The Thaumaturge (2024)

The game catch me by surprised. I never even heard bout the game no its development, just casually stumble it during my RPG search. While i keep my expectation low, 20 hours in and it turns out i enjoying every bit of it.

Its a mix between being a detective , solving mystery and turn based RPG.

Settings :

• Set in 1905 Warsaw,Poland during russia invasion/revolution. I have zero idea about this but the narrative carried out through the game game me some understanding regarding the economic, political and social crisis.

Story :

• Revolve around the MC, Wiktor Szulksi who is a thaumaturgist, a magician that can command solutor (spirit) who trying to solve a mystery surrounding his father's death and a missing grimoire. I basicly reminded of Persona series where u can have awesome monsters in your repertoire to command. I really like this guy, and infact u mold his personality as you like based on choices u made during dialogues. down the line, the choice made impact other people relationship with him and even change the endings. As the result of your actions and choices, you are locked from some responses. There's no right or wrong, just merely consequences.

Gameplay :

• For every missions, you basically have to find clues and sometimes involved a status check (Heart, Mind, Deed, or Word) to be able to perceive it. You are exploring every crook and crannies for some clues/traces that might lead to side quests and hidden quests. After a while i get bored reading everything, and just read the summary after he tied up everything. But i like they keep it simple , u just snap you fingers and it point exactly where to reach. So someone like me who has no patience, thank you for this ! running around like blind man searching for clues would make me quit like every other detective games lol. Oh and u get exp points for every traces you found. You can upgrade your stats by points get from exp, the from there you cna get modifiers to improve you combat skills. And you can catch pokemons, sorry i mean solutors. Some you get through story, some optional and some are hidden.

Combat :

• Now, its a turn based battle and im such a sucker for. Not a strategy tiled turn based, but like traditional JRPG style with some tweaks on it. You have couple of actions to attack, deplete focus points , cursed them with DOT and ult moves. Every one of your salutors has different skills sets and every skills has different window timing means some let u act very fast and some very slow. It very easy to understand but require some strategical approach after you reach some points where enemies has traits that need to be disabled by salutors , have 4 enemies (max) and hit like a bricks.. Sure it gets boring because i think most of the fights pretty easy, and u can brute force after u get strong salutors (Golem just make a pancake of everyone). But nevertheless its still fun and satisfying for me. The movements are pretty simples but combat can be quite slow. You can use any of your solutors freely , super good!! reduce the hassle for setup b4 every battles.

Graphics, Design, Environment

• Damn pretty.. Its using UE5 so it should looks good , i really like the mundane , dark, mystery historical settings.

Sounds

• Sound design and voice acting help bind everything together. They have a really good VA all around, i didnt skipped any of the voiced out lines.. i also learn some of the cursed word in russian... idi na hui ! lmao

Performances

• Occasional bugs and glitched particularly when loading into a new zone... i think had like 2 crashed earlier , but other than that. Totally playable.

Verdict :

• I like it enough that i made a 2nd playthrough (fast). The 1st playthrough full pride, full salutors and rasputin route and 2nd zero pride, some solutors and cotorie routes. I like 2nd one better, im glad i play the 2nd time.
• If you are RPG nerds, definitely checks this one out .
• 8.5/10 . I will keep the developer in my radar. Congrats Fool's theory . Very engaging and fun game.

I really was invested in this game and just finished it after about 30 hours. I will say that if you do not enjoy slow paced story-focused games you will not enjoy this one, because that is what it is. However, if you do and the premise intrigues you I think you will.

It's based in early 1900s Warsaw, which is really a unique setting not usually in video games, and that setting is one of the strongest points to the game and realized very well. The story here is amazing, and the side quests contribute to that story (there are no "fluff" side quests). Even the collectables enhance the story and setting greatly, which is something I appreciate.

The combat in the game is definitely a small part of it (though it happens somewhat often), and I enjoyed it. It's very simple turn based combat, not a lot of customization, but its functional, and breaks up the pacing of the story and investigative beats. I'd prefer a simple but functional turn based combat to a real time one anyday. I found it fun, if simple.

The supernatural elements were super interesting, and if anything, I wish the game did more with them. That would be my main criticism. What's there is very intriguing and the investigation mechanics are simple but not annoying. I just wish they went further in (perhaps darker?) with how the salutors affected Wictor's mental status. They also have your Flaw, Pride, which you can pick in dialogue options, and choosing it more often has consequences to feeding that flaw. I wish you could do more like that with more flaws you collected, but that one was still interesting.

Anyway, I really enjoyed this one.

I really want to love this game, but I'm so conflicted.

The writing is really good, but I'm kinda really bored playing it. And there's a few specific reasons why.

The most glaring thing is sound design. Quite often, the game just has... No music. At all. And when it does, it's often really low-energy, ambient music. It just makes the whole experience feel bleh. The sound effect space is really empty too, with foley in particular frequently missing in combat, dialogue and cinematics. It's very bizarre to be in a busy, crowded social function where the only sound is slow violin background music.

The combat system is really cool, I actually like what it's aiming to do; turn-based JRPG style combat where you control your protagonist and your spirit familiar simultaneously. Trouble is, the combat effects are extremely complicated and difficult to parse, leading to having to spend time reading each move carefully before selecting it. It greatly slows down the pace of battle and makes every decision painful, and not in a compelling way.

I really, really love the themes on display here, but the setting is kinda lame. I feel like I've played so many games set in late 1800s, early 1900s Europe that I'm just kinda over it. While this is an interesting period of history for Poland and the Russian Empire, the writers haven't done a great job setting the stage to make the setting compelling.

I will say, though, that the dialogue and fact-finding elements of this game are PEAK. If the dev takes anything from this experience into their next project, this is absolutely a winning concept.

I'm sad to say it, but I think I'm going to have to drop this game. I want to love it, but it just isn't holding my attention. :/

So I finally, FINALLY, have gotten a chance to play this one.

After months of delay, having to import a copy from overseas, a Provincial election, living out an hotel for work... I can FINALLY sit down and actually play.

First impressions? Mixed, but generally good.

The English dub is... Not very good, all told. There's a massive disparity in the quality of the acting from character to character, and I am presuming they hired actors both in Poland, where the game is made, and from overseas, because some characters have appropriate Polish and Russian accents for the setting, and others, who are meant to be Pols, have American and British accents. It's very disruptive and honestly breaks the immersion for me.

The Polish dub though? From what I can tell, excellent. The emotional range is improved, and there's a lot of nuance to the voicework that doesn't really exist in the deadpan delivery of the English dub.

This game is also certifiable Euro Jank™️, with lots of little technical hiccups and performance stutters. In fact, playing on Quality Mode on Series X is straight-up not recommended, it chugs like a college frat boy at a tailgate party. Still has some stutters and loading hitches on Performance Mode, especially when loading into a new area, but the incredible art direction and vibe here overcome it for me, personally.

The gameplay is... Super interesting. The exploration and narrative segments are definitely pure CRPG, but the battle system, where you control both Wiktor and his Salutor (the spirit he is partnered with) in a really clever turn-based JRPG system is really cool. Attacks are timing-based, and coordinating with your Salutor to work with status effects, interrupts and other shenanigans is really cool, and I'm loving how much variety there is. The battles are sloowwwwwwwww though, and that's something I'm a touch worried about - though the game seems far more narrative-focused overall.

The Thaumaturge is a quality title whose generally compelling narrative and commitment to immersion outweigh it's basic and unimpressive gameplay mechanics and systems.

This game vaguely reminded me of Planescape Torment, a degree of praise I'd normally be hesitant to ascribe to a game, but the end result of the experience (deep immersion in a visceral, distinct period/place and a commitment to choice and consequence) feels familiar to PT.

As a non-spoiler disclaimer I ended up with the objectively worst ending out of many options, but I understood why, and how the choices I had made contributed to the outcome. It felt appropriate, bold and satisfying. Can you ask for more from a passably told, unique story game than feeling connected to the characters (Ligia is the GOAT) and invested in always wanting to see what happens next?

The graphics are surprisingly good for a (AA at most) title priced around ~$30 at launch, the soundtrack has some bangers, almost all cutscene dialog is voice acted to an acceptable standard and there is a shocking amount of historical and real world references tied into the fiction.

With that said it should be stated clearly that the actual gameplay of this game comes down to wandering around fairly pretty isometric Warsaw streets hitting the "pulse to highlight items" button that has become a staple of modern gaming, hitting the interact button on revealed items, and parsing the brief written description of the item before resuming the follow the arrow and sonar pulse items pattern. Amongst the many dialog prompts in the game there are a few notable overt "illusion of choice" moments, that while not more egregious than other titles in the genre, should be noted for people who truly despise this conceit.

The combat is turn based but rudimentary, and a fun puzzle to parse the first 5 times before becoming tedious very quickly. I highly recommend you select 'story' difficulty and sped-up combat animations and just plow through the combat sections if it doesn't resonate with you but you are compelled by the story.

Equally I strongly advocate for skipping the tedious filler 'tertiary' quests the game constantly throws at you. The main story is very strong, as are the few literal side quests. Skip the tertiary (listed distinctly as an 'urban secrets' section of your journal) list of collectables constantly assailing you as you navigate the city.

My playtime clocked in at over 20 hours, but I think an optimal play through focused on the main story, eschewing the hard difficulty combat and skipping the filler tasks, might clock in closer to 12-15 hours, with much more satisfying pacing and overall experience.

So I've been extremely hyped for this game for quite a while now, but when I went on Twitter looking for a firm console release date, I came across the image below.

This is incredibly important and exciting to hear, because The Thaumaturge dives DEEP into Slavic and Eastern European folklore. One of the familiars you can summon, Veles, is actually one of the deities that I, a Slavic Pagan, have devotion to. Veles and mat Zemlya (the Earth Mother) are the two that I primarily show reverence to.

One thing with Slavic Paganism (Rodnovery) is that information on it is... Muddy. Because these beliefs held strong until around 500 AD, well after the forced baptism of Europe, a lot of concepts in Rodnovery were appropriated into Christian mythology - ie, Czernobog and Dazhbog being reassigned (or possibly invented) to be evil and good dieties mirroring Satan and God. A lot of what's been preserved of Rodnovery survived from those East of the Ural Mountains, whose beliefs also intermingled with those of Siberian and Central Asian peoples also inhabiting the region. There is a saying, "Russians wear sunglasses to Church" that alludes to an enduring cultural attachment to the old beliefs; that a lot of Slavs never truly accepted Christianity. So I'm really, really eager to see how this game approaches that.