HEART AND SOUL

Explore a beautiful tropical island using magic powers in TCHIA

- Christopher Livingston

I love Tchia. I completed the main story quest in 12 hours, but I've played for twice as long just to explore more, complete challenges, collect cosmetics, find secrets and take photos. At least four of those hours were spent just following a long series of treasure maps filled with hand-drawn landmarks and other clues, testing my detective skills and knowledge of the world to uncover them all. And I'm not done playing yet, not by a long shot.

Tchia is a third-person open world adventure where you play as a little kid (named Tchia) living on an archipelago based on the real-world South Pacific island of New Caledonia. While beautiful and tropical, Tchia’s island is no paradise. An evil overlord named Meavora has filled the island with creepy, golem-like foot soldiers made of fabric, and a vicious henchman has abducted Tchia’s father. Tchia sets out to free her dad with the help of her newly-discovered power to ‘soul-jump’ into animals and inanimate objects and possess them.

For as long as her soul meter is filled, Tchia can control the things she possesses, creatures like birds and dolphins and crabs and objects like oil drums, rocks, and coconuts. When I need to cross the island quickly, I target a bird, soul-jump into it, and then I am the bird. I flap my wings and glide through the air over the continent. When I’ve arrived at my destination (or my soul meter runs out), I pop out of the bird and I’m Tchia again.