Thea: The Awakening

Currently my favorite game of all time. The story and general feel are just wonderful; you really get into the mindset of a mystical, danger-ridden world that has barely reawakened. If there was any negative I could say its just that there's not enough story events that I can play this every single year (instead I have to take a couple years of a brake so everything feels fresh again). Strong recommend.

Once you get the hang with the unique mechanics of this game, it just hooks you. Still today, after so many years, I keep coming back to Thea: The Awakening for another go, trying to convince myself it will just be.. one more turn..

Its hard to gauge how good the game is. Id recommend it overall, it does posses many BUTs tho.

Do not play if you are perfectionist, or ADHD cursed.

Good:
- inovative systems, something new,
- good story, elements,
- variability
- replayability (its ment for you to die)
- unbalanced skills, which incetivizes you in decision making

Bad:
- owerwhelming, timeconsuming crafting.
- too random. the game heavily relies on your knowledge of the enemies, encounters, when to do what. the skull system (showing how difficult encounter is) is incredibly unreliable. and you can never pull out after iniciating encounter.
- its incredibly complex. if you want to minmax, its a nigtmare. between items, skills, characters, events, resources management.. multiply by number of characters, and you will never make satysfying outcome.
- once you win, you play essentialy the same game. so id recomend starting on hard diffictulty, die often, because once you win there is no reason to play again.
- other challenges are often not worth the hassle. there is too many of them to keep track of, or effectively dealing with all of them. on top of that, if you lose them, your characters might get killed anyway.
- numbers win chalenges easily

What id like to see moded/changed:
- crafting should follow artifact crafting: only first row gives a stat, second amplifies it.
- automated cooking
- challenges as a means of avoiding conflict (why my dwarf died from talking to orcs?), make some punishment for failing, yes, like all characters lose 20% of HP, but whats the point of avoiding battle, when someone can die anyway.
- ability to "auto battle" but redo it yourself if the computer kills some of your chars.
- see more info, like what percentage of death prevention each medic stat give, how much second medic in party participates in healing, etc.

It's not an easy game, but if you're into survival with crafting, party-management, battle minigames, and just love resource optimization like I do, then this is for you. Love the lore and the dark vibes. Better than its sequel.

The game runs as a story with multiple strategic choices driving the narrative. The fantasy has a distinct eastern European feel which is interestingly alien from western fairy tales. Certain amount of replay value.

Thea the awakening is a fun game but quite grindy. You have to be prepared to sink hours into the game.

Played this game a lot on playstation. Good blend of storytelling and party management. I played Vagrus recently and it was hard not to compare it to this game and appreciate the way this game blocks dialogue in a way that is engaging while being informative.