It’s here! The highly-anticipated ‘Tears of Themis’ generated a lot of excitement in the community during it’s closed beta testing, and now, as of July 29, 2021, the full game has been released for everyone on English servers. With a huge supply of server release celebrations, freebies and special deals, now is a great time to check out Tears of Themis if you’re curious about miHoYo’s innovative otome venture.

Tears of Themis
Genre: Romance / Detective
Platform: iOS and Android
Release Date: July 29, 2021
Developer and Publisher: miHoYo
Official Website (EN): https://tot.mihoyo.com/en/
Age Rating: 4+ / Everyone

Premise: You’re a budding lawyer working under the guidance of the senior attorney, Artem Wing, when you stumble across a case involving food poisoning at a local restaurant. Brimming with ambition and a burning desire to help innocent victims, you pledge to take on the case. But, little did you know, it would lead to an intricate web of conspiracies far more convoluted than you ever imagined…

When the lawful world collapses and the line between good and evil blurs, stand your ground and uphold justice.

The MC (main character) in Tears of Themis has a customisable name with no default option. This is known as ‘self-insert’; a style of otome game designed to allow complete immersion, so players can become the protagonist of their own story. Typically, MC’s in self-insert otome games have very limited personalities and backstories – the more nuance given to the MC, the more likely it is to contradict with the protagonist you envision – however, this isn’t the case in Tears of Themis.

The heroine of this story is a young and hungry career woman with a bold personality and a burning passion for justice. She’s intelligent, brave, and hardworking. In other words: a girl boss. I’m typically a fan of self-insert otome, and I don’t mind if the protagonist has little to no existing personality or backstory, but I also really like the MC in Tears of Themis.

She’s not a damsel in distress; she’s a determined, capable, career-oriented woman who isn’t afraid to take charge. From as early as the first chapter, we see her drive to help others, and her dedication to her job. She’s intelligent, perceptive, and uses her initiative. She’s idealistic, but open to learning from others, seeking to understand rather than judge. It’s easy to see why the love interests fall for her, and the writers managed to maintain a satisfying balance of realistically flawed and enjoyable to read.

First Impressions

When the darkness hidden beneath the tranquil city finally unveils itself, one must choose carefully and stay true to their values and beliefs.

One of the first things you’ll notice about Tears of Themis is the stunning opening cinematic. There are interactive elements and several player choices, but each comes with only one option, so there aren’t any plot-relevant decisions to make. However, the art and animation is romantic, dynamic, and truly beautiful. A lot of work has clearly been put in to the overall appearance and aesthetic of the game, which is not only obvious in the prologue, or the important scenes with CG’s, but even just ordinary moments throughout the story.

One of the artists on the Tears of Themis team is a prolific illustrator and character designer, known as TCB, who has previously worked for other otome game companies, including Rejet and CYBIRD, even designing the characters for Ikémen Revolution. TCB is one of my favourite artists in the industry, so as soon as I saw this I instantly knew why I loved the character designs in Tears of Themis so much!

Characters

Tears of Themis has four love interests: your stoic but thoughtful boss, Artem Wing; an elegant and mysterious psychiatrist, Dr Vyn Richter; your childhood best-friend-turned-private-detective, Luke Pearce; and the flirtatious, seemingly carefree business heir, Marius von Hagen.

Artem Wing

Vyn Richter

Luke Pearce

Marius von Hagen

Story

From the opening cinematic to the end of the first chapter, Tears of Themis hits you with a stunning introduction before gradually establishing the basic elements of the game. Don’t expect anything too intense in this initial chapter as it acts as a sort of tutorial, letting you dip your toes in before plunging headfirst into the mysterious web of conspiracies and intrigue.

Despite the small cast of love interests, there does seem to be a focus on only one or two of the characters in each chapter, with the plot following the action of the story rather than your developing relationships. For a more romantic experience, you can play each character’s personal stories, which you unlock as you increase your affection level with the respective love interest. You can also unlock bonus stories by upgrading cards, which provide more romantic scenes and a chance to delve deeper into that character’s personality and backstory.

The main story itself is more of a crime-based drama/mystery adventure. Lawyers in Tears of Themis seem to fill the role of detectives rather than actual attorneys (this is probably for the best as investigating crime scenes and interrogating witnesses is far more fun than paperwork and researching legal precedents), so you spend most of your time looking for clues and solving mysteries. As you progress through each chapter, more of the conspiracies behind the scenes come to light, slowly revealing the truth behind the strange events in the city of Stellis.

Chapter 1 is a more light-hearted introduction that serves the purpose of an orientation to Tears of Themis’ gameplay, as well as the premise of the story and two of the four love interests; Luke Pearce and Artem Wing. Chapter 2 felt a little slow in comparison, and while it introduces Marius von Hagen and Dr. Vyn Richter, it spends the majority of its time investigating the main case of the chapter with Vyn. This is where the themes of mental illness start to become much more prominent, and the case you are investigating is much more violent and disturbing than the case in Chapter 1, so be prepared for some heavy themes.

Chapter 3 felt like it picked up the pace again, with some of the hints at larger conspiracies in the background finally moving to the foreground. By the end of Chapter 4 all the features of the game have been unlocked and you’ve had a chance to investigate cases with each of the love interests.

While the opening prologue suggests darker mysteries behind the scenes, it takes a while for the protagonist to become aware of what’s going on. Despite the slow-burn with the more dramatic elements of the plot, each case is interesting and watching all of the different threads start to come together builds to a bigger pay-off when the secrets are revealed. There are plenty of plot twists and intrigue to keep you hooked while you’re subtly inducted into a much grander scheme.

Content warnings: As Tears of Themis is a crime-based drama, there are frequent themes of crime and crime-related violence. One of the love interests (Dr. Vyn Richter) is a psychiatrist, and while mental illness and mental disorders are prevalent throughout the entire story, they are particularly prominent themes in his personal and bonus stories*.

There are also mentions of other traumatic and violent themes, including self-harm, suicide, and abuse. The first chapter is relatively free of these, but the second chapter suddenly gets much more intense, so be prepared for a noticeable change in tone from Chapter 1 to Chapters 2 and beyond.

*It’s worth noting that the majority of these instances are handled with the intention of compassion and understanding, and Vyn’s character in particular is an advocate for the wellbeing of his patients. But, there are occasions where these themes pop up unexpectedly or their representation isn’t entirely accurate.

Gameplay

Key Features:
☆ Unique detective gameplay blends investigation and interrogation with court trials
☆ Captivating plot with unexpected twists and a conspiracy that gradually unfolds
☆ Romantic stories weaved with four compelling male protagonists
☆ Exquisite dynamic CGs with voiced dialogues and dubbing available in Chinese, Japanese and Korean

I discussed the gameplay of Tears of Themis in my First Impressions of the Closed Beta, so I’ll only briefly sum up my thoughts here before delving into a more detailed look at the many mechanics, resources, and features. There are a lot of different gameplay elements in Tears of Themis – covering them all would require a full-on game guide – so I’ve chosen to focus on the most important features for new players. Certain parts of the game are unlocked after you’ve already completed the first chapter (or even later), by which point you’ll likely have a handle on the basics anyway and won’t need a guide!

While many aspects of Tears of Themis are similar to other mobile otome games, miHoYo has found a way to revolutionise these familiar styles of gameplay by flawlessly incorporating them into the story chapters themselves. Throughout the story, you have the opportunity to examine people and crime scenes for clues, analyse your findings to draw conclusions, and eventually take the case to court, where you draw on evidence you collected to win at trial.

Debates: In addition to the interactive investigations, there are debates interspersed between story parts that fill the role of the minigames we’ve seen in other mobile otome games. While these minigames can often be annoying and disrupt the flow of the story, I don’t feel that the debates are too frequent or obtrusive in Tears of Themis. They’re also connected to the events of the story, as the person you are debating with is relevant to the chapter you are in, preventing them from getting too repetitive.

Debates are fought using the cards you collect in the gacha (called ‘Visions’), which you roll for using a resource aptly named ‘Tears of Themis’. They fall into three categories – Logic, Intuition, and Empathy – which are effective against each other in a rock-paper-scissors style of hierarchy. Empathy (Red) beats Intuition (Green), which beats Logic (Blue), which, in turn, beats Empathy.

Gacha: To collect these cards, you spend Tears of Themis in the ‘Visions’ (Gacha) feature, allowing you to pull a certain number of cards from a pool of many different potential choices. These cards vary in rarity, with rarer cards having higher stats and featuring more exclusive art, as well as bonus side-stories unique to that card. You can either do a single roll or save up to do ten in one go.

Once you have a deck of cards, you can improve their stats by using them in debates and spending certain resources collected via the various minigames and quest rewards. This is the part that gets confusing as Tears of Themis has lots of different in-game resources to collect, each with different functions. It’s useful to know what each resource does (and how difficult it is to acquire), as the mall offers lots of packs and item exchanges, all with special deals to celebrate launch day.

It may take a bit of playing around and exploring the game to discover all of its features, but the important thing to remember is that anything outside of the main story is more of an additional bonus, and not necessarily integral to the game. You can play through the story without knowing how to maximise your efficiency with item drops and still have an enjoyable experience, and you don’t need to spend hundreds of dollars on the gacha to build an effective team for debates.

Menu

Store

Quests

Events

Decks & Cards

Story Modes

Phone app: Towards the bottom-right of the home page, there is a phone icon. This is where you can text and call your love interest(s). I like how this is styled to look like a smartphone rather than just another page in the app. It adds to the immersion and, honestly, the texts and calls are one of my favourite parts of the game! It’s just another form of interaction with the characters that provides more of the romantic element to this otome game.

Note: You can also change the display name and picture for each of your contacts! This is how the name and icon will appear when you receive a text message or phone call from the character. Thank you Lottie for pointing this out to me!

I won’t talk about the NXX button for now as this is unlocked later into the game, by which point you’ll already have a handle on the basics of the gameplay. Instead, I’ll skip to what is probably the most important part of the game – the big ‘X-Note’ button in the bottom-right.

X-Note: This is where you’ll find the main story, as well as the ‘Anomaly’, event, and study tabs. The main chapters feature a mix of story, investigation, and debate parts, whereas the ‘Anomaly’ chapters are only debates. You can complete the Anomaly chapters for item rewards, including S-Chips and other extensive bonuses, especially on first completion. ‘Study’ is where you can fulfil daily activities to acquire items, and it’s often where you need to go to complete quests.

The ‘Event’ tab is where the story parts of events are found, as well as the ‘Trials of Themis’ minigames. I recommend the Trials of Themis and Temple of Trials for when you want to acquire more S-Chips, as you get them in abundance here, especially the first time you complete each level.

Visits

In the bottom-right corner of the home page (underneath X-Note), you’ll find one of the bonus features that adds another layer of interaction with the love interests. You’ll automatically be taken here as part of the tutorial when you unlock it, but I wanted to talk about it anyway because I really love this part of the game.

In ‘Visits’, you can select one of the characters to interact with and increase your affection level. As you level up your affection with a particular character, you unlock more interactions with them, including dialogue and games. You gain the ability to visit each of the characters at different points in the story, at which point you will be notified that they have been added to the map.

Note: Once you select a love interest and visit them, the back arrow at the top-left will return you to the homepage, not the map! I keep making this mistake so I thought I’d mention it here. If you’re visiting a character and want to go back to the map, you’ll need to click the map icon in the bottom-left instead.

The ‘Story’ part of a visit is essentially a character’s individual route. I love that we have these in addition to the main story, as it means we get both a common route and one for each love interest. The ‘Chat’ part of a visit is how you raise your affection by touching them and playing games such as rock-paper-scissors or Old Maid. Their reactions to you touching them changes depending on where you touch them and how high your affection level is (I recommend Artem’s tie!).

Summary

That might seem like a lot to learn, but Tears of Themis does introduce each element gradually, and if you’re not sure where to start, there are Rookie Quests and other daily tasks that provide rewards for completing different activities, so you can always check there if you’re lost. Plus, as I said before, most of these additional features aren’t necessary for playing the main story, so you can ignore them in the beginning and just follow the game’s prompts as you progress through each chapter.

I personally like the way the gameplay of Tears and Themis has been designed. The debates between chapters don’t take very long and they use just enough strategy to be interesting without being too complicated or difficult. There are various options that allow you to tweak the amount of time and energy you want to spend on the gameplay versus the story, so there is a nice balance of plot and interaction. I really love the investigative elements that are threaded throughout the chapters, elevating seemingly standard scenes to provide an overall heightened experience.

Final Thoughts

Tears of Themis hasn’t just taken something that works and added their own spin; they’ve created something unique and innovative while still honouring familiar elements from the otome games we know and love. Instead of having the standard story parts interrupted by disruptive, generic minigames, the gameplay and other interactive elements have been incorporated into the chapters themselves to create something cohesive and fluid.

The attention to detail is outstanding. Even when I’m playing Old Maid with Artem in the minigame within the ‘Visit’ minigame, he’s still animated, moving his hands to choose a card, faltering and pausing as he makes his move. There’s a dynamic feeling that you don’t often find in story-based games, largely due to miHoYo opting to use partially or fully animated images rather than stills. When you speak to characters, their faces don’t just switch between a handful of images with different expressions, they move, sometimes even gesturing with their hands, making their body language and facial expressions feel far more natural and evocative.

The CG’s and special scenes within the story are also at least partially animated. Even if it’s just a loop of Artem turning the page on the book he’s reading as the sun streams through his office window and across his face, it’s still exciting and goes to show just how much effort was put into each moment of Tears of Themis. I’m yet to come across anything boring, which each chapter providing something new and exciting that compels me to keep playing, even if it’s just to see how else miHoYo can take a classic formula and push it to new heights.

You’ll like Tears of Themis if you like: mystery/detective stories, drama and intrigue, strategic gameplay combined with compelling storytelling, dynamic and romantic art, bold heroines, innovative game design.

Disclaimer: The non-screenshot images, ‘key features’ list, quotes, and ‘About miHoYo’ information were provided to me by a PR representative from miHoYo. I was also provided with an in-game gift, but this does not affect my opinion in any way.

Ratings

Game Info

Tears of Themis
Genre: Romance Detective
Platform: iOS and Android
Release Date: July 29, 2021
Developer and Publisher: miHoYo
Official Website (EN): https://tot.mihoyo.com/en/
Age Rating: 4+ / Everyone

About miHoYo:
“Tech Otakus Save the World!” In 2012, miHoYo founded its headquarters in Shanghai and released video games such as Genshin Impact, Tears of Themis, and the Honkai Impact series into the world. miHoYo is dedicated to becoming an industry leader in interactive entertainment and development. The company’s persistence and strive for top-quality products have brought forth a wide range of works including games, comics, and light novels. miHoYo is dedicated to building an everlasting user community and sharing its vision with gamers across the world.

For more information, please visit the official website at http://tot.mihoyo.com, Twitter (@TearsofThemisEN), Instagram (@tearsofthemis_en), Facebook (@tearsofthemis.glb), the official Discord server, or the official YouTube channel.

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