Tears of Themis: miHoYo’s detective gacha game w/ husbandos

miHoYo is well known for its solid game structure involving story, character development, world ambiance, and musical score, which is why Genshin Impact and Honkai Impact 3rd are rated positively—overwhelmingly positive. Now, with a good foundation behind them, miHoYo takes a different turn with their newest mobile romance and detective game entitled Tears of Themis. With this new direction, will it turn out to be a flop or an astounding success? Also, will miHoYo maintain a good balance between the romantic and serious aspects of the game? Find out here as we give you our first impressions.

What the game is about

Tears of Themis is a game that allows its players to engage in the exciting field of law, defend the truth, and craft romantic relationships with four distinctive male protagonists. Connecting the dots to its themes and premise, Tears of Themis can be classified under the puzzle and dating simulator genre, as players take on the role of a budding bad-ass lawyer that can engage in saucy love interests behind the scenes—a good contrast between the professional side and lovey-dovey side of the game.

The downloading process is straightforward. Players can either hop on the Google Playstore or the Apple App Store and download Tears of Themis. For compatibility, the game requires Android 5.0 and up and iOS 9 and up.

Players will have an initial download of around 300MB, which I would assume is the download of the game’s client, and from there, a second download will occur. The size in my experience is around 1.8GB, with three updates between July 30 and August 4. Tears of Themis is strictly a mobile game. However, those who would want to play on PC can have it with the assistance of other programs like BlueStacks.

The game is played from the perspective of a budding young attorney in the city of Stellis. The player then goes through a bunch of cases as the gentle and good people of Stellis grow more violent and volatile.

The player goes through challenges as they interact with a cast of possible love interests like: Like Pearce, Artem Wing, Marius von Hagen, and Vyn Richter. Together, you solve various cases as well as look into the source of its abnormal rise.

Gameplay

The gameplay reminded me of the Persona series or the famous Danganronpa argument structure, where players choose certain statements generated into “coaxing their opponent into confession before their inevitable death. Well, for the case of Tears of Themis, it is pushing your opponents into yielding so that player can win the case. Note that there are four key aspects of its gameplay which fall under Card Raising, Debates, Investigation and Analysis, and finally Court Trials.

Debates. During debates, players would battle characters they would encounter in the game. The player’s only method of attack is through cards. Cards can be rolled in the game, have different rarities and affinities that fall under General, Logic, Empathy, and Intuition. The first person to have their opponent’s HP hit zero is the winner.

Investigations and Analysis. As advertised, the player would be going through a lot of detective work, which covers investigating crime scenes, questioning perps, and analyzing them to see if they all make a connection—a big eureka moment! I myself struggled a bit in the Investigation part, as items were sometimes hidden in a corner. Hint, you can tap the magnifying glass to scan the area, highlighting the item you are looking for.

Court Trials. Court Trials are what you expect from the name. Your character would defend the client to the court and prove their innocence. This is mostly the finale in the chapter that clarifies the ongoing story.

Finally, you have Card raising. Note that Tears of Themis is also a Gacha game where players can roll for new and better cards. Each card has different rarities and affinities, and the game allows the player to level up and evolve their cards to ease their time while progressing in the game, but that action must be supplemented with certain resources like Oracles of Justice and Stelling, for example.

As for the characters you encounter, you can have the wonderful options of picking either of the four, which are: Artem Wing, an S-tier attorney with a 99% win case record, displaying a mature yet emotionless vibe. Luke Pearce, a cheerful private detective who devotes himself tasks at hand. Marius Von Hagen is a popular character taking on the persona of a rebel that plays outside the box. And finally, Vyn Richter is a Psychiatrist who sees beyond the physical and focuses on what is inside.

Should you download it?

miHoYo produced a top-class mobile game, giving it good structure for its characters and overall story flow. At the same time, they provided players wonderful ambiance, tone, and astounding visuals that the players could invest in. To give an example, some scenes that you would expect to remain static actually have subtle movement from ceiling fans, stopwatches, character hair, and clothes, or even water reflections—which really immerses the player in Stellis.

As for its playable content, there are currently five episodes, each having approximately 10-15 levels. However, it does not stop there; if the player has accomplished all episodes, legal studies can be played or its character interaction feature, which is technically like side-quests that players can do daily.

Like their other popular releases, miHoYo’s Tears of Themis is a solid game in its own field. It isn’t free-roaming or combat-based, but the game’s intricate and intellectual puzzles paired with expressive characters can hold their own ground. The game is not pay-to-win, as there are given rolls for cards. But paying for additional card rolls or ap replenishment will allow the player to breeze through.

This brings me to my verdict. Tears of Themis should definitely be tried out; it gives you a taste of what this genre can offer, especially if you are coming from other games like RTS, MMORPGs, FPS, or any stress-inducing game—it provides a good change of pace. But on the flip side, the overall player population for the game may probably slowly diminish as soon as other people finish the main story, leaving only loyal players that want to continue investing in their husbandos.

Hopefully, miHoYo would continue busting out content to retain new players; they already started with a good launch, have a good balance with its themes, and have a very accessible platform to continue branching out. But as far as initial assessment goes, the game would be something you pick up/download, play for a few days, and then completely forget about it—or it may be something you play as you scroll through your phone while having no access to the internet. It’s great, don’t get me wrong, but in my opinion, it is still something that will only appeal to certain players.

And there you have it, our initial impressions on miHoYos Tears of Themis. What are your thoughts on this? Who is your favorite husbando? Feel free to share them in the comment section below.