Thea: The Awakening Review By Kevin Tavore, 10 Jun 2017 FollowtopicsThea: The AwakeningTheaMuHa GamesID@XboxOnline Co-opGame reviewReviewStrategyKevin Tavore Everyone loves mythology. The stories we’ve been hearing for generations are the bedrock of our culture, even if we don’t realize it. Most of us have heard the story of the Iliad and the Odyssey at some point. If not that, you’ve definitely heard at least some version of King Arthur and his court. These stories are literally timeless, yet there are many you haven’t heard as well, and that brings us to Thea: The Awakening. It’s a myth based around a pantheon of gods of whom you may not have heard, but Thea’s take on the Slavic gods is worth experiencing despite the game’s flaws. The story of Thea is as simple or as complex as you want it to be. There’s a metric ton of lore here all based on Slavic mythology. The main game follows the return of the world from darkness. At the start, it’s not clear what happened but it seems the gods are returning. As you play you’ll learn the history of Thea and the reason for the darkness in the first place, and you’ll make decisions that ultimately affect the entire tale. It’s a story on a grand scale but the little things matter as well. The world of Thea is alive. Characters and stories will constantly pop up as you play and while most players are accustomed to skipping all of this side content in the game, especially when it’s presented as multiple paragraphs of text, those who stick with it will be rewarded with a rich mythological story. You’ll convince a demon to go on a date with a dwarf, free a spoiled, immortal princess from an ice tomb, or seduce a bandit leader to avoid a robbery. You’ll also get to know the gods better and, near the end of the game, deal with the return of giants to the world. These stories give the game context and importance. They come together to fill a cohesive world that is both alive and everchanging. Thea is not without its flaws, but from a worldbuilding standpoint it is top tier.The concept behind the gameplay is simple. The world progresses in turns and slowly develops independently. Your goal is only to get stronger and survive until you can complete the main quest and you’ll do this in two ways. First, you’ll build up a village. This plays a bit like an extremely basic Civilization. You’ll only have one city and it functions as your home base. Resources can be collected by your gatherers in the tiles surrounding the city and out in the world, or they can be won through combat and diplomacy. These resources are then used to create buildings, armor and gear. Unfortunately, there’s really not much to developing your village from a gameplay standpoint. Crafters often sit around doing nothing but making food simply because there isn't anything else for them to do. Buildings and armor are crafted all too quickly and you won’t be able to craft many of them for two reasons. First, there aren’t very many buildings or recipes from which to choose and they are of debatable quality. Second, you need to research them and research points are extremely valuable, so unlocking mid-tier buildings or gear you’re not sure you’ll use simply isn’t worth it. In a game like Civilization, developing your city is a fun, core concept of the game, but here it’s simply not enjoyable because you only spend a few minutes per hour actually doing it. Beyond the management, the second part of the gameplay is based on expeditions. You’ll gather villagers and can send a group of them into an expedition to explore the world. This is where most of the gameplay actually occurs and it’s essentially an RPG. You’ll explore caves, you’ll complete quests, you’ll encounter random events, make decisions in the story, and ultimately pursue the main quest. As you play, your group will grow steadily stronger, which gives a good sense of progression over the course of the game. Adding yet another genre to the game, combat is a card game. Each member of your expedition is a card and these are split into two hands, one for attacking and one for tactics. Attacking cards are placed on the board to attack, with special consideration given to weapon types that can hit multiple enemies or get a first strike on an enemy that was played before it. Tactics cards can be used to negate enemy cards, give benefits to your cards on the board, or even be placed on the board with a penalty. It sounds complicated but unfortunately there’s not a lot of room to react or strategize. You’ll never know which of your cards is going to be in your attack hand or your tactics hand, and some cards will only be good at one or the other. Likewise the order of turns and even the number of cards you can play in a turn is random. You'll lose plenty of battles simply because luck was not on your side. When the combat works and your strategy is a success, the game is quite fun, but that's never a sure thing.Thea is a difficult game. Even on the easiest difficulty you'll have your strongest warriors die thanks to a battle that didn't go your way and you'll have to work to replace them. That, plus a constant stream of random events to keep things interesting, means you can never fully prepare for what's ahead and decisions will have an impact. Even late game you'll need to decide whether combat is the right option or if you should try a riskier path and try to verbally convince the enemy to side with you. If you fail, the death will hit hard — it will matter. This diversity coupled with the impact of decisions is the reason Thea will not bore you to tears but instead will keep you coming back for one more turn.Make no mistake, though, repetition is an issue in Thea. On top of the random events, the game tries to change things up by having random world layouts and a selection of gods you can choose to champion on the outset of the game; these give you unique bonuses but these are not enough. The issue is that you'll be repeating the same actions over and over again, and instead of being snappy, the game chugs along at a snail's pace. A significant portion of the gameplay will be spent waiting. You'll constantly wait for the game to load and those few seconds per turn quickly add up. You'll wait for enemies to slowly move across the map. In combat, the game pauses for a second after every action, which becomes mind-numbing all too quickly. Combat is so slow that many players will probably end up auto-battling their way through most battles simply to avoid the slowdown, eradicating a part of what makes the game enjoyable to play.Achievements in Thea are not kind at first. You'll be confused about how to play and some of the tasks will seem monumentally difficult. Winning the game at 65% difficulty is a challenge and you'll need to win at 300% to conquer the list. As you play, you'll grow better and you'll learn to master the game as you level up all the gods, which will require winning numerous times. Beyond those, the game features miscellaneous achievements you'll slowly pick up along the way. Ultimately, it's a long list but it's certainly not impossible.SummaryThea is a creative combination of an RPG, card battler, and management game. It takes all three and combines them into an experience that's fun once you learn to play it, although not without its downsides. Combat can demand clever strategy if luck is on your side, or you can simply lose from no fault of your own. The management is interesting when you determine what your villagers should do and where, but it's also dull as you spend turn after turn with them doing nothing. The game is structured so that you'll always want to play one more turn and the decisions you do make matter, but just about everything in the game is slow when it should be snappy, and it sours part of the experience with boredom. Thea does almost everything decently, but its flaws hold each of its parts back from being great. The one undeniable success in the game is the top tier story and worldbuilding that makes the game worth your time if you can get past the flaws.7 / 10Positives Deep worldbuilding that keeps your attention Card combat requires some strategy Equipping and customizing your villagers is enjoyable You'll always want to play one more turn Negatives The entire experience is a bit slow and repetitious at times Random events and combat have luck-based elements Far too much of the management is spent doing nothing EthicsThe reviewer spent 11 hours exploring the world of Thea, completing quests, building a village, saving the world and playing with cards. He unlocked 17 out of 31 achievements for 245 Gamerscore. An Xbox One copy of the the game was provided from ID@Xbox for the purpose of this review.More Thea: The Awakening stories: TA Podcast: Pre3, DiRT 4, TWD A New Frontier, Alphabet Challenge and Win a Game Thea: The Awakening Achievement List Revealed Thea: The Awakening Release Date Announced Thea: The Awakening Trailer ID@Xbox Takes on E3 Part 5 ReviewXbox One Written by Kevin TavoreKevin is a lover of all types of media, especially any type of long form story. The American equivalent of Aristotle, he'll write about anything and everything and you'll usually see him as the purveyor of news, reviews and the occasional op-ed. He's happy with any game that's not point and click or puzzling, but would always rather be outdoors in nature.
The reviewer spent 11 hours exploring the world of Thea, completing quests, building a village, saving the world and playing with cards. He unlocked 17 out of 31 achievements for 245 Gamerscore. An Xbox One copy of the the game was provided from ID@Xbox for the purpose of this review.