Thea 2: The Shattering

So far, I've had this game for about three weeks, and I am already at over 225 hours played. The first time I loaded it up, I wasn't sure how I felt about it, and I stopped playing it after about a half hour and didn't think I would probably pick it up again. Later that night, though, I sat down and tinkered with it a bit more, and then I was hooked. There is a lot more depth to the game than is apparent at first blush, and I recommend that anybody who might be sitting on the fence should go ahead and pick it up.

Thea 2 is a mix of different genres, so a bit hard to describe. Basically, we're in turn-based strategy land with elements of 4X, card-based combat and fantasy RPG in the mix. The basic experience is you move your party around on a hex-based map, gathering resources (food, fuel and crafting stuff) and triggering various encounters. The encounters are short, text-driven, choose-your-own-adventure sorts of things (think Sunless Sea/Skies) which usually involve various kinds of challenges. These challenges are resolved as card-based "battles" and there are three kinds - physical, verbal and magical - with the different characters in your group being strong in some and weak in others. Effectively the challenges are all resolved as combat encounters - your goal is always to whittle the opponents' cards down to 0 hp. These 'encounters' generate experience, items and resources, which you use to beef up your dudes in traditional RPG style. There is an overall story to the campaign but you also just spend lots of time exploring in an open-ended way. In a nod to the 4X genre, you can also establish a village that gives various bonuses, there is a simple research mechanic and there are other 'factions' out there you can befriend or wipe off the map, as you please. This is not really a 4X, as these are sidelines rather than core gameplay. The game is a bit daunting at first with a lot of mechanics going on that are fairly poorly explained by the in-game tutorials. Once you figure out the basics, however, this is a deep and rich experience. The story 'encounters' are based on an interesting Slavic lore and well-written, the card combats are pretty deep with a lot of variety to unit types and strategy. The gathering/crafting is a bit of a chore at times but never too grindy. The game imagines itself as rouge-like but I'd had enough after my first play-through. There's not really enough variety in the events to stop things getting repetitive. Still, had lots of fun!

I bought this game, almost exclusively, for multiplayer. Be forewarned that the game utilizes a cloud-exclusive hosting system for multiplayer, meaning that you cannot: direct connect by IP, host your own client-side server, connect by LAN, etc. You can only use MuHa's cloud server, and that, as I've now learned, is insufficient to the task. I repeatedly get the following error when attempting to connect on MP games, "A problem has occurred. The game may be unstable and or crash. Any saves created after this point may be corrupted." This only occurs on launch of a MP game, and never in single-player mode. It only occurs during "peak" traffic times, and thus, is rather evidently a server traffic issue. Personally this has ruined this game for me. Be advised if you intend to play this game in MP mode, it's liable to not launch at all if the traffic is sufficiently high at the time. If you're exclusively looking for single-player, this means nothing to you. lol

Huge fan of the Thea 01 but the Thea 02 seems to be a beta. Lot of things dont work (like keyboards option, menu, quest log, no tuto, ...). In this state, my advise is too wait a patch. Buy the 01 not the 02. I do not want a refund, because huge fan of the 01 so I hope the 02 will be better (I hope because it is not cheap arf).

I'd actually like to give it 3.5 stars. There is a lot of good here, but also a lot of weird and problematic. Explorations, harvesting, crafting, quests, random events, advancement, lots of good mechanics along with decent voice over here and there. Good randomness too, never the same thing twice really. But the tutorial is significantly lacking. Some UI navigation is so obtuse you barely figure out how to play. I litterally almost quit the game the first combat because there was no indication what you're supposed to do when declaring attackers. After 4 hours I barely feel like I made any progress, because it's VERY slow going. You also have to constantly get resources to stay alive, which cuts into advancement. Then there is the equipment which in places makes zero sense or is clearly absurd. Rings weight 45 pounds?? That little bit of insanity seriously hinders the usefulness of making them when you litterally can't wear them because they are too heavy. So it remains to be seen if I stick with it much longer because while it's not bad, it barely holds interest and lacks any thrills or big wins. If you're into low key development mechanics, solid bet you'll like this. If you want thrills and accomplishment and grand battles, not going to find it here.