Not to brag, but it’s bin day on our street today, so to celebrate, I spent about ten minutes watching a wayward yogurt carton run up and down the walkway outside our house from the bedroom window. I realize it sounds a little American Beauty, but it was really quite enjoyable. This yogurt carton was suitably enlivened by the wind, which gave it a genuine comedic persona as it blew across the pavers. To be honest, leaving it to rush to school was a bit of a pain.
How Tchia, I thought to myself later. One of those games that stays in your memory long after you’ve finished playing it is Tchia. The aspects of the game that no other game does quite like this one continue to shine while the aspects that don’t quite work fade. In the game Tchia, you take on the role of a toddler exploring an archipelago in the southwest Pacific. The environment appears to be expanding rapidly in all directions. However, you possess an ability that enables you to grasp it. You may “soul jump” into specific objects and creatures in the area. For example, you can race across the ground like a deer, dive under the skies like a dove, or tumble around like a rock or lantern. Moves to animate! I would have the yogurt container at home.
Tchia’s soul leaping is unquestionably its finest feature. Finding out what you can do as a shark that you are unable to accomplish as a crab is exciting, and it feels good to get a strange sort of retribution on a mountain climb that has been giving you trouble by just jumping into a nearby bird and flying over the previously painful terrain. Soul jumping is integrated into the combat experience in this game. You can launch rocks and jump into lanterns to take down the rag-based enemies’ camps. However, as you soul jump in and out of objects, you can also combine it with the other traversal elements of the game. You are only prevented from soul jumping into an extended pool of soul jump mana.
They’re also quite intelligent. Many of them are direct copycats of Breath of the Wild: you may glide from any height or mount any surface for as long as your stamina gauge allows you to, and much like in Zelda, you can even extend your stamina while gliding by taking the odd calculated fall. However, beautiful wrinkles have been put all around. I’m not much of a mariner, but Tchia’s raft demands you to switch between steering with the pole and setting the sail, and the trees, my god, the trees here. Reach the summit to get the ability to swing them back and forth and launch yourself into space for a significant increase in speed and range. It’s the way a child understands trees. And maybe you can see what follows—throw and then leap from the spirit, throw and then glide, throw and then drag yourself up to the top of a mountain and ascend! Climb, ascend, ascend. It’s delightful.
Tchia’s archipelago is subtly built for your abilities. The bottom is teeming with pink coral and clamshells stuffed to the brim with pearls, just begging to be pinched, since you can dive. You can throw yourself from one tree to the next, thus there are various densities of trees, including some beautiful swampy areas. The islands have a large spine of humped mountains running through their heartlands, like the ridged backs of dozing dinosaurs, because you can climb them. There’s a good-sized metropolis, industrial zones, and villages with cottages to jump from. A confused, apologies, comparison with Just Cause 2 may help you get a feel of the scope. Although Tchia isn’t as large as Just Cause 2, it still has the same impression of being astonishingly enormous considering the small of its little protagonist. A beautiful waterway around two magnificent islands. This area is far larger than you may think.
What are you doing here, then? I’m going to split them into two sections, despite the fact that in the game you should never do that, and completely let everything to come together into a beautiful jumble of petty whims and fleeting diversions. First of all, Tchia has a lot more of a narrative than I had anticipated, and it’s not at all what I had in mind. After viewing the artwork and experiencing a soft demo, I had the impression that I would be experiencing something similar to A Short Hike: a lighthearted examination of the nature and its delights, woven into a soothing story. Rather, this is some very serious content. Abductions! Unknown gods! People cutting themselves with knives (really)! Kids being devoured!
This essentially amounts to a sequence of tasks that are scattered throughout the game, occasionally giving the impression that you’ve been dumped into a Far Cry scenario. A Short Hike felt quite far away at one point in the proceedings when I was using my camera to survey some industrial terrain before pushing my way in and breaking everything. Far Away? The Ubisoft games are known for their diverse variety of techniques and their willingness to allow players to take risks and accept the consequences. You can soul leap, so that means using boulders, exploding rocks, lanterns, and fire propagation, as well as hopping a pigeon to get some space. Sure, there are no firearms or getaway automobiles.
That being said, diversity is one of Tchia’s many strong points—not all of the missions are like that. However, they’re all quite intense—at least to me. You’re going through a plot that doesn’t hesitate to jump from one terrifying scene to the next, all while dealing with issues that are very important. I’m not sure whether I would let my nine-year-old daughter to see a few of these particular cutscenes.
In the meanwhile, the islands! The group of islands! The mountains to climb, the trees to fly between, the rocks to inhabit. The islands of Tchia are a veritable riot of Ubisoft activity, with plenty of different items to gather, food that increases your stamina, challenge chambers that increase your soul leap mana and are unlocked through a minigame called Carving. Ascending the virtual version of an Assassin’s Eagle Tower in the game causes a variety of objects to appear on the map. locations for supper. Harbors to enable quick transit. Shells to remove pearls from their casings. Enemy camps will blow up.
Much of this is basically just things to do; keep in mind, though, that it’s all intended to be woven into the story and made into a delightful experience as you soul-jump, glide, and raft your way across the game world. However, some of it is appropriately inspired. I cherished performing music. I cherished the treasure maps I was handed, which inspired me to search the real world for hints. I adored that the game’s map would, for the most part, just provide me with a broad, jazz-inspired idea of my real location. I enjoyed resting by a campfire after dinner and exploring new places.
And I believe that the meal thing is significant. It captures Tchia’s unique character. Although I haven’t visited New Caledonia, Tchia is a complete immersion in a culture that, from what I’ve heard, is much influenced by it. The art, music, languages, lifestyles, and values of the populace. as well as what they consume. I have heard from a knowledgeable person that The Odyssey is actually a tale about greeting people. Odysseus visits many islands to observe how the locals handle visitors. A little simplistic, I know, but Tchia has a little of this: you travel the world and then, when you are comfortable, you have lunch. In certain situations, you even locate the items and prepare the meal. However, the game is always about the plate, the many sorts of food, the warmth of the human touch, and the significance of it all.
This is what I believe I will take with me, along with amazing experiences such as scaling a massive mountain’s ridge, sailing across the sea with watercolor clouds piled above like enormous, tumbling anvils, and effortlessly gliding through perilous story missions only to spot something glinting in a marsh that I had to investigate. When I read Tchia this way, I see that it’s more than simply a game about kids; it’s a game that taps into kids’ need to find interest and significance in a huge variety of topics. And naturally, cap off each hectic day with a delicious meal. Excellent.