you pet the everything. Calling it right now, dark horse contender for various "top 10" game of the year lists right here.
Images:
And Billy Corgan singing about his personal favorite thing in Tchia:
https://youtu.be/QQ4L61uc9S4
https://youtu.be/lbuZbzO5ghUhttps://youtu.be/rdAGrXZC2iQThe best pitch for the game though is certainly the Quick Look in which Dan praises the game and says the exact things I needed to hear in order to make it a "must play" game.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXlBJ5dEsns&t=1763sThe developer Awaceb actually responded to the YouTube upload with the comment: "Thank you so much for playing! 😍 Happy you're having a good time. That hiccup with the sculpting stand and the shrine door is being fixed in an early patch (it's stuff you're supposed to unlock a bit later on, which is why it's locked for you) Thanks again! Cheers 🥰"
Speaking of, here is their official website: https://www.awaceb.com/tchia
From which I am going to lazily copy some of the games "back of the box" bullet points:
Soul Jumping
Take control of any animal or object
Unique gameplays and abilities
over 30 playable animals, hundreds of objects
Exploration & Traversal
Smooth traversal with free climbing, gliding...
Sail your boat to cover longer distances
Vast archipelago with varied biomes and weather
Ukulele
Fully playable (picks, strums, bends...)
Story-specific rhythm segments
Unlockable melodies that affect the open world
Story & Music
Diverse characters inspired by New Caledonian culture
Fully animated and voiced cutscenes
Original orchestral score infused with local sounds
Customization & Items
Hundreds of unlockable cosmetics
Customize your boat
Useful items (flashlight, slingshot, compass, camera...)
The Spirit Jumping in particular is a really fun mechanic. Like the special effects and powers granted by the ukulele it works on a cool down timer when its meter runs out, but refills rather quickly. You can basically chain Spirit Jumping from one animal to another in some really fun ways too. Swimming around in the ocean looking for pearls to collect I Spirit Jumped into a fish, then exited the fish and possessed a nearby dolphin, and then exorcised myself from the dolphin and captured a nearby sea turtle, going from one to the other almost seamlessly.
For the completionist there are plenty of collectibles too and it is satisfying to search the world for them. There are various Point of View "scenic overlooks" located in high places that you can shout from to reveal plenty of points of interest in the nearby area too. These will mostly consist of food stands, docks, pearls, trinkets, and chests. Most of what you find will add to the abundant customization options for the look of Tchia herself and the boat that you use. There are some fun mini game style objectives to be found pretty much everywhere as well ranging from shooting galleries, diving challenges, and races.
Mostly the exploration itself and how fun and creative you can be with it has been the biggest highlight so far. Some really cool stuff that changes how you play in a very meaningful way can be found in hidden places. One ability that I found early on in particular has already been incredibly useful in exploring areas that were previously a fair bit trickier. From some of the higher vantage points the game looks really amazing with its use of color and overall art direction. The weather effects, rain in particular, can also really get you to stop and admire the visuals when they kick in. Very much a game that showcases skillful art direction over sheer production values and bleeding edge tech.
Given how this game suddenly got its hooks in me just typing this up makes me want to play so I'm going to go ahead and get back to said exploring. Last thing I will mention for now is that not only does Tchia pass the test of "can you pet the dog?" that all games should aspire to, but it lets you pet the everything. Calling it right now, dark horse contender for various "top 10" game of the year lists right here.
Images:
And Billy Corgan singing about his personal favorite thing in Tchia:
https://youtu.be/QQ4L61uc9S4 NNID: Rehab0
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Look, I love VTM: Bloodlines as much as the next sensible person does, but it's healthier for all of us if we accept that Bloodlines 2 is probably never coming out.
Tchia talk, I have boosted up my spirit meter a couple times now and have found that this game has something kinda like Shrines, which is pretty cool. Also got some cool looking traditional garb and a real dumb costume to balance it out.
PSN ID : DetectiveOlivaw | TWITTER | STEAM ID | NEVER FORGET
Now maybe someone else will continually hear it too.
PSN:Furlion
Noticed a nice touch with some of the ukulele abilities too:
The musical notes used to play the "Attract Animals" ability spell out FEED. The "Invoke" Dog, Crab, and Bird abilities also use notes that come as close to spelling out the animal names as they can get (or they are Pikey pronunciations from Snatch).
Seen there are a couple of the aforementioned recently obtained cosmetics that I really like as well with the wetsuit and punk style haircut.
Took a few attempts!
The trophies being physical objects is neat but they gave you way too many. The soul upgrade system with the totem doors is very cool. Also I did not realize that the rock stacking unlocked songs but some of them are really useful.
PSN:Furlion
And you may have run into one of the two locations, but two places in particular exist in which those trophies actually become tangibly useful for something.
Yeah I already had it come in handy for the ship wreck. I initially tried to clear it out but realized I had nowhere near enough stamina. Then I found the song lol.
PSN:Furlion
PSN:Furlion
(The drill pushes you through and under the terrain, lol...) I haven't done any of the treasure hunts yet, are they just more cosmetics I guess? Any better than the regular chests?
I love that I can fly the Trans flag on my boat, the game has a whole pride collection, even an enby flag too. Such cool vibes to this all round! And a really cute lesbian kissing scene! ^_^v
PSN:Furlion
The chest found at the shipwreck is particularly difficult, it's so far deep underwater, that it's really hard to see anything, even with your torch on.
Definitely needed the air bubble ukelele spirit song for that one.
I just followed a guide so that's very impressive you found them all. I stumbled on 2 or 3 during the course of my play through but since you have to do them in order I couldn't open them.
PSN:Furlion
I'm actually surprised that it works here. I thought this would be annoying, but... yeah, it's actually fun here. I feel like the controls are a little complicated to get a first. It took me a bit to work out why they would let me mark the map if it doesn't actually show up, but then I figured out how to get the compass on screen. And maybe I skipped past the text too fast, but I really didn't understand how to operate the boat at first, until I figured out you have to physically walk to the sail to control your speed.
I've a feeling this is going to be a pattern. A bunch of aspects that would probably annoy me in most other games, but don't here because it's just so gosh darn charming!
You get a compass for your HUD and the ability to place markers on your map that show up on the compass. At that point there is very little difference between just having a character marker on the map. I suspect it was a late change and they were originally not going to have either. Which would have seriously soured me on the game.
PSN:Furlion
Yeah, that was the funny part about it all. I couldn't figure out why they would let you mark the map but then never let you see the mark in game? *click click click* Oh there's the compass and the mark.
And once you build up a decent amount of stamina and soul meter you're zipping around doing tricks of flying as a bird for a good amount of time. Mostly I just had to get down which trigger button initiated the soul throw versus exiting the possed item or doing another action. You will definitely come to a point where that all becomes second nature as well and starts to feel really good.
that would be cool. It looked like some of the enemy camps were supposed to repopulate but I haven't triggered that yet. I'm also just going off of a brief image or two that was shown and maybe what does unfold is a little different.
Map marker rinsing, like in an Assassin's Creed game, basically.