[Rapid Review] Tchia

System: Switch
Release date: June 27, 2024
Developer: Awaceb
Publisher: Kepler Interactive

Colorful islands surrounded by the vast open sea make up the archipelago explored in Tchia. Based on South Pacific island nation of New Caledonia, known for its palm-lined beaches and marine-life-rich lagoon, the world immediately shows the passion the developers hold for their homeland, and in an open-world approach that illustrates the complexity and diversity of nature unique to island life. Taking control of the title character, what sort of adventure will we find ourselves on here in the beautiful windswept islands an d across the vast open sea?

New Caledonia is a bit of a melting pot: a wonderful blend of culture, history, and people make up the archipelago we will be exploring. In the opening of the game, we gain control of Tchia and begin to run and explore our island home alongside the character’s father. Not long after our introduction to exploring and interacting with the game world, our father is taken from us by some goons from a creepy worm god, and we are immediately set on finding out why he was taken and attempting a rescue. More on the worm god later. While most adults might balk at the idea of a small child setting off on her own across the dangerous seas, roaming islands filled to the brim with myriad wildlife, and then getting strange magical shapeshifting powers – well okay, that last part could break anyone’s immersion. Tchia’s tale unfolds not unlike the novels I’d devour in my youth about young girls going on adventures and meeting dragons, and yes, sometimes there was magic there, too. In fact, I recall the exact same feeling I had reading Ella Enchanted or Dragon’s Milk as a middle-schooler struggling through, well, middle school.

As you explore and progress through Tchia, you’ll come across various challenges to complete. For a more accessible approach, almost every minigame appears to be completely optional, with the ability to toggle autoplay on during these moments in order to simply enjoy the story. As a person with chronic joint pain that sometimes inflicts my hands, I immediately saw the allure of this approach, but opted to play through the games. Tchia is not crafted as a skill-based title where completing tasks is necessary to move forward, but is an artistic approach to story telling that uses video games as a medium, and rather adeptly. That’s not to say that the gameplay is anything to dismiss – there is plenty of exploring, paragliding, and more to keep any adventurer satisfied.

Shortly after setting out on our adventure we obtain two incredible gifts. First, we get the slingshot, which we can use to pelt fruits, targets, and other living beings should we choose. The second one, and maybe a little more impressive, is the power to become different animals. This single ability opens up a lot of avenues for a surprisingly large variety of approaches to gameplay. Utilizing the various creatures in the archipelago has a huge influence on the way you’ll be traveling around, as well as how you’ll approach different goals and tasks. Traveling may honestly be one of the best pieces of Tchia – you can opt to swim, travel by (customizable) boat, or simply run (using a stamina bar) about as yourself or a local critter, but whatever way you should choose to peruse the islands, exploring is simply a joy. You can find various items, dive deep into the ocean, and simply walk about should you so choose, as the game won’t exactly stop you from falling into the same pit I fell in playing the last two Zelda games: the pit of executive function struggles. I have a confession to make.

I am basically at the functional level of a drunk raccoon at the best of times, and keeping myself on track with objectives has always been difficult. To say that I have no attention span is an understatement. I am content to simply wander and explore, and will end up doing so for hours, happily. Eventually though, I end up at a place where I forget where I am in the story and have to try and figure out where to get back to in order to progress towards an end game. Tchia, however open its world is, did have a great minimap approach that allowed me to easily track objectives and where to go for story progression, while still feeding my itch to explore. I, an adult with real adult money, absolutely love a bit of high-quality handholding. As a person who can work over 50 hours in a given week, being able to have something to remind me of how to continue enjoying the media is an absolutely wonderful feature and should be celebrated. I said what I said. More of this in my open world games, I beg of you.

As you do roam about you will soon notice that not everything that you encounter is friendly, and that there is, in fact, some combat in our cozy exploration game. Combat, though, doesn’t have lasting effects if you end up losing, and will not set you back on anything other than time. It’s okay to go out there and make mistakes, and its okay to go learn to aim your slingshot, or how your tools work and how best to use them. You will not lose anything like levels, experience, money, or items in Tchia. Mistakes are okay, so just dust yourself off and give it another go. Or go find some coconuts and check out some beautiful creatures in the sea. There are many ways to spend your time, and while turning over enemies is fun, its not the only thing to focus on, and you don’t have to get super good at fighting to enjoy this journey.

In the time it took me to complete Tchia, I spent about twelve total hours. Admittedly, at least three of those were pit hours, or hours I spent just roaming around and using abilities to see what strange hijinks I could get up to, but the entire ride was enjoyable, and while I can say the game’s narrative is good, there were a few points that things seemed to drag on – but I will say that the game’s world building and sense of life flourishes. NPCs are always up to things, making the game feel like a living and breathing chunk of the real world, even despite our strange shape shifting magic.

Tchia is a wonderful story following a remarkable young lady on a magical quest. As a huge fan of kids going on emergency magic quests to save their parents or other loved ones, the game’s overall experience is quite a joy. Showing a surprising amount of wit and courage, Tchia is a very likable character with an astounding amount of resolve. This is a great title for anyone that loves adventures, open world games, or is looking for a good role model for their own little gal gamer. The run time for story may be short, but the sandbox exploration alone is worth a go.

Tchia copy provided by the publisher for the purposes of this review.