The Thaumaturge PS5 Review. Fool’s Theory is a small team that has had its hands in some big names games. In a supporting role, this team helped with developing Divinity: Original Sin 2 as well as Baldur’s Gate III. Then, the next project for this group is the Witcher Remake. You could say that isometric RPGs are a specialty in the Fool’s Theory office. The team’s recent project, The Thaumaturge, is entirely their own creation, and is a game I’ve been watching for a while. Thankfully, my wait was well worth it.
The Thaumaturge Review (PS5) – A Glimpse Into The Past With A Compelling Twist
Strength of Narrative
The Thaumaturge takes place in 1905 in Warsaw. Tensions are high with Russian rule looming large. In the middle of this is Wiktor Szulski, a detective born a thaumaturge. This specialty allows Wiktor to interact with essences left behind on objects as well as contend with supernatural creatures and happenings. While navigating the political climate of 1905 Warsaw, Wiktor returns to his hometown to solve the mystery behind his father’s death.
On a personal note, just like Wiktor I also have an estranged father-something that oddly enough also took place 15 years ago, come to think of it. Either way, I greatly appreciate seeing this kind of negative family relationship portrayed with a hindsight outlook that’s both empathetic yet realistic enough to know that bygones will not always be bygones. Regret still exists, even if in hindsight you know that nothing would change regardless of what you might have done differently.
Visually, character models look solid enough. They don’t rank up there with The Last of Us or God of War, but they are still packed with details. Where they fall short is facial animations. In this way, the game presents itself closer to RPGs from the PS3 in terms of expression. However, that doesn’t keep The Thaumaturge from success. In fact, the voice work does a great deal of the heavy lifting through and through. While it doesn’t always stun, the authenticity of the voiceovers builds up the game’s verisimilitude naturally. In fact, several voiceover cast members hail from Poland. Just knowing that the dev took this kind of effort legitimizes this title even more.
Performance takes some hits here and there. These show up particularly when gameplay follows a cutscene. Performance will stutter, like the game is still loading in even though you have control of Wiktor. This can also cause random glitches, like Wiktor’s clothes or limbs randomly twitching in crazy directions before returning to normal. These issues don’t last long and don’t really affect your ability to enjoy the game, but they appear frequently.
Supernatural Sleuthing
Thaumaturge is an isometric RPG with turn-based combat. Naturally, being an isometric game comes with an overhead camera angle. Navigating each map works well enough since most maps are quite small and easy to move around in. In many places, buildings and other structures that would appear between the camera and Wiktor automatically show a transparent circle around him. So, you don’t lose track of him in these areas. However, in other areas, particularly the bigger zones, those buildings don’t always provide that window to see Wiktor through said buildings. Thankfully, areas with this issue don’t really have much to hide in them. Still, it feels like a bit of an oversight but not one that drastically affects the experience or your ability to play the game.
With that said, you can use Wiktor’s Thaumaturge abilities to sense where objectives and interactables are located. With a press of R2, a path of red pellets briefly appears, leading from Wiktor to wherever you need to go. If an interactable is close enough, red pellets identify it and make it interactable for you. With this, you don’t get lost and it helps you find clues for your investigations. Speaking of, clues play a key role in progression. If you can’t find clues, then Wiktor cannot draw the conclusions necessary to make decisions that move the story forward.
The best part about this, in my opinion, is that Wiktor puts together the conclusions once you find the necessary clues. So, even if you figured it out on your own, you don’t need to tell Wiktor what conclusion to draw. With that said, how you go about navigating the results of the conclusions is up to you. You may know one thing, but you often get other options to twist the narrative for whatever path you choose to take.
Immersion In Combat
Combat itself is rather basic: pick attacks each turn, using abilities and tactics to defeat your opponents. The tactical side of combat comes from managing States and your Salutors, which are the supernatural creatures you capture along the way. Having the wrong State can either make you susceptible to increased damage or prevent you from inflicting damage at all.
Equally so, the game doesn’t throw many variations of this into the mix and it even shows you which Salutor favors your situation. As long as you follow instructions, difficulty isn’t much of an issue, even on balanced difficulty. If you want a challenge, you can up the difficulty. Considering the story heavy nature of the game, a more forgiving combat system benefits the overall flow of the game anyway.
If you should struggle with juggling States, enemies can quickly overtake you. With the proper setup, you can one-shot practically everything in The Thaumaturge. You can even enhance your abilities with additional skills that provide additional benefits, like inflicting greater damage or applying damage over time. These additions absolutely change the game, so applying them proves most beneficial to your success. Even without the proper setup, you can clear most content in a try or two. Either way, if you just use random attacks to progress in combat, you won’t get far very quickly. If you should stumble, though, the game saves at the beginning of each fight. That way, you don’t need to backtrack at all to retry the fight.
If there’s one side to combat that I don’t like, it’s how overly complicated the game makes combat initially feel. Your combat options appear over your target. You then pick if you want to use an attack or skill. Then you pick what kind. These submenus replace the previous menus that appeared above your target. When spelling it out like this, it sounds rather traditional. However, watching the menus move around with your targets somehow makes you think more about something you have always done intuitively in RPGs. After a couple hours, it becomes intuitive and actually quite immersive. Still, combat in the first couple hours feels like more work than it should.
Big Ideas Executed Well
The Thaumaturge does so much right. From the voice work to the narrative to the customizability of combat, your time with Wiktor will be time well spent. Still, combat can feel like more work than it should in the first couple hours, and short-lived performance glitches tend appear after most cutscenes. Finally, in some areas, the isometric angle of the game does not compensate for tall buildings in certain areas, making it hard to navigate in those places. Regardless, none of these things bring down the experience. Wiktor makes for a fantastic lead character in a strong combination of narrative and concepts. The Thaumaturge is a more-than-worthy purchase, even for non-fans of isometric RPGs.
The Thaumaturge is out on PS5 today.
Review code kindly provided by publisher.