[Review] – The Thaumaturge

A heavy story with impactful choices is often used to describe a ton of games and very few are able to make those choices mean more than just a couple lines of flavorful text but instead impacting the story overall with events playing out differently. Thankfully, The Thaumaturge manages to hit all the marks for a wonderful story-driven RPG and had me struggling to pull away from it all.

You follow Wiktor Szulski, a thaumaturge on a journey to find his Salutor who finds himself wrapped up in some major events after the passing of his father. The two had a rocky relationship due to him rebelling against his fathers wishes before leaving home, but finds he was left special grimoire in his fathers will. When it suddenly goes missing after the funeral, Wiktor sets out to find the culprit who stole it while uncovering the mysteries his father left behind.

Right away, we are thrown all sorts of nouns that seem confusing at first, but the prologue does a wonderful job of getting us accustomed to the setting here. In this world, a ‘Thaumaturge’ is someone who is capable of interacting with ethereal beasts known as ‘Salutors’. They communicate and utilize them in a multitude of ways, ranging from gaining bonuses in dialogue checks to having them stand beside him in combat. Each Salutor has its own strengths and weaknesses, filling out different roles in combat. Leveling up a Salutor also rewards bonuses to the specific skill check that they govern, allowing you to pick up on notes and clues throughout the world. While this may seem a little confusing at first,it makes a little more sense once you exit the opening village.

This introductory chapter does an amazing job giving you the basic rundown of the tools that you‘ll be utilizing for the rest of the game. After meeting with the historical mystic Rasputin, you are able to use your first Salutor to explore a small village and solve its mysteries. This allows you to get yourself accustomed with the way things work in Warsaw. Wiktor finds himself tasked with solving the murder that has occurred in the town and has to utilize his abilities as a Thaumaturge to unravel this mystery.

Wiktor is able to roam freely around the map and interact with both NPCS and the environment. By pressing the right trigger on a controller, Wiktor will snap his fingers, and you are able to sense items with traces of other individuals on them. This trace  forms a strong impression  they left behind and is the foundation used to solve mysteries. As Wiktor picks up more of these traces, you can read a brief description of the item as well as the feeling that he gets from it as well. I love this bit of storytelling because I was able to see that he is capable of utilizing his powers for more than simple manipulation and this gives you a better understanding of what he can do. This ability also allows Wiktor to create a trail that will lead him to the next major story beat, just in case you get lost or side tracked with one of the game’s many sidequests. I am a sucker for mechanics that are intertwined with the game’s world and lore, so I was over the moon when I saw this explained as more than just a gimmick put in for me as a player.

Once you have picked up a set amount of items with traces on them, you’ll see Wiktor deduct what all the clues have led up to, which will unlock potential dialogue options down the road. I often found myself running around the area where the quest was located, snapping my fingers in an attempt to find all the items I could before talking to the next NPC. Seeing that there was a dialogue option that wasn’t available to me because I missed something would always send me back to look for more clues and had me really diving into the world building that was going on here. There is a quest down the line that has you digging into the personal life of a patron at the bar, and Wiktor can ask his friends about what’s going on. By analyzing a note from the man’s fiancée as well as some personal items of his, Wiktor is able to confront the man’s friends when they continue to lie to Wiktor about what is going on, thus rewarding me for the work I put into prior to talking to them.

During dialogue, you are presented with some branching options and while I scoffed at this in the beginning, I found myself taken back when I saw an event in the early game play out two different ways. When we make it to the town, Wiktor finds himself stuck at a barricade by Russian soldiers. During their speech, a protester steps out of line and causes the soldiers to lock the area down until they figure out who caused the disruption. Wiktor is able to take one of three different routes here, and each one has a different outcome.

Reloading the save, I decided that I would take a more cautious approach to figuring things out, and eventually deduced that the captain of the soldiers didn’t want to be here and was looking for a quick way to end this all so he could go home. Using one of the salutor’s, I was able to manipulate the captain into believing that it was the protesters’ leader saving us from being thrown in jail. I might not have been able to get that extra text about Wiktor being in jail before, but I did get to see him utilize his abilities and wits to get himself out of a tricky situation without resorting to violence.

When you can’t smoothly talk your way out of situations, combat starts, and turns the game’s mechanics into  a traditional turn-based fight. Wiktor will have his salutor on his side along with the occasional support member as you face off against the opposing side. At the top of the screen is a bar that indicates the turn order and when actions will be carried out, so it is important to plan accordingly so that you are able to come out on top. There are no healing items to be found, but one of the salutors are capable of inflicting damage while restoring your health by just a little, so it is important to be aware of when it is time to switch them out. When I knew that the enemy was low on health and I was able to squeeze in a couple of extra turns before their next turn, I would often forgo healing in exchange for a bit of extra damage. In some cases this worked out for me as I would watch Wiktor land a nice gut punch to finish off an opponent, while other times it would result in me getting a game over since I made a bad judgment call. One thing that I really enjoyed about the combat was the feeling of difficulty and how it was handled. When I lost a fight, I knew it was due to me mishandling the usage of my skills and was a punishment for me not paying attention during combat. During my next attempt I would change my strategy and have the salutor focus on one enemy while Wiktor handled the other, with this being the biggest difference between sweet victory and having to start the fight from the beginning.

Another wonderful instance of this game’s storytelling was when I was trying to track down the person who was responsible for drawing the attention of a wild Salutor due to their “flaw”. The Salutor was seeking someone who was reckless and caused trouble for the community, thus finding a home in this little corner Wiktor called home. I was able to determine this due to the clues scattered throughout the bar that belonged to one of Wiktor’s acquaintances from his younger days, such as the bullet holes in the planks and his excessive need for violence and utter disregard for his own health. Wiktor knew that in order to draw the Slautor out, he would need to confront the man so he challenged him to a game of russian-roulette. There was a sense of overwhelming dread that washed over me as I watched the events unfold and this is what makes the story telling here so enchanting.

With both combat and exploring the world, we are rewarded ‘thaumaturgy’ points that we can use to improve our salutors’ abilities or upgrade some of Wiktors attacks with additional status effects. It was pleasant to see that I was being given a reward for engaging with both the environment as well as the combat system, so I was pushed to do more than just seek out fights. These upgrades not only improve the salutors’ and Wiktor’s abilities in combat but also will allow him to pass certain skill checks while investigating, intertwining these mechanics in a way that shows how connected Wiktor is to the salutors and just how useful they were to him.

The visuals here are beautiful, and I fully enjoyed running along the streets of Warsaw and interacting with everyone. In dialogue, we are able to get a read on the characters due to their facial expressions along with their body language, and I found myself laughing each time Wiktor was put in an uncomfortable situation. He consistently looks like someone who is bothered to be stuck in these situations and is constantly annoyed by everything that’s going on. In a way, he reminded me of Geralt from The Witcher series, and it made me love his character even more. The monsters have amazing eye catching and distinct designs that do a wonderful job of invoking fear and interest. Salutors are described as these monsters that feed on people’s flaws and the designs do a wonderful job of driving this point home. Pairing these visuals with the game’s soundtrack makes this an exhilarating experience. The tense atmosphere is accompanied by a wonderfully eerie soundtrack to help bring the tense moments closer to home. For example, there is a song titled Believe and Be blessed that starts with a haunting violin intro before the dull thud of piano keys come along to enhance the mood the game is setting. A Lot of the music featured here has a wonderful sound filled to the brim with emotion that fits the scenes that are playing out wonderfully. With a full voice acted cast, the world felt real as characters were able to express their feeling through more than text as they lash out at Wiktor due to his thaumaturgy heritage, although there is a minor issue where scenes feel like they can be cut off a little too early ahead of transitioning out of conversation.

The Thaumaturge did a fantastic job of drawing me into its eerie story with its well written characters and the RPG mechanics here and makes it easy to recommend this to those who like to see their actions impact the world around you. Wiktor is a wonderful protagonist, a man of flaws that he wears on his sleeve, he is often making jokes about his bad relationship with his family or how his pride can get in the way of his life. The combat was engaging enough to keep me focused without overwhelming me with all kinds of mechanics. This is a journey that I believe many will enjoy as they dive deep into the world surrounding Wiktor