I always adore games that manage to blend a combination of genres and pull it off successfully. Whether it be the shooter, stealth, RPG, and cyberpunk hybrid Deus Ex: Human Revolution or the platforming first person non-shooter Mirror’s Edge, I always welcome it as something that needs to be explored more in the medium. The newest example, Tharsis (from former Bit.Trip devs Choice Provisions) is no exception, in terms of quality and the underlying importance of mechanics, something crucial for the rare breed of game it is. For readers unfamiliar, Tharsis is about four astronauts whose mission to Mars goes awry. You have to guide them to make important decisions so they can survive on their ten day journey. It’s a very polarizing game, and one that could certainly cause immense amounts of frustration, due to it’s near impossible difficulty; But, I think with the right amount of practice and patience, it’s more than a keeper.

Gameplay

In terms of gameplay, Tharsis is rather slim with the only actual playable components being rolling randomly generated sets of dice, whilst setting different astronauts to numerous tasks. However, Tharsis’s simplicity is it’s biggest aspect of greatness. Nearly any verdict with the slightest hint of wrongness can lead to your crew resorting to cannibalism, being injured, or having the ship destroyed and them dying all together. It’s about as tense as learning open heart surgery on a live human being, but that’s kind of what makes it so fun. It’s risk is riveting, and the mini cut-scenes that play after every day has been accomplished make you even more afraid for the next. I really have to applaud the developers for making everything seem so tense, without the presence of a big explosion or collision of space debris to increase drama. Hell, the whole game can make space epics like Gravity seem like nothing, as watching your astronauts slowly starve to death whilst desperately coming up with a solution equals the ultimate suspenseful-ness.

Structure

Unfortunately, while Tharsis is fun and extremely challenging, it’s not particularly mind-blowing in it’s design, but manages to be original on the way it utilizes these merits. The board game-like format helps the game be more intriguing, and certainly caught my eye more than it normally would have done without. I also really appreciate what Choice Provisions has done with some of the presentation. There are a lot of different ways to reuse your already claimed assets in new ways (such as character upgrades and harvesting) , and the gory filter and effects added to the dice when your characters get injured makes the game all the more disturbing. Tharsis isn’t going to set a new level of innovation in gaming, but it rearranges enough pre-introduced concepts that it feels fresh. The more you play, the more you’ll realize this is a worthy achievement.

Replay Value

Luckily, Tharsis’s difficulty isn’t completely insurmountable with it’s manual save points, urging you to figure out new ways to handle disaster. It’s a pretty novel concept executed to perfection, and makes the whole game a lot more manageable, increasing the average play-time. Once you finally get to Mars however, there’s not much to Tharsis beyond that point. Simply a daily challenge or new mode would make the game feel all the more captivating and significant, especially to newcomers.

Conclusion

Tharsis can be hard to handle from the beginning, and maintains that mantra nearly throughout it’s entire gameplay. It’s Dark Souls-like difficulty pulls no punches, and leaves the player reeling from any mistakes they may have cost themselves. Yet, this makes it one of the more provoking games to come recently. Learning after a couple hours how to efficiently grow food or reduce stress does wonders to the crew, and to the player, adding a much greater sense of compassion to the game. Tharsis is definitely not meant for everyone, but I still believe almost anybody interested should give it a shot. It’s nearly overwhelming tensity provides new lengths for player freedom, exploration, and possible progression. Once in a while, it’s good to have a game that doesn’t give you any hand holding. As hindering it can be, Tharsis proves it to be a blessing.

Tharsis gets a 9/10 (Superb)

We’d like to thank Choice Provisions for sending us a code for this one!

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