Reviews from

in the past


+ Beautiful world to explore with cute and colourful graphics, great music and the spirit powers were a lot of fun
+ Story was well paced, if a little predictable in places and took some surprisingly dark turns for a "cosy" game
- Good to see collectibles had a purpose but there were too many of them for my liking, the treasure maps in particular were very tedious
- Combat was a bit clunky

First of all, YES to more unique stories repping the creative teams' cultures and not compromising the details in order to fit a tidy commercial box. 'Tchia' is an absolute success in that regard - the music, the environments, the mythology, the food, all a celebration of New Caledonian culture. That said, this had pacing issues for me that sometimes got in the way of its abundant charms. Lots of trophies, treasures and side quests to clean up, but feels very superfluous to the completed main story.

tchia is many things: cute, cosy and calming.

this game absolutely nails the aesthetic and commitment to representing the island nation of the games creator, which was really lovely to see and take part in.

however, it's not the most fun game of all time. it's repetitive, the combat isn't very involved and it's a collect-a-thon in a way that often feels at odds with the games message. the map ends up littered with bits to pick up, races, statues to destroy, camps to take down.

I would've appreciated a more focused game and there's a few design choices here which miss the mark. there's a lack of fast travel, which is fine if it wasn't for the fact the game wants you to bounce around islands for a cutscene but it takes forever and a day to travel over.

I'm fully aware I'm behind the times here but on my PS4 this game didn't run very well either with a lot of stuttering.

but hey, i appreciate this game for it's setting and cosy feel. I can see this being a great jumping in point for new gamers or children and it's perfect for that!

This review contains spoilers

Im not really a fan of open world games because they tend to stuff them with collectible and too much area to explore. Basically, you this girl named TCHIA on an island close to Australia called NEW CALEDONIA, very beautiful place from what I’ve seen. You gotta save your father from these bad dudes made of fabric and a worm god. In the meantime, you explore and you can possess objects and animals and they can do cool things like a bird can FLY and POOP, I always had a bird stuffed in my backpack.
This definitely a zelda clone, even got a paraglide thing and climbing and animals and stuff. You can shoot your slingshot and stuff, you even hold items like in Wind Waker. The game is a cool indie project, cool mechanics but does not feel very fleshed out, I only used the possess thing to travel cause it took forever on foot, and most of the time I was running back and forth doing whatever.
It was an okay experience, I did appreciate the game once it introduced objectives like taking pictures of the factory and being inside the belly of the WORM GOD. Cool little niche game, and good experience, it was just the overall use of the mechanics in gameplay, got tedious and boring by chapter 7.

8h
28% GAME PROGRESS lmao
5 SOULS BARS / 40 STAMINA
ALWAYS KEPT IN MY BAG: 2 BIRDS, AND EXPLOSIVES.
LEARNED ONLY 2 SOUL TUNES: INVOKE MWAKEN THE WOOD THING AND INVOKE THE XETIWA THING SERPEANT DRAGON

One thing i like was the music, THE VIBES ARE STRONG LIKE DISNEY STRONG.


good game with great exploration

A história é bem mais eu menos mas sério que jogo incrível sério como é bom o mundo aberto desse jogo cheio de detalhes impecáveis e jogabilidade esplêndida, não tanto na parte de se movimentar por aí q é bem atrasado, mas sério jogo feito com amor e carinho tem um diferencial absurdo né

I really love what Tchia is doing, but I don’t really think the game itself is very good. There are certainly cool parts to it, but as a whole, I do not think it is particularly fun.

The heavy cultural roots of the game are so incredibly cool and a big draw. Admittedly, I had not really heard of New Caledonia prior to playing Tchia, but I love how the game pays tribute to the country and cultures there in ways that can be appreciated by someone like me who knows nothing of it. Gameplay-wise, soul-jumping into animals and random shit is dope. Jumping to a deer to sprint around the world and ragdoll into walls, or fly around as a bird to cover big distances quickly is rad. Don’t have an animal? Jump into a rock and then slingshot yourself into the air by chaining soul-jumps. It’s extremely cool! And I wish the game was just that, but it’s not. It has a boring story, long cutscenes, bad minigames, poor pacing, and a pretty empty world.

As described above, the best part of Tchia is the soul-jumping, but you have to play through a painfully boring 90 minute intro before getting the ability. And the opportunities to use the ability are entirely dependent on the objects around you. At one point I had to traverse through a large swampy area to find an item and the only thing I could possess within the area was a crab. While funny, after 3 seconds as a crab, I realized that my only real option to get where I needed to go was to just run slowly as this small child. And, man, that sucks. When I can be a cool bird or a fast-moving deer, any time spent as the kid just feels that much worse.

I played Tchia for 2 hours. In those two hours, I was introduced to about a dozen new minigames, 5 of which were not good rhythm sections. I love love love that the game used artists from the region to record original music. I do not need to play a bad rhythm game to experience said music. There was also a rock-stacking minigame with shoddy physics, a totem-carving minigame which requires a full restart if you make a mistake, a shooting range, and more. None of it really was worth doing

I wanted to love Tchia so badly. I wanted to experience this culture I was unfamiliar with in a new way, but man I just was not having enough fun to keep playing. I respect the heck out of the dev team for making this game and I’m so glad they did, but I think Tchia could’ve been a better game if the scope was reigned in just a bit.

+ Beautiful cultural representation for a country that never really appears in video games or media in general
+ Soul-jumping is rad as heck
+ Music is lovely
+ Ability to skip any segments you don’t want to play

- Intro is way too long
- Too many minigames
- Bad rhythm sections
- Not enough opportunities to soul-jump resulting in frequent, boring instances of running around as a slow child
- Feels a bit too ambitious for the small team they had

Tchia was a charming short little game. I did love the exploration of the slightly small world and the mechanics of hopping into creatures' bodies or calling upon them with the ukalele. Rhythm games were pretty fun and the music was definitely a standout. I played most of the game with my girlfriend beside me so every time I collected a handful of cosmetics, I asked her if she wanted to customize Tchia. Made it feel like there was actual progression and a point with some of the side activities. The part that really dragged was clearing out the factories. I found myself waiting 60 seconds every time I needed to summon the dudes that shoot fireballs instead of finding an object nearby to light the guards on fire. Story was unique and charming.

This review contains spoilers

- Start off like a BoTW style game but there this whole possession mechanic that you unlock which allow some amazing traversal.
- Setting is inspired by New Caledonia which is unique. Did a good job of making it more just another tropical island. I want to play more games like this that highlight another actual culture.
- Brutal story. People will die in this kid story.
- I 100% the game including trophies.

Completed all achievements of Tchia. I finished the main campaign at 9 hours and wrapped 100% at 15 hours, played on PS5. This is a gem of 2023 and definitely deserved the awards it received. It’s not perfect, but it punches so far above its weight class, it’s ridiculous. The game is packed with a tight and engaging playstyle, surprisingly compelling and well animated character moments, and so much genuine heart, humor, and lore. Oh and it’s gorgeous and the music is phenomenal. I loved it.

I knew literally nothing about New Caledonia before trying this out. Now I feel like I have a starter idea of its geography, culture, lore, and spirit. That’s awesome.

The spirit jumping mechanic combined with the ukulele abilities meant I almost never ran out of cool stuff to do and felt like a badass. I usually don’t feel compelled to collect all the widgets, but it was just so much fun to travel around and collect things that I used it as a podcast game while exploring for a few extra hours and had a blast. There’s a surprising amount of varied activities to do so it rarely felt stale to explore, even hours after completing the main story. I particularly appreciated the game simplifying the tedium of finding a lot of the hidden objects. You’d get pinpoint accuracy of where they were and just had to get there, oh and they typically were brightly glowing at night to really make them findable. The lack of minimap exact location was an interesting choice, which I find pretty engaging actually, especially because I could just drop a waypoint where I wanted to go and rarely needed to actually figure out where I was. And the pretty restrictive fast travel system helped make the game feel more immersive.

Minor complaints:
- The music playing minigames were a little more challenging than expected and it took a few songs to get the 100% achievement. At least two of them I got 98% because the game hiccuped most of the way through and I missed it slightly. That said, these were also some of my favorite moments.
- Most of these BotW-like exploration games start off with just a tediously low amount of energy. Tchia does this twice over, with spirit power and stamina. Once you boost that up (which I strongly recommend focusing on once you can), it feels so freeing and great. But I dislike just how anemic they tune the beginning.
- My last thing to find for 100% completion was one damn fish. It took over an hour to find the stupid thing. Angry face.
- While I appreciated most of the races were tuned pretty easily so I got gold on almost all of them on my first try, I found the shooting and diving challenges a little more tightly tuned than I’d like. They took me several tries. But even then, they incorporated a really generous retry system so you could jump straight back in!
- I’ve heard some complaints about the combat sections, and I’d agree they’re a weaker part of the game. I did complete 100% of them, but if you’re really not liking them, they added a “skip gameplay” mechanic so you can just boost past those if you want.

They left enough open threads (although they do a very good job of wrapping up this main story) that it seems somewhat obvious they plan a sequel. I would be very excited to see what this team makes next!

Overall, I strongly recommend. It’s a beautiful and unique experience, even while borrowing many mechanics from other games. It’s still on Ps+Extra for at least a few more weeks, so it’s worth trying it out if you are already a subscriber, for sure!

While its gameplay leans too heavily on "been there, done that" open-world gameplay staples, Tchia's earnest exploration of New Caledonia's vibrant traditions and charming music is reason enough to experience this surprisingly dark modern fairytale.

Full Review: https://neoncloudff.wordpress.com/2024/02/29/now-playing-february-2024-edition/