The Thaumaturge Reviews

I wasn't sure what to expect from this game when I first saw it, but I'm glad I gave it a chance. The narrative, characterization, world building and writing are definitely the strong points of this game, and I love the setting and tone the devs went for, and can see the passion they have for this setting and world. The magic system, as its explained (excluding the liberties taken in combat) felt very grounded and real, and the writers took care not to make Thaumaturgy overly powerful in the story. The story is very real, grounded in reality, and doesn't shy away from hard topics. The game isn't afraid to let the player make choices they might come to regret later. Some highlights of the game for me are the secrets and side-quests that show the small joys that can be found in such a dark and dreary setting, along with the lovely sketches you get. The flavor text for various items you interact with through your powers of observation and thaumaturgy are beautifully written. Very vivid language and expressive prose that paint a picture in your mind of how Wiktor sees the world, and the objects he interacts with. Wiktors relationship with his sister is very heart-warming, cheeky, and well acted and written. Now, the game is not perfect, and I feel if the game were to ever try a sequel, it could be improved in some of the aspects of combat, cutscenes, facial models/expressions/animation, and exploration. Some of the voice direction and dialogue was also a bit off at times, in part due to some slang and english/polish sayings being a bit lost in translation possibly. I chalk most of this up to budgeting and time constraints though, and I'm still very impressed by the game they were able to make, and the tightly-knit story they've crafted with care and passion. I would definitely be excited to see another game set in this universe, or even a continuation of Wiktors story. I will definitely be looking out for the future games this developer releases.

love this game. it's very story-focused, which im a complete sucker for, and if you switch up your strategy from time to time the combat feels fresh. honestly, my only frustrations were with a couple dialogue choices and how you can be locked out of getting some collectibles if you arent following a guide. otherwise, def reccomend it! (also runs well despite my computer having the minimum requirements, woohoo)

Very fun concept, the combat system is really really fun once you get to customising your loadout. Investigating clues and piecing them together is great too But a lot of stuff about this game feels janky. The voice acting is really varied, and often switches between the actor's native accent and their attempt at a Polish accent, and a lot of the Polish words end up being lost on me because of this. There's also a strange element of 'is this meant to be open world or not?', since zones are limited in size and not particularly memorable or interesting to explore. Lots of it feels like its missing on budget or time or something, like with a bit more care it could be a seamless experience.

To be honest, coming across this game by accident, I wasn't expecting to enjoy this game so much. From the setting to the combat and the witty dialogue, I found every bit of the game interesting. Wiktor played such an amazing role in his response to everything and everyone around him, especially how his smartass temperament got him into all different kinds of situations. His pride being both a tool to grow and a burden that pushes him further from those he trusts makes you wonder how the choices I make will alter the future. I don't often find games that I jump right back into after beating it, so I certainly got my money's worth, considering I plan to 100% it!

An interesting and charming game. Beautifully rendered with well-designed map navigation and gameplay. It is a bit difficult to discern where the story is headed, but the characters are fun and the morel conundrums presented are compelling. There is a small learning curve, but it is worth the time. Recommended.

This game... it's like if somebody tells you about this fantastic story with epic visuals and sound design. Then you get excited to go to the theater to see it. But then your friend takes you to an actual theater. Not bad, but not what you expected. You sit down expecting an intense and dramatic performance. But instead, it's a guy reading a book to a group of a few of you in a circle in the main lobby. An amazing story, setting, and characters... that somehow gets completely lost on boring combat and repetitive mechanics. What you experience in the first hour of the game is what you experience for the entire game. If you're okay with the Ubisoft method of just endlessly repeating the thing you've been doing, then this might be a home run for you. I have just had zero desire to pick it back up after putting it down the first time. 6/10

I almost hate to give it a negative, but there are only two choices. It's imaginative, pretty unique, a rare genre, nice artwork, and high production value. But, the game pace is just too slow. And the quests get repetitive. Running back and forth over mostly the same areas. I've made it to Act 2, with probably half the game left to play and gave up on it. Feel like I got my monies worth from experiencing it this far, and feel like it's close to being a classic, just IMHO needed a bit more work on the game play.

The Thaumaturge is an adventure game featuring turn based combat, set in Warsaw, 1905. Player character Wiktor Szulski is a kind of mage who can sense memories and emotions of people by touching an object which belongs to them. He can also capture demons (called salutors) which are invisible to most people, and use their powers during combat. [H1]Gameplay (medium quality)[/H1] • Most quests play like a detective style investigation, where the player must explore the area, talk to NPCs, and find clues which unlock more dialogue options or identify the location of where to go next. • However, this is less interesting than it sounds. In practice, you just have to run around spamming right mouse to sense important objects or pieces of paper, and then left click on them to get the information. The player doesn’t have to interpret the clues at all, Wiktor will always know what to do next once you’ve found all the clues. • As you’re exploring the city, you’ll frequently be attacked by thugs, police, soldiers, etc. And some quests lead to boss fights where you’ll need to defeat and capture salutors who have possessed civilians. • Combat is turn based, and the turn order for the player and enemies is shown on a timeline at the top of the screen. Each attack or ability takes a certain length of time to perform, and usually weaker attacks happen quicker than stronger attacks. • Your salutors can also attack or use abilities during combat. Only one salutor can be active, but you can swap them at the start of each turn. • Some abilities apply status effects such as bleed, which deals damage over time, or you could delay or even cancel the enemy’s next action. Some enemies have resistances to status effects, or regenerate health each turn. These traits can usually be removed by attacking them with a specific salutor. • Your attacks and abilities can also be upgraded with special effects such as double damage, self heal for each bleeding enemy, cancel enemy attack if they’re bleeding, etc. This can allow you to set up some strategies, for example I would often start by applying bleed to all enemies, and then use my other attacks which had bonuses triggering off bleed. • Combat was fairly balanced on the normal difficulty. I only had problems with a couple of boss fights which involved several enemies applying bleed and other negative statuses to me. However, one salutor has an ability which protects the player from statuses, so I just needed to change tactics to constantly use that protection to stay alive while I slowly took out the enemies myself. [H1]Story (low quality)[/h1] • Main story is very slowly paced. For many hours, there’s no sense of an overall goal or a primary antagonist to defeat [spoiler](although I had my suspicions about a couple of characters)[/spoiler]. Wiktor has to return home to attend his dad’s funeral with his sister, and afterwards for a long time you just progress from one minor task to another while looking for a missing book. • Localisation is poor. Dialogue often feels like its missing something in translation, with many examples of unusual grammar, while sometimes not making sense at all. • The script also does that thing where characters keep randomly inserting foreign words into their sentences so for example even if you're playing with English voices and English subtitles, if you don't also speak Polish / Russian / Spanish / German, you won't always understand what is being said. • Conversations with NPCs usually have dialogue choices. Some choices are marked as "pride", which is Wiktor’s character flaw relating to his salutor. These choices often feel aggressive or arrogant, and because I usually try to play as a nice/friendly guy, I found that I was locked out of many dialogue choices later in the game because I didn’t have enough pride points. Sometimes I only had one available dialogue choice, which meant the conversations were basically playing themselves. • Voice acting is very poor. [h1]Technical (medium quality)[/h1] • It took me 20 hours to complete the main story and most of the side quests. • I didn’t have any problems with bugs or crashes. [h1]Recommendation[/h1] While the turn based combat can sometimes feel tactical, unfortunately I really didn’t enjoy the poor quality story. My recommendation is to avoid playing The Thaumaturge, especially because there are so many other better games available.

I loved this game. I was hooked — the world, the style, the characters, all of it. It gave me something to look forward to every day. But now it’s broken, and the developers haven’t done a thing to fix it. It crashes on startup with a fatal error: BulkData compressed header read error. This package may be corrupt! I reinstalled it three times, verified files, cleared saves, reset settings, killed overlays, disabled antivirus, tested memory, launched it outside of Steam, even tried to manually redownload the files from Steam’s depot system. Nothing fixed it. The .exe didn’t even exist in one of the installs. I spent hours troubleshooting this. It’s not my system. The game’s data is corrupt or mispackaged, and the devs haven’t acknowledged it or provided a single fix. What hurts most? I’m dying. This isn’t just a hobby for me. I don’t know how much time I’ve got left. I chose to spend it on this game because it gave me joy. Now it’s gone, and no one seems to care. If you’re thinking about buying it, just know: even if you fall in love with this world like I did, they might still take it away from you — and leave you with silence.

This game is SO. INTERESTING The story begins in a small rural village in Poland where your main character is investigating the presence of a spirit that has latched onto a villager and is sowing some chaos. Visually, tonally, musically, it's super reminiscent of Witcher 3, in the best way. After you solve this little case, you scoot over to Warsaw, which in 1905 is of course developed and modern, and under Russian influence. There's a shift to a modern political tone which I care for less, only because I prefer a less urban space, although the city is beautiful and the art is easy to appreciate. I do, however, love any kind of historical fiction if you inject supernatural elements into it. Did anyone play that PS2 JRPG series called Shadow Hearts? The Thaumaturge VERY much reminded me of those games; the turn-of-the-century settings, making pacts with demons, a kind of gothic vibe, light turn-based combat, a certain historical scoundrel bein super sussy, all good things. Quite a bit like Disco Elysium, as well, in spending most of your time running around talking to folks, looking for clues, interrogating weird little freaks, making morally ambiguous decisions (if you please), etc. Only complaint is there's too much combat. It's a new and interesting system, but it gets old fast. You are frequently accosted by guys who wanna kick your ass for one reason or another (mostly folks just hate thaumaturges) and you typically have the choice of fighting or talking them down. Talking them down requires either the discovery of clues/information, or using upgraded skills to manipulate them into complacency. For some reason, only fighting grants EXP and thus, fighting is the choice you will make every time. Why? Stupid. Otherwise, love. Special shoutout to the sound design for the salutors. Mwah