Tears of Avia | Kickstarter Game Preview

Tears of Avia is a beautiful, anime style, turn-based, tactical RPG that is currently on Kickstarter and Steam Greenlight. It first caught my eye at EGX 2015 as I’m naturally drawn to pretty, colourful things and the poster for Tears of Avia delivered just that.​

Lore

The story is about a man and his love, a regal-looking woman named Avia. All he wants is for them to be together, but something goes wrong and demons start pouring in from another world. He does everything in his power to stop the invasion and his last hope is to cast a spell that freezes everything. But in doing so Avia is caught up in the blast and he wistfully asks her to 'forgive him' as she fades away into the ice and snow.​

Gameplay

The prototype gives us a sample of how the turn-based system works. Each battle begins with a deployment phase so you can strategically place your characters on the battlefield.

The key to this game is to learn which characters have abilities that work well together.

There are so many combinations because the player has the freedom to change not only the characters skills but the weapons they carry as well. One example is that Reina's 'Call Hawks' attack will inflicted bleed on an enemy, combine this with Kai's 'Swift Strike', which deals additional damage to bleeding enemies, and you have one very powerful dispatch! There are lots of things you can play around with to make your battling experience unique. You can even change the dialogue and the way your party interacts with one another. Each character has their own personality that can either be complimentary to your other characters or cause a real conflict amongst the group. This will also give the chance of additional quests (I was told at EGX).

Your party can also be affected by friendly fire, so if an ally is stood in the radius of your attack they will take damage too. Just as you are able to target allies, you are also able to accidently heal enemies. This game may not be the Dark Souls level of unforgiving, but the hardcore mode is yet to be revealed so I could be wrong!

Once I have finished dispatching these enemies, a big engine-powered mech appears. In this particular battle, players can choose to attack the enemy as normal, or to pick up the bombs and throw them back, which deals a substantial amount of damage. But these bombs are also environmental hazards and after several turns they will explode. If you are stood in their blast radius you will take the damage.

When your battle is complete you are awarded with Avia’s Tear which seems to be a key to the development of the story. After this, you will be returned to a town called Tirig. This is the player’s starting area and is located south of the world the game is set in: Estera. Once complete, this area will provide you with traders and quest givers; it is a safe haven for all adventurers to gather.

You will be able to switch up your party members, advance your skills using multiple talent trees, buy and sell weapons and armour, and even speak to your current party members who will be located around the town.​

Kickstarter

As of this post, there is just one week left to back Tears of Avia on Kickstarter (click here for link).

There are many exclusive things available for backers; the most recent one to be announced is armour set for Iris, who is the mage character available in the prototype. There will also be exclusive armour for the character Kai, who is the warrior. These are only 2 of the 5 exclusive armour sets revealed; if you make a pledge you will be notified when the other ones are announced.

These amongst many things available for backers on Kickstarter, so make sure you go and check it out.

Estimated release: April 2017

For more on Tears of Avia, check out my video preview on YouTube:​

**Disclaimer: This video is based entirely on my personal opinion, all facts were sourced on the internet, I was not paid to make this video. In fact, I gave them money on Kickstarter!