Tchia stands on the shoulders of Zelda — then leaps off

We are quickly drawn into the story of the titular Tchia and her childhood world. She is not a misbehaving child, but she is a courageous adventurer as she eagerly searches for the ruler of the world, Meavora, who has captured and imprisoned her father. This means navigating far from her home island and seeking out new lands rich in lush biomes – everything from red, dusty plains and rusty city buildings to overgrown bamboo forests and wandering rivers. Soon Tchia discovers a special power she was born with: the ability to shape-shift into animals and objects in her immediate vicinity. It is a mechanism that has been implemented with expert care, despite the sheer number of things Tchia can change. In turn, it transforms Tchia from an adventure very reminiscent of The Legend of Zelda to something new and beautiful. TchiaThe variety and fluidity of movements, experiments and explorations make the game a real pleasure.

Tchia has no map in the traditional sense; instead it’s a digital version of a paper map, still a bit crumpled from being in the bottom of a backpack. As a Tchia, you need to find landmarks to fully understand your geolocation. There’s a one-button feature that estimates your location, with Tchia backing off to account for the entire country before circling a larger spot on the map. (Questions and pinned spots are marked on a compass that you can also put on the screen, making navigation much easier if you don’t plan on going astray.) Tchia‘s map reinforces the game’s focus on exploration; don’t run directly from task to task. Take a moment to look around.

During your travels, you will encounter various mini-games that will test your skills. You can make sculptures, which is a kind of match and memory game; you can unlock ukulele tunes by stacking bricks in certain spots; you can race sailboats in time trials, swing between rocks and through narrow passages; the list continues. You’ll also face armies of enemies made from scraps of cloth, kept alive only by the evil leader’s magic. It’s not a fight in the normal sense. You’ll need to use Tchia’s transforming powers and your environment to take out enemies – perhaps turning coal into a nearby fire to burn the dust to dust.

I spent a lot of time wandering, looking for different animals to become. Each animal feels different in the locomotive sense, but most also have some sort of unique “ability.” It’s nothing major – deer can sprint, sharks can bite, and seagulls can poop. The search for all these different animals, and subsequent experiments, complement the exploration. It felt fresh enough to even keep me interested in some of them Tchia‘s more remote places, where the islands can feel a bit empty. Ironically, my favorite thing to turn into is a rock. Hear me out: rocks are one of the faster ways to travel and they reduce fall damage – a rock won’t burst from a dive from too great a height, like Tchia. I started playing a game where I made Tchia jump as far as I could from rock to rock. Being a rock is also useful for knocking over coconuts and throwing them at enemies. It’s silly and funny, a little moment of levity that is Tchia brings to what is sometimes a dark story.

With a premise like Tchias, where you can do something as absurd as transform into a mobile wrench, that humor is important. The mechanic may have felt forced into a game that took itself too seriously, but Tchia deftly pokes fun at himself, and at video games in general, without ever turning to true self-mockery. There’s a point where Tchia has to take a ticket and fill out forms to see the world leader, like she’s at the DMV. She fills out loads of paperwork before heading far, far across the island in search of items. But as she leaves, another person enters and draws a ticket – it is visitor number 1,000, and as a prize, he is sent to see the leader without any fetch order. Of course that could never happen to Tchia, because then there would be no search. As video game players, we know that. The moment made me laugh.

Image: Awaceb/Kepler Interactive

Tchia‘s lightness also comes from music, an element just as important as the shape-shifting mechanics. It’s more than just background noise. Music is used as a narrative tool, to forge connections between characters Tchia encounters on her journey. Throughout the game, characters meet – often around a campfire – to sing and play instruments in English, French, and native Kanak languages ​​such as Drehu. (Tchia is inspired by New Caledonia, the homeland of the co-founders of Awaceb, a small Pacific archipelago where these languages ​​are spoken. Awaceb hired New Caledonians to vote Tchia‘s characters.) Tchia plays along with the songs, her ukulele is connected to the controller and fully playable in rhythmic mini-games. These are not played for score, and that’s important; it allows the player to deal with these moments in a way that feels less competitive and more collaborative.

Tchia could have easily filled the action-adventure mold of so many games before it. It’s taking even more risk by pulling so heavily on The Legend of Zelda. But despite those influences, it is not weighed down by that equality. Tchia’s transformative power comes from her eye, green where the other isn’t. So it makes sense that it would show us Tchiathe world, and this genre, in a whole new light.

Tchia will be released on March 21st on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 and Windows PC. The game was reviewed using a pre-release download code from Kepler Interactive. Vox Media has partnerships. These do not affect editorial content, although Vox Media may earn commissions for products purchased through affiliate links. You can find additional information on Polygon’s Ethics Policy here.