This review contains spoilers, click expand to view.
Okay, Tharsis is an EXCELLENT game... in concept.
However, In execution it is a relentless, soul-blasting exercise in complete and utter hopelessness. The fact that there is a HARD mode beyond the standard NORMAL mode is comparable to saying that the sixth circle of hell isn't so bad because technically there's something worse.
The fatal flaw in Tharsis is the total lack of balance between potential player success to the imminent damage they are tasked with combating. The ship gains random damage, but the randomness of the damage doesn't seem to have any control limits, so it will quickly overwhelm your ability to fix it.
Gameplay:
There are 4 player pawns, each with their own unique ability to fix the ship by rolling dice. The number of dice per pawn will be reduced every round through one method or another. In the dozen or so rounds I survived over five games, all my pawns maintained all their dice perhaps twice. PERHAPS twice. Every other round, I lost one die here, two dice there, three dice because a pawn died, you get the idea.
Now, these dice CAN be recovered primarily by eating food. You get SOME food at the beginning of the game, but you'll eat it immediately after Round 1. After that, you have to spend precious, precious dice rolls using abilities, creating food, or (here's the fun part) eating your fallen crewmembers. Don't worry, they start you off with a corpse in the medbay, so the table's already set. Yay, Space Cannibalism!
Between each round you are given a Catch-22 choice. Something along the lines of "Option A) Get dice back, but the ship takes damage; OR Option B) Fix the ship, but the crew loses health." Usually, there is one choice that is slightly less bad, but in virtually every circumstance I thought to myself "I want to do nothing. Nothing would be better than either of these choices. Can I please do nothing?" The game would then cackle maniacally and whisper "Noooooooooooo." (Note: this happened in my head, not reality.)
SO FAR SO GOOD!!
However, here's where the game breaks. I don't mean "Awww, it's hard, and me liek eazy gaems." I mean it is shattered unto destruction and listing endlessly through the black void of space.
The fatal flaw (...get it? Because you'll die!):
Your ship takes new damage every round. Every. Freaking. Round. However, before long the damage your ship receives becomes mathematically unfixable. I mean it. In every game played so far, even if I Qui-gon Jinned 50% of my rolls, it's a slim chance I would have survived. Of course you can't do that, so you're completely at the mercy of fate. Evil, jerky, space fate.
For those thinking "Suck it up, pansy, it's a tough game!" I'd like to say two things.
1. Don't call people pansies. That's rude.
2. In my last playthrough before writing this, after round 4 my ship had two damaged rooms remaining, with 10 and 11 damage respectively. During the mid-round, I had the choice of A) Killing two of my three remaining characters to give the ship 2 health and keep the last character's two dice OR B) Kill that guy instead to give the ship 4 health, feed his fresh corpse to the other two, and use their combined 9 dice to give it the ol' space college try. I chose the latter option. Then, In Round 5 my ship received 3 newly damaged rooms with a total of 76 damage (30/26/20). SEVENTY-SIX. For those keeping track, that's a grand total of 97 damage spread between five rooms that I have to fix with 9 dice. YOU CAN'T EVEN DO THAT.
Ultimately, Tharsis can be fixed, and it needs to be. Until it is, it's merely a way to experience the wild and frantic desperation of a gushing knife wound without actually being stabbed.
How I'd describe it: Yahtzee + FTL + sandpaper to the brain
Overall score: 5 out of 10
Reason: Concept is beautiful but the math doesn't math, and it really, really, really needs to math.… Expand
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