Tears of Avia

Hi ,
i would like to start with , why the hell this game has such negative reviews ? Honestly for the price = quality of the game it is truly under-priced , i have seen so many indie titles that are not even close to Tears of Avia with double the price tag.
The game what you can typically expect in a tactical rpg - there is nothing too special about the game, but also it does what the it promises pretty good. could use more customization options and more content, however the game is still pretty enjoyable, art and graphics are well made , voice acting is .. enjoyable, low production all in all, but you get what you are paying for and little more.

Well, admittedly, I always had a soft spot for JRPGs, especially if they implement adorable characters. In this particular case, Tears of Avia happened to catch my interest and although it turned out slightly different than I anticipated, I still managed to enjoy this title. You see, I played quite a few JRPGs already so I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing when one of them turns out differently than the ones I am used to. Anyway, I jumped at being able to play Tears of Avia and was curious to explore its world. In addition to that, the sudden release pleasantly surprised me, as well, as I didn't expect to be able to play it that soon.
Tears…?
Tears of Avia opens with a village getting attacked by the undead. After fighting those off, the main character starts their journey to investigate the happenings. There are various party members than can be found who will join the journey. After a short while, the main character happens to find a mysterious object that is known as a "Tear". Soon, the protagonist finds out that there is a dangerous evil being that lingers around, and thus, the world needs a hero who saves them from the terrible fate.
Choose a Character
At the beginning of the game, the player can select the main character in Tears of Avia. However, it's important to mention that it barely matters what character the player ends up choosing as the story stays the same and every character can still be recruited for the party. Thus, I just decided to go for the character that I liked most. Anyway, I found it a shame that the game does offer their players to choose their own adventure, but at the same time, it doesn't really make a difference. Nonetheless, I was delighted that I could pick a character to my liking and wasn't stuck with only one possible protagonist.
The Execution of the Story
Now, I was feeling slightly mixed about this aspect of the game. Although Tears of Avia mixes visual novel elements into the game, I found that these scenes weren't fleshed out enough. I often was unable to understand the intentions of various characters and, along with that, the character development suffered as well. I couldn't understand why they all stick together as there were barely any scenes where the cast gets to know each other better. It's evident that Tears of Avia focuses on the gameplay, however, that means that the player's motivation to go through the game might be lowered.
Turn-Based and Tactical Battles
Tears of Avia is a turn-based game that relies on tactical gameplay a lot. The player can build a party with up to five members, although there are various classes available with different skills. Therefore, it's important to balance the party so there are melee, as well as range and heal classes available. I found the battles were enjoyable in Tears of Avia and some fights might take a while due to the high amount of enemies. In addition to that, there are optional objectives available that can be completed, although those are required.
The World Map
Something quite unusual in Tears of Avia is that the player starts in a village and enters the small dungeons with a teleporter. This means that this game is very linear and there isn't a lot to explore for the player. Eventually, the player will reach new villages although the teleporter is still the main objective during the game that lets the player enter battles so they can advance with the storyline. I'm not sure what I think of that system as it kind of takes away the immersion as I couldn't get attached to its world, however, that system still works out.
Something that I absolutely disliked is that the camera is only moveable to a certain degree in Tears of Avia. This made it extremely hard for me to not get lost in huge cities as the player can only turn the character to the left or right side. Luckily, the game shows the player which direction they have to go, however, I still had the feeling I was restricted in exploring the very few locations I could move around.
Skills Tree
When leveling up, the player can unlock new abilities and attacks for each party member. There are three different trees for each class and to be honest, I found that it didn't matter much which one to unlock because they're all very strong anyway. Regardless, there are unique skills available such as summoning an animal for the ranger. Leveling up is quite fast in Tears of Avia and I ended up unlocking random skills in the end. Anyway, the player can still freely manage the skills and use the ones they prefer most.
Equipment
In addition to that, each weapon has its own skill slot as well, although the abilities and attacks vary depending on the weapon. I found this was a nice touch as that meant that equipping a new weapon meant that the player had to get adjusted to a new skill and I loved the different animations for each skill. However, I ended up skipping those soon as it took a lot of time watching each of them unfold. Thus, I am glad that there was a recent update that allowed the player to skip the animations, which might be quite tedious otherwise with a lot of enemies on the map. As a piece of side information, equipment and weapons can be found after completing a battle or are obtainable through the merchant.
Graphics, Voice Acting, and The Immersion
Graphics-wise, Tears of Avia is stunning and supports up to 4k resolution. However, something that stood out to me is that some character sprites look crisp and clear whilst others were noticeable blurry. Anyway, the sprites were still lovely with multiple facial expressions that made them seem livelier. Luckily, the environment looked stunning and was a joy to look at, including the battle maps. In addition to that, Tears of Avia implements high-quality Japanese voice-acting that greatly improved the immersion, although it was a shame that those scenes fell rather short throughout the playthrough.
So, what do we have in the end?
Would I recommend Tears of Avia? — My answer would be: It depends on. If you're looking for a non-linear game or a JRPG with an in-depth story, the possibilities are high that you won't have a good time with this game. However, I still found Tears of Avia utterly charming and managed to enjoy it, although it turned out to be slightly different than I assumed. Yes, this game isn't perfect, but it serves its purpose of delivering a few fun hours where I could immerse myself in its world. That being said, Tears of Avia isn't a game that will be enjoyable to everyone, however, it's a solid JRPG that has an interesting premise.
𝐅𝐞𝐞𝐥 𝐟𝐫𝐞𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐟𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰 𝐦𝐲 𝐂𝐮𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐨𝐫 𝐏𝐚𝐠𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐕𝐢𝐬𝐮𝐚𝐥 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐑𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰𝐬!

I'm giving this game a thumbs up, but really it's a meh.
It's sorta like a B movie, you enjoy it because of how much of a mess it is.
The models are alright, but the animations, story, and balance are pretty poor. You'll get gear that increases your damage to 4x the enemies max HP and get 5 levels per scenario. You can pay tons of gold to upgrade your skills by 1 level which adds like ~20 damage, when a new piece of gear will add thousands, so its pretty pointless to do it.
If you enjoy just one shotting everything, a meh story, and skipping animations, you might find some enjoyment out of this.

From the British study, CooCooSqueaky Games comes Tears of Avia, an interesting turn-based tactical RPG. You are the seeker, the chosen to search for the Tears, and you have the mission to collect them before the Ancient Demon’s henchmen take them to open the door to the Demonic Realm and take the world of Estera with a demonic army.
The story premise is interesting, but you will advance eventually on it, with some events in the cities, and other before starting a fight, this game is not story-driven. This can be a positive factor if you look for pure tactical combats without intromissions, but I miss a major role in the story. There are secondary quests, but they are no relevant, you can finish one, and the game will not warn you about this. You have to check it if you don’t forget to do it. Also, they give you some nice rewards and even some new characters. If you want to test yourself, You have an arena mode too.
Tears of Avia is an interesting tactical premise and a good anime atmosphere. It has some interesting strategical points, but the story rhythm and some battles are too slow. Sometimes you won’t remember the motive of your fights, but the tactical mechanics are great to entertain you. I liked it, but it disappointed me a little, I had better expectations, but it’s a good game. If you like the genre, and the anime universe, or just pure tactical battles without extra stuff, you'll probably like it.
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1-hour Gameplay video:

Review by Gaming Masterpieces - The greatest games of all time on Steam.
Is this game a masterpiece? Nope, but it is still a recommendation to fans of tactical (indie) RPGs. The exploring and story part of the game is rather small, its core gameplay element are the turn-based fights. Starting from a small village (and later other villages/cities) you prepare your party of five and then teleport directly to the missions (stages), which are all fights on a small map. Teleport into the map, move and hit your first enemy before they know you are here. Move your characters, then execute a skill (attack, spell, defensive stance,...). Next turn is by the enemies. They basically move towards you and attack as soon as they come in range. I failed to notice an advanced AI. Don't press X on your gamepad while it is your turn, because it ends your turn without prompt even if you haven't done anything. (Skippable) fighting skill animations are a bit... exaggerated. They do take some time to watch (which gets old...) and sometimes after hitting your foe 5 times with a cool skill, you inflict something like 30 damage. Then your next character attacks without a special skill animation, stabs his foe once and inflicts 120 damage.
When you have killed all foes you cleared the stage, your party is teleported back to town and you can examine the loot and prepare for the next stage (or play the stage again). Every character is healed. The towns are quite static with its inhabitants just standing around. Your characters start the game with only very few skills but learn new ones when they level up, so you soon have many skills to experiment with. The skill trees are big. Your inventory also fills up as you progress, and you can try various weapons (or rings, but nothing else) on your characters, if you don't just sell them to the merchant. Your party is very genre-typical, from a warrior, a mage, a healer, a ranger to a brawler. The characters are pre-made, but you select how to develop their skills and what weapon they use or ring they wear. Weapons often unlock abilities as well. You can talk to them between the missions in the tavern, where you can also dismiss them and recruit new ones. They don't always go along very well, so be careful whom you invite into your team. Each town comes with a church to donate something to a god of your choice to improve your stats. The funniest NPC of the game is in the library, a wise guy that explains the story and tells you what to do next. The story is, genre-typical, not very realistic. You are chosen to be "The Seeker" and must find shards (looking like tears) which can open a portal to the demon world and are therefore in high demand by an evil demon who sends out his minions to collect them. Side missions are unlocked by the choices you make during conversations. The game is fully voiced, but only in Japanese. The english translation (subtitles) are good, though. There are two difficulties, ultrawidescreen is supported and it can be played with a controller.

Update: I originally wrote this review on launch day, I have now completed one full playthrough and adjusted some comments to reflect this.
A great genre aware indie game. If you love JRPG's then this will embody every trope, cliche and worn-to-the-ground charisma you've come to love in the best ways possible.
With a selection of protagonists straight out of a pregen dungeons and dragons adventure, colourful and classic personalities along with bright and iconic designs (RIP Reina's spine) there's someone you're bound to love. I myself was torn between the obviously-the-protagonist Kai and the all too matching a description Iris. And the rest of the cast, so far, hasn't been a let down either for me. From the hard working superior you bump into to the obviously-not-merlin (which I have nicknamed Fauxlin) provides plenty of laughs. Although you don't spend much time with some of the later characters, revisiting previous locations will sometimes provide interesting inter-character dialogue that you can watch while in the tavern, and replaying some levels with mixed up parties will let you see interesting dialogue combinations. With the added bonus who you recruit and how you treat your party members changing their outcome in the epilogue also, some of which can be quite sad.
As for gameplay, well, combat itself can be slow and safe, however attempting to complete the star challenges often have you trying to pull off clever or risky moves, sometimes with less than optimal combinations to squeeze out just a bit more potential from your members. This is what provides Avia's true tactical edge. Damage numbers are so high that you will often feel little risk if you play safe, and healing can quickly overcome any obtained damage. Unlocking skills, combining party members and utilising unique mechanics to achieve some ludicrous goals are the true bread and butter of Avia's combat and not the squashing the enemies themselves.
Now for the negatives. So far there's only really been one I can make a proper complaint about and it's minor at best. The free roam controls are heavily biased to console comfort. This comes off a little weird on keyboard control, but if you've played any RPGs that were PC ports then you're accustomed to this already.
Also...why is the rotate skill button PageDown? Seemed a bit random. It's remappable though so don't let that deter you. In the time since this original review, a lot more keymap options have been added too.
Other than that it's just the minor issues and typos you'd expect from an indie working on a game far more expansive than most would dare try.
And though I did run into more than a few bugs on my playthrough almost every single one was patched within a day of being reported, and only one of them was truly 'game breaking'.
Is this game a masterpiece? Absolutely not!
Is this game a wonderful indie experience I would suggest to anyone who loves the genre? Absolutely yes!

It's rare to find a strategy game that isn't beyond tedious and rife with opportunities to get yourself one-shot, followed nearly immediately by being dead (and a Game Over screen).
Tears of Avia has a few bits of glitter that most lack: You can pick from a collection of five protagonists: Momoko the Cleric, Iris the Mage, Raul the Brawler, Reina, the arrow-slinging Ranger, and Kai, the would-be knight. Each has their own personalities, but mostly they're a collection of tropes surrounding their class. Momoko wants to see the good in everyone, Raul does the heavy lifting in the starting town, Iris seems to want to burn down taverns at random, Reina's a loner, and so on. Somewhat less than brilliant, but there are a few jokes around here and there.
Wandering around town takes some getting used to, though. Direct movement is awkward-- based on WASD, rather than simply turning right and moving along, the game turns the camera, which can clip into the scenery, and pushes it around to make things difficult to see. You also need to zoom in while in tight quarters, lest you start conversations with people you've already talked to as opposed to the critter you wanted to. Annoying, but not deadly.
As for combat, that's going to be much as you'd expect if you're accustomed to SRPGs. Move, attack, wait, or some combination thereof. You can't walk through other characters on the field-- at all. Friend, enemy, it makes no difference. If you went for the narrative mode, you're going to be doing rather a lot of damage compared to the enemies HP. Hardcore difficulty means you're about to have a Bad Day. I haven't yet gotten properly stuck into Hardcore mode, but the attempt to start that game ended very badly indeed for Kai. Reina and her bow might do better.
In the end, the game does well for what it is. It's not Final Fantasy Tactics, and it really doesn't need to be. Comparing Tears of Avia to more mainstream series does both a serious disservice. My recommendation would be to pick it up when you have a day or three to kill, and give it a go. Reina and Momoko are way too cute for words.