MiHoYo recently put their latest game Tears of Themis under Closed Beta Testing for Western audiences. The game plays very differently from Genshin Impact and Honkai Impact, but it's still a game many of you might want to pick up. Check out our first impressions on Tears of Themis based on our experience with the CBT so far.
Editorial Disclosure: As part of the CBT, our writers received a media exclusive gift in the form of 20 free pulls in the game. The free pulls helped our writers progress through the game faster. However, the gift in no way affected the assessment of our writers in this article.
What is Tears of Themis?
Tears of Themis falls under many genres. It's a gacha mobile game first and foremost. Most of the game falls under the Visual Novels of the Otome kind. Then, there are Ace Attorney-style segments that see you investigating crime scenes and going to court. Finally, the game has a very light RPG turn-based combat segment.
Tears of Themis follows the story of the main character, an associate lawyer in one of Stellis City's biggest law firms. Around you are four men (*ahem*, love interests) who serve as companions during your investigations. You can develop your relationship with them in the game's side modes. However, the main game's focus mostly falls under the cases and investigations, and everything that leads up to the court battle you'll engage in.
Gameplay: Ace Attorney Lite
Many players might get turned off simply because Tears of Themis falls under the Otome category. However, if you're an Ace Attorney fan looking for something similar to play on your phone, then get this. While Themis never reaches the same level of complexity as Ace Attorney, it's a great game to play during your off-hours. Built with the mobile audience in mind, miHoYo served the story segments in different episodes. This turns each segment into bite-sized engagements, letting you off the hook after just a few minutes. Going through each stage eats up on your Energy, another mobile feature. Hence, you'll have to either wait for some time before you can play through the game again if you run out of Energy.
The investigation segments of the game is where Tears of Themis shines best. The beautifully rendered environments hide secrets very neatly, and sometimes clues might star right in your face without you realizing it. Looking for clues and piecing them together with the information you get from suspects and witnesses is a fun gameplay experience. It builds upon Ace Attorney‘s systems, allowing you to connect the dots more directly by mixing two clues together to make a conclusion. It's an added layer that wasn't present in Ace Attorney that we can praise Tears of Themis for.
Meanwhile, you can always just press one button found at the upper left of the screen. This will highlight all of the clues you can find in an investigation area. This saves time for you but completely removes the game's challenge when used a lot.
Speaking of challenge, there's almost none of it in Tears of Themis. Indeed, if you're looking for intense court battles ala Ace Attorney, prepare to be disappointed. Most of the court battles in Tears of Themis (at least the early ones) are done in a breeze. There are also almost no risks involved, as making mistakes will never lead to a game over. The game will allow you to keep on guessing until you guess correctly, which defeats the entire point of the genre.
Thankfully, the game's investigation and interrogation phases save the day. Both features can really make you think and connect the dots. Finding clues and making conclusions is a fun exercise of wits in Tears of Themis. And thankfully, these two compose most of the game.
Gameplay: Otome Elements
Meanwhile, Tears of Themis will always be an Otome game, with its own pros and cons. Naturally, if you're not into Otome, then you might feel that the game's romance subplots don't appeal to you. Thankfully, the romance subplots are completely optional. There will be times that the story's plot will touch on some romantic themes, but it's never the main focus. Instead, if you want to explore the romance subplots with the hunks, you can do it in a completely separate game mode called ‘Visits.' In Visits, you go to the male characters' homes and interact with them. You raise their affection through this and unlock new story segments that you can explore to learn more about the characters.
Another artifact of the Otome genre comes in the form of the game's Gacha Mechanics. Of course, the game has to make you collect the male characters, somehow. In Tears of Themis, you have a deck of cards, each one depicting one of the characters in a scene. While there are only four characters to collect, each character has different cards in different rarities. To collect the cards, you'll have to pull for them in a banner, similar to how you pull for characters in Genshin Impact. The deck of cards serves as your ammunition in the game's poorly implemented ‘Debates' system.
The Debate part of the game is the least interesting, and most of the scenes involving them feel too forced. In Debates, you try to win an argument against a random character using your cards. Your cards and your opponents' arguments fall under one of three categories, each one trumping the other in a paper-rock-scissors typing mechanic. You win by reducing your opponent's HP bar to zero, which is done by using your cards. There's little to no strategy involved here, as upgrading your cards will make them deal more damage, sometimes even if they lose the typing battle. More work could be introduced to this part of the game, as it's currently what's holding the game back.
Conclusion: Tears of Themis is a fun Ace Attorney alternative, pulled down by its mobile game elements
Overall, if you can overlook the game's flaws, it offers an experience with a good story and interesting cases. The game's characters are also interesting, and the game's romantic subplots never get in the way of its main story. Tears of Themis shines best in its investigation and interrogation segments, pulled down by its debates and court battles. Still, the game can still hold itself up as a great time-waster thanks to its intriguing cases and thought-provoking puzzles. The solutions to the problems never feel unfair, and all of the stories tie up together pretty well as you complete more and more cases.
If you want a detective and lawyering game on your mobile phone to play during commute, Tears of Themis fits perfectly in that regard. But if you're expecting a deeper, more fleshed-out detective game, then get yourself a Nintendo Switch and grab The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles.
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