Tahira: Echoes of the Astral Empire, a visually appealing and beautifully presented tactical turn-based RPG

Tahira: Echoes of the Astral Empire is another tactical RPG on Linux so I took a look at the game thanks to my PR contacts.

First thing: It loads perfectly fine on my dual-monitor setup, as a constant source of annoyance in other titles it's really pleasing they got it right.

You play as Tahira, the princess of a fallen kingdom set in the far future where it seems humanity has reverted into a medieval dark age. It's a great setting and the game will constantly surprise you. It's nice to see another female protagonist in a serious setting like this!

Tahira is a story-rich strategic RPG that has impressed me rather a lot, especially since it was built by a team of only three people. I've played games built by much bigger teams that completely failed to hook me in, but Tahira has captured my interest from the get-go.

What I like about Tahira is that while it is story-rich and has a fair amount of text, the text itself is nicely broken up into small pieces to not overwhelm you and it gives it a nice pace.

The game has no random "filler" battles, the entire experience will keep the story progressing and it is quite a refreshing experience.

The scene where you see your home Avestan under siege is incredible, even with the simple graphical style I was still taken back by the scene.

The combat in the game is quite a surprise too, and feels quite a bit like The Banner Saga in its execution. Units have multiple abilities with standard attacks and specials, and you can also gain a bonus for having multiple units adjacent to an enemy when attacking.

The special moves are all quite well done mechanically too, you may want to use a staff with a special beam weapon to hit multiple enemies, or use a sword drive to bash a unit into another one, this will damage both and possibly stun an enemy too.

Some of the battles can take quite a while too, since you can command up to 20 characters all at once.

The story is actually quite brutal at times, but it's really enthralling and Whale Hammer Games did a fantastic job of it!

So far I have been very impressed with everything in Tahira: Echoes of the Astral Empire. The writing is pretty good, the visuals while simple are pleasing, it has good sound effects, nice smooth animations and the Linux port is totally solid as far as I can see.

Give it a try and tell me what you think!

You can grab Tahira: Echoes of the Astral Empire on GOG and Steam. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.