Thaumaturge Review Impressions - So Far Captivating but Also Flawed

after wrapping up Expeditions of mudr Runners game I got to spend the last couple days deep diving into a little story driven RPG on PC called thur a title by Fool's theory that comes out on the fourth and is about Victor a man who can see the spirit world and in particular the demons are spirits that feed and control emotions and some humans like Victor can use them the salur are these unique combinations and mixes of Scandinavian folklore as well as just all the ghost stories you ever grew up listening to but if you think my God this sounds little like the world's edgiest version of a Persona game you're absolutely right on make sure to subscribe to the channel more reviews coming thge feels like what happens 20 years after the Persona kids leave school when the mental emotional and spiritual drain of them consistently partnering up with demons has come back to absolutely crush them Victor enters the game looking like he got rolled into a barrel of smashed [ __ ] he looks like he's going to die tired disheveled slurring a bit and it's actually sort of awesome because from the very start you're like this dude is in rough shape what happened to him and that really begins the cycle of the storytelling then you get the first vision of one of your salur summons hanging out nearby tapping its cane on the ground like an impatient School master and there's no denying it's quite the start for a title Victor's on the brink of death at the stting of the game and has to return home to refind his connection to the spirits and this is all along this back stop of a huge political revolution so you can use spirit's power to find out secrets about the people around their mer items it's a little ESP a little telekinesis and a whole lot of item reading updates as you continue through the game to core Dimensions as you level up end up giving you skills that can be attached to normal attacks it can lead to Unique combinations like becoming relaxed after punching someone in the gut or becoming super focused after you sck your demon on somebody honestly the idea in and of itself draws a nice line also between upgrading and meaningful cost that a lot of games don't usually have usually you level up based on the spilled blood and gore of your enemy basically powering that plus one to attack by wiping out an entire family line and then spending their points to raise you up while thur isn't exactly different in that way there's something weird and nicely off-putting about doing this and knowing that a special skill has a bad choice or a weird demon gift attached to it and that resonates in this perfect circle back to Victor's questionable start at the game when he has a lack of connection with those same Spirits if he was so sick and almost dying because he'd lost connection what exactly does that mean for him what kind of man is he and if you like your fictions that lie a little to say a lot thge may actually be your game when it comes to the combat its turn base this lets Victor and the spirits go into battle and Victor can see what others will do on their attacks and he can choose which abilities to use and beat them at their own game you can see what timing they'll use and some of your moves some of your attacks will interrupt those you also won't see a lot of games at least at first that has you fisticuff in somebody in the short ribs then have a demon turn them into a rack of ribs in the exact same turn but you will hear another fascinating way in which they tie everything together is that everyone gets their turns in combat you can switch out your demon at any time though with some enemies being resistant to some attack types meaning some Demon types what I loveed to here is that those you would expect to say not react to fear are exactly the ones that are resistant to it and that kind of spiritual attack it's a nice narrative tie-in that extends into combat and back out around when it comes to the music this does the same thing it's a bit offbeat it mixes many Slavic folklore style musical tracks this sound like they're from those times and Carries that oldtime feel it's not really listenable in the same way that probably a lot of other game soundtracks may be but it's accurate to try to reflect that time frame and I think it works very well when it comes to the sound itself it's not bad it actually has rain and wind and the crunch of items underfoot when someone's trying desperately to hide an item from the police that they dropped environmentals at different locations do speak well to those locations and tie everything in pretty nicely I would say that I wasn't overly impressed but so far pretty good sound when it comes to the voices I thought they were all done very well and while I can see people arguing for hours about what some popular cult figure or political figure sounded like or how close these are to it I like that the voices are there and that they went ahead and tried to attempt it at the same time there are some grammar issues and some speaking issues that make the game feel a little bit like it's translated from another language which most likely some of this is but it ends up coming off in English there's a couple sentences that just don't make a lot of sense and it looks like more mistakes than it was some kind of translation graphically the game is a bit all over the place as well you may travel through some amazing looking areas but it's a simple Alleyway with nowhere to go no one to talk to and another simple goalpost loading screen icon at the end of it other times larger areas way into the side offer you these moments to see characters discussing politics and doing activities it can lead to a bit of an uneven feel like two different teams worked on different spots in the game some character models look fine and the so-called demon designs are unique enough to draw attention even if a cane wielding impatient demon always seeming like he's expecting you to get along with it like a school teacher in ends up just consistently slashing enemies with swords or you have another that's a mix between a Reaper and a man thing it howls to cause fear and then latches onto enemies throats so it's not without its very cool moments performance-wise at this time the game is actually running very well 4K native 60 above and beyond with no real issues frame generation actually causes a bit of a stutter I noticed now when it comes to the combat in the gameplay and everything put together while it is pretty basic it is not boring but it has disappointed me a bit in the core narrative mechanic and let me describe this because we've seen it in some games here it tries something new I'm not quite sure it hits the game focuses so heavily on the flaws of humans it also means that if you don't want to induce them during conversations because most of the answers here either have a flaw attributed to them again flaws aren't always bad it's just the game's term for powering of the mystical energies but there's not a lot of other choices which makes it feel a bit like you're either Switzerland or Russia momentarily saying nothing then dropping withering lines on someone about their health that comes across as oddly off base and it happens a lot in the game the player is going to sort of end up having just either a neutral idea of the playthrough or a very aggressive one that ends up really hammering into the flaws not really exposing a flexibility in the number of elements you can choose you can either say I'm going to be neutral or screw it and go nuts and just pick whatever option is connected to a flaw to end up building power in it that means that so far the neutral reactions really just feel like they're directly opposite the more aggressive and passionate ones and there isn't a lot of Middle Ground here so instead of your Paragon Renegade and other you really feel like it's other or Renegade thers tries to skirt that line between a turn-based RPG light and a disco elisium character-based and world-based deep theological discussion or at least some rhetoric and a treaties on hard life creating and powering different Magics I think that's cool but it does feel a bit odd in the narrative moments for every weird and spiritually interesting discussion and unique idea there's also a vast swath of walking around the game game world with almost nothing interactable and not really even flavor text on most of the items currently its strengths are a totally unique timeline and worldview interesting demon best friends and a skill system that elevates somewhat mundane combat if you buy into the fiction but at the same time it is really basic in a lot of the locations as well as the narrative Styles I just wish there was a lot more choice for what you could say making me feel like when I really went for it I was actually going for something I feel like there's going to be a lot of ifs in this game if you buy into the fiction if you can stand a lot of walking around if you can stand a lot of non-interactive areas if if if if you get this I'd love to know what you think the game's priced to what seems to be a fair price at $34 for a 20 plus hour game of this kind since I haven't beaten it I can't say if that cost is going to be returned nor if it's enjoyable enough despite the cost I can say that despite my issues I'm still playing it curiosity often trumps complications and mystery of circumstances in which the game sometimes Exel at is enough to keep me moving forward more reviews coming your way check out the podcast check out the patron it always helps or become a YouTube member where you get Discord access peace out

Channel: ACG

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Keywords: acgreview, angrycentaurgaming, ACG, gaming news, acg reviews, video games, angry review, acg impressions, videogame reviews, videogame review, game review, acg review, games, gamenews, podcast, the best gaming podcast, Thaumaturge Review Impressions, thaumaturge revie, thaumaturge gameplay, thaumaturge impressions

Id: Nd3V3ngVmNQ

Length: 8min 12sec (492 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 04 2024