Tears of Themis Has Finally Released in The West; Has It Improved From Its Closed Beta Period?

The wait is over, and Tears of Themis, MiHoYo’s latest otome title, has been released in the West. This Ace Attorney-esque game had its Closed Beta period back in May of this year, and it’s now officially released in the West after being exclusive to China for a full year. So, as someone who played the Closed Beta, the question is: Have they improved the product based on the given feedback?

In our previous impressions of the game, I mentioned some prevalent grammatical and spelling errors that disrupted tone and story flow. However, I had since shrugged those issues off since the title was still in development. Moreover, even during the limited time period of the Closed Beta, the script received constant revisions. The game’s translations have received qualitative LQA and are immensely more accurate, though the font is still ill-suited because it lacks special character support for words such as Romanée or naïveté.

Another negative factor other players might point out regards the game’s four voice options: Japanese, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, and Korean. During the story, you’ll often hear conflicting voices regarding character names. So, for example, while a character may have a name in English, the Japanese voice will say a completely different one. This is more evident when you hear the names of the four main boys of the cast, such as Marius being addressed as Izumi and Luke as Natsuhiko.

The Closed Beta only went up until Chapter 4 of the main story. For this full version, Chapter 5 was introduced, but only a fragment of it. Part 1 is available now, with Part 2 coming out in 14 days, and Part 3 is releasing in a little over a month from now.

Right as you start the game, however, you’re greeted with two packs to purchase in the game’s Mall, and not to mention, the game has a Purchase Level where the more you purchase, the more rewards you’ll get. I’m honestly surprised at the aggressive push in micro-transactions the developer took here. Maybe this was a common practice in the original Chinese version, perhaps? Who can say?

It isn’t that the game is not perfectly playable without spending a single cent…it is…but that’s if you’re content with waiting days to grind experience chips and evolution materials for the cards. But that’s just Gacha Game 101 at this point, for better…or for worse.

Overall, it seems Tears of Themis has improved considerably from its Closed Beta phase, but there are still notable aspects they can improve upon. Nevertheless, it’s definitely an engaging experience if you enjoy investigation and detective stories and are yearning to wind off with light-hearted interactions complemented by compelling boys.