The Thaumaturge

Лайк за сеттинг и красоты Варшавы. Дизлайк за однообразную боёвку без глубины и вариативности (она скорее карточная, чем тактическая) и унылый геймплей, где вы 70% времени бегаете туда-сюда по небольшим локациям и прожимаете ПКМ для сканирования местности (аналог ведьмачьего чутья), остальное же время либо читаете диалоги (к слову, написаны они нормально), либо душитесь от боёвки. 5/10. За Империю!

The Thaumaturge has possessed me, quickly becoming one of my favourite games. Yet it’s not without flaws and certainly won’t appeal to everyone. You play as Wiktor Szulski, a native of Warszawa – or Warsaw, the capital of Poland, a kingdom that ceased to exist in 1795. Since the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, despite two countrywide uprisings, Warsaw continues to be under Imperial Russian control. Use of the Polish language is restricted, the nation’s political and religious freedoms limited, all constantly kept in check by tsarist authority. In this difficult time, Wiktor (born to a Russian mother and Polish father) grows up in a privileged class of an oppressed nation. After a tragic incident, the teenage Wiktor is sent away by his father Stanisław to live in Paris. Fifteen years pass, the 1905 Revolution sweeps across the Russian Empire and Congress Poland is one of its rebellious hotspots. Circumstances force Wiktor to return to his hometown amidst all the chaos. Wiktor’s troubled relationship with his father remains a central point throughout this story. Not least due to the ‘gift’ that Wiktor inherited from Stanisław: the ability to form pacts with ‘salutors’, strange paranormal entities worshipped or feared across the ages by different cultures as deities and demons. Salutors allow Wiktor to invade the minds of other human beings and influence them. These arcane practices are known as ‘thaumaturgy’. Yet Wiktor suffers each time he tries to tame another salutor, so he seeks out the help of the mystic Rasputin. This is one of the few real persons featured in the game, where utter fantasy meets carefully researched history. Despite Wiktor’s sour disposition towards Warsaw, we can see the developers’ love for this city in how much care they put into creating such a stunning digital rendition of it. With its beautiful Old Town, Warsaw was known as ‘the Paris of the East’. Though there is plenty of amazing architecture to be found, the reality was not always as glamorous as the romanticised view seen in Bernardo Bellotto’s veduta. Fool’s Theory, the studio behind The Thaumaturge, did not shy away from the unsavoury aspects of life in an increasingly industrialised urban centre in the early 20th century. Here, the grandeur of splendid main streets and magnificent townhouses is juxtaposed with the squalor and poverty of Varsovian slums. Wiktor can find points of interest, where he might order a plate of hot pierogi or listen to a busker play the balalaika, inspiring him to share some thoughts with the player and pencil a quick sketch of the scene. All of this serves to create an enthralling atmosphere that is by far one of the game’s strongest points. The developers did take some creative liberties, such as including electric trams that would in reality only be introduced to Varsovian roads some three years after the game takes place. Small changes like this, however, are understandable and only help to capture the specific aura of this setting (nowadays, it would be impossible to imagine Warsaw – or indeed any larger Polish city – without trams). All of this results in a brilliant vision of Warszawa that feels authentic even in situations when it is not. It shows you a Warsaw that no longer exists; by this, I mean not only the countless buildings that would just a few decades later be destroyed during the German occupation, but also the city’s diverse society. In the Polish dub, characters speak using the Varsovian dialect that has basically died out following two world wars. This is exactly why I recommend players select Polish voice acting in the game’s settings, as most of the cast deliver a great performance. Given this unique background, Polish dialogue with bits of Russian, Yiddish, and German mixed in makes much more sense than English spoken with mismatched accents. Socio-politically, we are presented with a cross-section of the Mermaid City. You will come across decadent bourgeois youths and pompous Russian aristocrats, Polish revolutionaries and Okhrana secret police informants, socialist agitators and streetwise scoundrels, as well as Varsovian Jews from all walks of life. Fortunately, all of the important individuals are nuanced – no ethnic group is presented as solely good or evil. Even the various political groupings are shown in a fairly realistic manner. Ultimately, we are all human and thus flawed beings. Despite heavy themes of social unrest, ethnic strife, esotericism, and the occult, the game is quite a bit more accessible than some of its mysterious inspirations. It offers moments of levity via references to relevant memes or nods to humorous aspects of 21st century Polish culture. At the same time, it remains significantly more eloquent than the vast majority of video games out there. The Polish version is particularly well-written, at times nigh on poetic. Though this perhaps shouldn’t come as a surprise, as Fool’s Theory was founded by experienced specialists of the Polish games industry who previously worked on the Wiedźmin (The Witcher) series. As for gameplay, The Thaumaturge is a role-playing game with turn-based combat and looots of reading. The combat system, though it felt repetitive to me at first, gets better and more fun as you unlock more salutors and abilities. Although there are plenty of cool cutscenes and some of the brutal animations are delightfully grisly to witness, this is generally not a game for those who lack patience. It really does take its time to set the scene, build tension, mould character arcs, and create that engrossing atmosphere. Definitely for those who enjoy doing plenty of reading to deeply ground you in the world. There is a more investigative side to Wiktor’s powers as well. A detective-style gameplay element lets you analyse each area, picking up objects and discovering traces of feelings felt by those who last held them. This is reminiscent of isometric perspective adventure games, and Warsaw’s meticulously crafted environments only add to this delightfully old-school feeling. However, the mechanic itself is quite straightforward, so those expecting serious puzzles will be disappointed. Nevertheless, inquisitive players who like to explore every nook and cranny are rewarded with clues which allow Wiktor to draw conclusions that later unlock new options in dialogue and different conclusions to quests. The game’s weakest side is technical. Though the maps are beautiful and extremely detailed, some of the character models and animations look dated. The game crashed a couple of times for me and the frame rate can get choppy, but fortunately I experienced very little stuttering and it was all very much playable. Minor visual glitches (like an NPC floating in a sitting position slightly above his stool or Wiktor suddenly twitching his head a different way) happen occasionally. Some typos can be found in the game’s text, but not frequently. Other minor annoyances occur more regularly, e.g. higher resolution textures routinely taking half a second longer to load on some character models. Ultimately, none of that soured my experience with The Thaumaturge enough to really sully my opinion of it. From matters of women’s rights and strained family relations to secret societies and dreams of working class liberty, the game tackles fascinating dilemmas and topics both specific to Congress Poland and universal to the human experience. Historians, sociologists, and other geeks will love all this game has to offer. I did not even write about Wlazły and Syczyński’s stellar soundtrack, which is a marvellously eclectic mix of Polish/Slavic, Balkan, klezmer, and Caucasian influences with some blues and electric guitars thrown in. An appropriately remarkable concoction that perfectly encapsulates the city of contrasts. This is an eccentric game. If it falls within your interests or you simply enjoy obscure Eastern European games dealing with complex issues, then you’ll love it.

意外的挺好玩的，本质是个比较慢热偏文字剧情的crpg，人物刻画、文字描述、地图美术、包括异界种的设计这些都不错，配了一个中规中矩不太复杂的回合制玩法，有相当细致的结局分支拆分，而且很多是过程选项影响，流程里任务的选择结果也各不相同，反正选择不算丰富，但基本不会出现怎么选都一个结果的情况。在知道后续的情况下，还是挺有动力二周目打个理想结局的 最大的问题是部分选择需要属性加点到位，而属性加点的经验值来源很大一部分来自跑图收集，大量这种半强迫的收集极大的拖累了整体流程，刚到华沙的一段时间里差点给劝退 最后特别颁奖给好兄弟阿保利茨吧，这个黑道+幼驯染+小白脸的基友设定太典了，和主角完美形成没头脑+不高兴组合，结局还单独给了他分支。[spoiler] 就谁懂保卫处长堵门，下一秒基友一个大跳出来的救赎感啊 [/spoiler]

Game is very linear, additional quests are simple and doesnt really matter, there is a lot of fighting no matter if it is logical in that quest line or not. The story itself is something, you just dont care about every single character in the game. For most of the quests you just run around spamming right click and clicking stuff to proceed, I think it could have had more depth to it. So basically mediocre RPG, with very absurd and not interesting story.

✔ unique setting and atmosphere - Poland under Imperial Russia rule ✔ quality of writing in polish ✔ deep, believable, interesting characters and story ? combat is definitely secondary to the walking/talking/reading simulator part ? raising stats is really important, especially if you don't want to get locked out of options later on ✘ combat is so-so at best, somewhat repetitive and often unnecessarily tacked on ✘ uneven difficulty - it can spike so much for some fights that I had to lower difficulty for a big, otherwise it was numerically impossible to beat ✘ too much padding - the game is a great experience, why was it diluted like this?

I really wanted to like The Thaumaturge but it's just not clicking for me. There's a strong foundation but the game fails to deliver on the core aspects of the genre someone would buy a game like this for. My biggest complaint is the story. Any RPG should have a good setup that keeps the story moving forward: Find the water chip, find Yennefer, Find the man that killed you, etc. In The Thaumaturge the driving point of the story is to find your father's murderer (?) except we never meet the character's father and the protagonist absolutely loathes his father. Don't get me wrong even if the story setup is weak you can definitely create a good story, but the stakes are consistently so low that it feels more like I'm playing a Persona spin-off set in Poland where the main aim is to go around doing random tasks and talking to people. My second disappointment is the actual role-playing mechanics. With a maximum of 4 choices per dialog the chance to role play is already pretty low. Add to that fact that you're mostly just increasing 4 stats and stat checks are EXTREMELY rare it doesn't feel like there's a lot of choice to make. You're able to decide wether you want to reply in a prideful manner (which feeds your pride sin) but the mechanic isn't really explained so I don't actually know what it does. In general the role play feels like it boils down to deciding to be a ♥♥♥♥ or not. Unfortunately gameplay and quests aren't much better. Most tasks require to press "RT" to activate your Thaumaturge vision, find all the required objects in the environment to unlock observations which then unlock dialog options. It's a fun mechanic... For about an hour. Unfortunately that ends up being THE WHOLE gameplay outside of combat. You do it over and over for every single step of a quest. The game literally points you to where these interactables are so the gameplay literally boils down to: 1. Press RT 2. Go where the game tells you 3. Find the clue and interact with it 4. Press RT to find the next clue If there were hints to where clues are so that you wouldn't have to constantly be guided by an objective marker or if there was more chance of missing important things maybe it would work. But as it is... it doesn't and it's repetitive and boring. I did really like the combat, it's a fun take on turn-based RPGs and on the highest difficulty it's actually pretty challenging.

受不了，怎么游戏里也能看到大白天随地小便的人？ 剧情后期有段强制过场动画：男主和好兄弟一起在华沙人来人往的大街边并排随地撒尿。 这个镜头是想表达兄弟情吗？ --- 还有段主线强制剧情是男主和好兄弟晚上在性交易场合消费，但是没给钱，大白天被皮条客追到家里讨债，最后是男主姐姐付的钱…… 游戏有一些优点，但是上面说的2点过于逆天，对我来说这游戏已经是负分。

Gameplay got boring fairly quickly. if you're big into the atmosphere, go for it. otherwise, the story, while interesting, is pretty poorly executed and often doesn't logically handle you doing things in different orders. or give you good reasons for why you're doing what you're doing.