I haven't really gotten the mood to play CRPGs in general, I know I checked out games like Planetscape Torment or heard of Inxile's somewhat sequel to that. It's fascinating now that am trying out an eastern European title with so many intriguing core concepts.
Published by the guys who made everybody's favorite city building/survival strategy game, Frostpunk. The Thaumaturge is sipping deep into the revolution era's demon epidemic, and there's only one kind that are called for the job. Taking place in the beginning of the 20th century Poland before the revolution took over, with the Tsar's fallout.
And why is that the intro? Well, I kind of also mention my interest in playing east European titles due to the unique nature of how they're designed. It's not as esoteric as it used to be, but most of them combine grounded mechanics with character and world rich stories. I.E: Witcher trilogy.
Yes, that's Grigori Rasputin. He's the first main character I meet in the game, and he's so much fun. But more on that later, I play as a Thaumaturge named Wiktor Szulski, who has a bit of a temper and family problems. He also prides himself in his role, and how I use that will effect the game.
Seeing the obvious influences of CRPGs, it's nice to go through the dialogues as if am pulling as much information from the NPCs as possible. For a grouch, am pretty tacit. Info is key in this game, as his role also gives him latent abilities to sense objects that are connected to their owners.
The mechanic around this involves spamming the right mouse as red ashes burst out of him, till something glitters as it seemingly highlights the object to interact. Based on context, it connects to 4 kinds of sigils; Heart, Mind, Deed, and Word. Finding enough will help him reach conclusions, which he can use to his advantage. It's like being a private investigator with powerful clairvoyancy.
Presentation wise, the lack of polish and the claypot like character design kind of takes away my immersion, especially the facial animation. This was made with UE5 btw, and it's puzzling how it looks like this. But hey, it's almost 90% functionally a video game.
And what you might consider cool these days is very subjective. In this case, best way to be invested into it is to read the dialogues, follow it's story, and sort of immerse into the old proletariat times. Right before the Marxist-Leninist ideologies mostly took over. That and hunting demons.
And yeah, there's combat too. Fighting involves making the scenario conducive to win since my character can easily be killed if he doesn't do well. It's turn-based, and I have both my character and his salutor's turn. Salutor's being the supernatural being that is under his control. Using various skills with passives and bonus attributes unlocked through progressing to combat my foes.
Though, using my magical means to lower their focus is where these battle changes. Like, decreasing their focus points till it reaches zero pretty much breaks their turn and leaves them exposed. Where high damaging finishing moves become available to use.
So, to put it this way, it's simply designed yet has a complexity inextricably linked to unlocking my skill points from these 4 rows. I want to investigate something, and look into object of interests, there's skill requirements like these, and for reasons as well.
I can't really explain it, but from hindsight I do get how it's working. This also affects dialogue options too. I have to constantly spam that button to find these objects as well, adding more to my case before coming to the conclusions. Sometimes I have to interact with another NPC to get more info too. I am not explaining all this for the sake of explaining either.
It's just the more I kept playing, the more these concepts open up to new avenues of experiences. You come to the conclusion of your case, and then a battle ensues. Where you have to fight the perpetrator and the salutor that influences them, like me fighting villager mobs.
Combat itself is really fun to experiment with, I don't feel like I have everything figured out and under control, but doing my best and coming with the best possible results is quite fun. And I kind of missed that turn-based gameplay since Library of Ruina.
The salutor I've unlocked from Deed row is the one I got from that fight. Unlocking more avenues of newer abilities sort of unique to that one, like easily making ways to make my enemies suffer in few turns. Those guys have it coming, sometimes they be the dictator's own soldiers putting their foot down on the people. Also, being part of history with a badass is quite something.
During investigations, I get mental feedback and codex that can used in case of questioning anyone. It goes a long way, especially when you land in Warsaw, his home after he received the news that his father passed away. Majority of the game's main quest is spent investigating it.
This game world has a lot going on, mimicking the real life stories of the Russian oppression before communism came around. Especially somewhere like Poland. Even pamphlets spreading hate mongering for Thaumaturges were spreading around by anti groups.
As much as combat seems fun and interesting, it's only touched at a basic level and there isn't anything new introduced after the first two hours. I have to make most of my fun by upgrading myself and have a very good reason to be invested in its story. Which isn't that hard considering what it is offering overall. The writing is very grounded, overall with a somber storytelling.
I do like the characters, as well as Warsaw and how it oozes in rich historical portrayal for the era. Also, somewhere in-between I have to go to a Soiree, and was instructed in getting a new hairdo and facial cut. Though, this part was like San Andreas level of immersion breaking.
I know it's a video game, and it's not perfect either for one taking place in early 20th century. But looking at the work overall, and for a double AA CRPG, it has quite the package to offer. I just wish it ran well too, I faced several technical problems and bugs on the way.
I really do think it's worth checking out. I managed to clock in around 7hrs so far. And like I mentioned, Rasputin is tons of fun. He is also played comically at times, sort of like big tone shifts but nothing too jarring considering almost anything can happen here.
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