Tchia is a remarkable and fun adventure with the flavor of New Caledonia

Normally, when games choose a theme, a place or a story to adapt, themes that are best known by the public are usually chosen, after all something more popular has a better chance of capturing the attention of the player who is waiting for a new adventure.

And there are several periods in which themes are found that are on the rise and soon the developers explore to the fullest, which can, in the end, exaggerate and flood with releases with the same “flavor”. But sometimes, it happens that in this sea of releases, we come across jewels with a simplicity to bring the culture of a new country or place.

“Tchia” is one of those enchanting experiences that promises to bring beautiful colorful scenarios and an open world, which can be a big deal for streamers and their audience.

Tchia brings a paradise to be explored

Right at the presentation, “Tchia” likes to embrace the spectator and show that it wants to offer a rich and affectionate experience based on the culture of New Caledonia. There’s a lot of personality to everything in the game, which is a huge plus to liven up a live stream. But I’m getting ahead of myself, so let’s break it down.

The strong point of the game is, without a doubt, to bring a lot of personality from New Caledonia. The world does not faithfully reflect the territory, but you somehow feel there when you are walking in the vast fields with coconut trees, forests and even mangroves, which are so faithfully represented there. All this with very nice graphics, characters with a lot of charisma and who are well characterized speaking a little French and Drehu (one of the languages of the territory).

You control Tchia, a small girl who lives with her father on a small island. Here, the player learns the basic commands with well-implemented tutorials, without this getting in the way of exploration. The gameplay is simple, but simplicity is not a negative point, since the focus of the game is not combat, but exploration. There’s even a way to use a ukelele, an instrument that Tchia uses, to play songs to change the time of day and use some skills.

Exploration here is the main point, yielding good hours of gameplay to entertain your audience, who will love discovering each area of New Caledonia along with the streamer. And those who love to search every corner of a game will have a great experience of getting to know practically a natural paradise, with the accompaniment of a great soundtrack made with the most used instruments of the local region.

Simple and efficient gameplay

The gameplay here may be simple ,but has its charm. After the initial tutorial, the game soon begins its main plot, which shows the powers of little Tchia and which will be part of the gameplay.

Everything that the player can do is not unheard of, as the skill of “Soul Jumping” can be compared with the “Cappy” from “Super Mario Odyssey”, but here it is also well implemented, so that the player can control objects and animals to traverse the rich sceneries. The “Soul Jumping” also has everything to be one of the highlights of the streamer’s interaction with the public, bringing fun and unusual moments.

Tchia can also shoot with her slingshot to knock down objects or to stun enemies, she can climb walls and, one of the coolest things in the game, climb trees and swing and use them to jump good distances.

An experience for (almost) everyone

After meeting several characters and advancing the story, I’d say the game has very few slips. One of them is the lack of a better “fast travel” system, because in the game you use the docks that are scattered around the map, but they are few in number compared to the size of the region. It’s not a serious problem, but it could make the game more agile for those who have already explored a good part of the map and don’t want to run all over the ground again to reach the other end.

Another problem is concentrated in the final part of the game: as the game doesn’t have a focus on combats, normally on the map there are few enemies to deal with. The issue is that, in the final moments of the game, the player somehow needs to face a huge amount of enemies and even with many improvements of the “Soul Jumping”, it still becomes a little tiring. The solution is to ignore the enemies and shoot down only those necessary to advance in the adventure. It’s not a big problem either, as the player has the freedom to choose where to start doing the objectives.

There’s also an odd plot twist where in that same stretch of the game, things abruptly turn a bit violent, but that’s more of a personal perception than a technical one.

In a live stream, “Tchia” can prove to be an excellent experience for those who are broadcasting and for those who are watching. There is immense charisma in the game that impresses many people and even makes them want to play more. The music also makes a show of its own. And of course you can have moments of laughter when playing the ukulele, which are very lively and funny moments.

And finally, the game had a few performance issues on the PC (I played the Epic Games version) but nothing so bad that players get in the way.

Katsutoshi