A gripping page-turner of an adventure. The entire experience is marred by poor animation transitions, or rather the lack thereof, and various instances of clipping fabrics, character heads spazzing out wildly, buttons on coats floating where they shouldn't, and whatever other minor presentation blemishes escape my present recollection. Such as the various instances of pop-in.
What I'm getting at is that this is a loveable piece of jank that I look forward to re-experiencing someday in order to angle for different outcomes.
I found the combat system very easy, even on Challenge difficulty, only wiping twice throughout the entire campaign, but it provided enough variancy in the encounters that I managed to keep entertained. I find random encounters so distasteful largely in part due to how rote and routine they become after the optimal series of commands is discovered. Thankfully Thaumaturge seemed to be comprised entirely of hand crafted encounters of admittedly samey ruffians. From one encounter to the next I often felt the need to evaluate for a moment before committing to a plan of attack that might be very different than the input order I employed in the previous encounter.
Wiktor was a wonderful protagonist to puppeteer. With plenty of opportunities to relish in substantiated pride, regret, compassion, a whole gamut of compelling emotional drama with which to weave a personalized journey through this lovingly detailed rendition of Warsaw wherein demons and warlocks are engaged in webs of intrigue.
It bears mentioning that beyond the combat there's little to no game here besides the dialogue tree. Investigation and deduction are performed automatically by the objective wisps, leaving "clues" to serve the purpose of flavor-text dispensers. It'll lack mass-appeal to the general gaming audience much like any other visual novel.
If this gets a round of polish patches I expect it to enshrine itself as being quite good. It's the sort of game that's best experienced when you're in no real hurry to get anywhere and want both a nice book and a nice mini-series to occupy your time.
What I'm getting at is that this is a loveable piece of jank that I look forward to re-experiencing someday in order to angle for different outcomes.
I found the combat system very easy, even on Challenge difficulty, only wiping twice throughout the entire campaign, but it provided enough variancy in the encounters that I managed to keep entertained. I find random encounters so distasteful largely in part due to how rote and routine they become after the optimal series of commands is discovered. Thankfully Thaumaturge seemed to be comprised entirely of hand crafted encounters of admittedly samey ruffians. From one encounter to the next I often felt the need to evaluate for a moment before committing to a plan of attack that might be very different than the input order I employed in the previous encounter.
Wiktor was a wonderful protagonist to puppeteer. With plenty of opportunities to relish in substantiated pride, regret, compassion, a whole gamut of compelling emotional drama with which to weave a personalized journey through this lovingly detailed rendition of Warsaw wherein demons and warlocks are engaged in webs of intrigue.
It bears mentioning that beyond the combat there's little to no game here besides the dialogue tree. Investigation and deduction are performed automatically by the objective wisps, leaving "clues" to serve the purpose of flavor-text dispensers. It'll lack mass-appeal to the general gaming audience much like any other visual novel.
If this gets a round of polish patches I expect it to enshrine itself as being quite good. It's the sort of game that's best experienced when you're in no real hurry to get anywhere and want both a nice book and a nice mini-series to occupy your time.
4 Comments
Is the story really that good?
@RedBackLoggd I'd say it's much better than the standard video game fare, but could definitely have been more fleshed out or better delivered in certain spots. I cared less for the overarching narrative and more for all the different character interactions and side stories. It's a wonderful period piece.
Interesting, thanks man.
Detectivefail
1 month ago