I had a few people suggest I do one of these and at this point, I’ve played Tears of Themis every day since its Global release. I also played it every single day of the Closed Beta. To say I like the game a lot would be a bit of an understatement, but I will say what I like most about the game is also possibly its biggest flaw: Where’s the story content?
Ironically, while in the middle of writing this, my question kind of got answered in a way— Covid has made it a bit harder to record voice actors. Apparently, Artem’s Japanese voice also actually caught it so here’s hoping he recovers okay. It’s possible this may just have to do with future content and not the story, but I feel like there’s a good chance this is still part of it as events and card stories generally have a lot less dialogue. Stories also have voices for EVERY character in them and Chapter 6 has a large cast and is one of the darker cases.
I do wish they still kept things in order though– I would have preferred them to just say “some voices won’t be ready yet” and still keep the timeline intact over us getting Events at a much different order and also many much sooner before the story content. Chapter 6, while announced for the first half of March, is now roughly 2-3 months later than when it released on the original server (January 2021). And personal story 3, which had released after the Skadi Event on the original server in late February 2021, will now be releasing in early May… That is a huge gap in what was originally only a month. The Romantic Rail Getaway Events were originally after Skadi, yet we got one half already and will likely get the other half before the new story content and just… as someone primarily playing for the story content, I’d rather have it, voice acting or not.
When I first spoke about Tears of Themis, I said my only complaint at the time was the entire Card System exists only to force a gachapon system in the game and to be honest, that is still my biggest complaint with the only other thing coming close is the timeline destroyingness of the Event schedule. I think my biggest issue is that events from those cards can be brought up in other card stories so if you never managed to play them, you have no idea what they’re talking about. I don’t really like Character information locked behind a gachapon and I do wish there was a way to access the story even outside the cards. You’d still need the cards for the debates, which I do still feel are often really awkward interruptions of the story content (Having a stronger deck though, I often get through them so fast, I no longer even notice), so it’s not like they’d be worthless without the story, but I suppose some cards would get less love.
Going back to the story stuff, I do hope they may give more information on what voice acting will be missing as they do say just “some” of the Japanese voice content will be gone and as you can pick things separately (Each character can have a different language voice plus a category for all other characters).
As mentioned, I love the story stuff. I love learning about the characters. I think all the characters are neat in their own way, even side ones. I love the mysteries. I love how even Events have a mystery aspect (Though, they are brutal for newer players to catch up– it’s too bad there isn’t an “easier” version for people who join later). It’s made it so every piece of content is really interesting, though, it’s another reason I wish the timeline wasn’t such a mess right now.
I still think if you enjoy mystery content, it’s worth a playthrough even if you’re not big into Otome stuff. You can always skip the card stories (which are essentially “dates”) and only the last part of the personal story ends romantically. I wouldn’t really call myself an otome game fan (I am… notoriously picky and a game that just focuses on romance is not my thing), but I still find everything just… really fun? I think all the characters are interesting even outside of a romance-aspect.
And well, considering most people play for the Otome game aspect, clearly that’s pretty good as well.
As a quick pros and cons list though to finish this off at this point:
PROS:
- Mysteries!!
- Intriguing overarching story
- Neat Events
- All characters have merits and there’s always more beneath the surface
- Art is very pretty
- Really lovely music
- Dailies can be very quick to get through as you level up more.
- Voice acting is great in every language
- VERY Forgiving even if you’re not great at mysteries or still under-leveled– you have unlimited Hints, are not penalized for trying/guessing incorrectly, and if you fail a debate/trial, you get your stamina back.
CONS:
- Timeline is a mess on the Global server
- Story disputes feel weirdly placed more often than not
- Events can be brutal if you’re a newer player
- Odd friends list limit (It goes up as you level, but…)
- Some lines are only voiced in Simplified Chinese (This is something that has been happening since the beginning of global launch, long before the recent announcement)
- While not Pay to Win, if you want to collect everything, there are literal Charge-up events (and a permanent one that requires a lot of money to get through) for cards and furniture which kind of stinks. Similarly, many invitations are only available through paying (they change the background of your home screen in the game), and you can also get more rewards through special passes during Events
- The expeditedness of the Event schedule gives less time to prepare in general and while difficulties have been lowered, we do not get more rewards to make up for the skewed balancing.
- Every single dub changes the names of the characters. This is a really weird choice and when there’s no English dub, you don’t even hear any of the English names with whichever voice dub you pick. But honestly, even if there was an English dub, I’d be listing this here because… it’s just really strange? I feel like we’ve long since left the days of needing to “localize” names to such a degree and especially looking at Genshin Impact which has most names kept entirely intact, I’m really curious about why that was needed. The only things that stay the same are the character’s codenames.
Generally, if you enjoy Ace Attorney or Mystery-styled investigation games, I’d suggest giving the game a try despite the Otome Game elements. It really feels like just two different types of games, and you can more or less ignore the one you don’t care as much for (You can just tap through or keep using hints).
I will say I do have some concerns though with the way content is releasing. With Chapter 6’s and Personal Story Chapter 3’s delay, I’m concerned how it could affect Personal Story Chapter 4 as those directly tie into the 1st Anniversary Cards. I also originally thought the speed-up was to somehow get us caught up with the original server doubling up on maybe the 2nd and 3rd anniversary content and birthdays, but with the timeline so scatted, it just feels… odd? I don’t really see the point in rushing content if there’s no way we’ll ever get on the same schedule. And when you have such a huge overarching story and actually have these character growth where you SEE the characters become closer, mixing the timeline up like this to just pump out events makes it kind of confusing as that closeness goes back and forth.
I’m hoping maybe they plan to at least release story content altogether even if the Event schedule continues to be a little borked, but despite my concerns, I’m still really enjoying the game and Mysteries getting a role even in many of the Events makes it so even those are a lot of fun for me.
Overall, I don’t see any reason I’d stop playing anytime soon (Unless they like… ended the main story and it somehow became solely romance-focused) and I’m endlessly curious just where the overarching story is going to go– I have many theories, but I’ll save those for another day.