izigame.me

Pokémon The Thaumaturge is a story-driven game where you capture creatures bind demons and make them fight for you against other trainers a bunch of drunk people. It's definitely a bit weird, but it's got a lot of heart, and a very unique and interesting setting.
The setting is pretty much what saves this game, really. It's set in Warsaw in 1905, and it just feels really authentic. Granted, I've never been to Warsaw, and I'm not Polish, so I can't tell how authentic it is, but it feels like it was made by people who understand this period in Poland's history, the culture, the politics, the population, etc. It really felt like a glimpse into the past, albeit with magic and demons. I also really enjoyed the inclusion of the Jewish community, which gets quite a bit of the spotlight, with "Kabbalah" being branded as their own secret school of Thaumaturgy. Not something you see in many games.

Unfortunately, other than the setting, the story is kind of lacking. It starts off pretty promising, and some of the side quests were interesting, but I found it didn't really ever grip me. The characters were fine, but the writing and voice acting were a little iffy and made it harder to connect with them than it should have been. The story doesn't really feel like it goes anywhere, and this was mostly evident in act 3 when I'm supposed to make a big choice between 2 options, that will decide how the climax will play out, and I found I don't really care either way. If there was a 3rd option, to just walk away from this conflict, I'd have 100% chosen that. It just doesn't do enough to make it personal, you know? I was just kind of wondering why I am even involved in any of this.
To make matters worse, this game does what I consider a very big no-no in RPGs. It sometimes take control of your character away from you. Basically, the idea is, you have a Flaw (as all Thaumaturges do) that kinda pushes you to act a certain way. Choose the option connected with it, and you feed the Flaw, making it stronger. In the lead characters' case, this Flaw is Pride. Now, I didn't really make a conscious choice at any point between giving in to my pride or avoiding it, I just chose whichever dialogue option felt right to me at the time. I did often choose myself above others, because... like I said, it was kinda hard to connect with the characters, so I mostly cared about growing my own power. This resulted in choosing the "Pride" dialogue option more often than not.
As the game progressed and my pride grew, dialogue options started being locked out - with the caption "Your pride is too high to choose this option". That's fair. I don't really like it, but I get it, and I typically had other options, not just the Proud one, so I could manage to say or do the thing I wanted to.
This changed in act 3. Suddenly, things just happened. I wasn't given a choice. The game just said something like "Your pride chose for you" and made me do things I didn't actually wanna do. Suddenly my character was acting in ways I didn't agree with, and it didn't feel like my character anymore. I was now just going through the motions, playing with the mechanics - performing combat, interacting with objects, etc - but I was not really role playing anymore. I did not appreciate that at all.
I think one of the biggest examples of where this really harms the narrative is one scene where a character died because of a selfish choice I made earlier in the game. I was there, watching him die, and... there wasn't even an option to apologize. My pride was too high for that. I could only basically mock him and say something like "well that's what you get".
That's not what I wanted at all. That was the first time in the game, maybe even the only time, where I saw serious consequences to my actions. It kinda made me rethink things. It made me want to do better and make up for my mistakes... but the game wouldn't let me. You were a proud a**hole at the start, so you're a proud a**hole till the end. Why? Have they not heard of character development?
In contrast, one of my fondest memories of any game, ever, is from my first playthrough of Mass Effect 3. I was playing full Renegade, until a scene where a former crewmate stands up to me and basically says "I'm not letting you do this, you're gonna have to shoot me". I decided not to. The first time in the whole trilogy where I didn't choose the renegade option, because the scene and the character just got to me. It felt right, it was a moment of growth, and I let it change how I played the rest of the playthrough.
Meanwhile, the Thaumaturge puts you in a similar position, but doesn't give you the option of growth. You've chosen who your character is, now sit back and watch.

One other issue I've got is with the combat. Not the system itself - it's fine. It's not great but it's serviceable, and building an arsenal of demons to choose from was kinda nice. The issue is rather with... who you fight. It's like the developers made this combat system and then thought - "wait, we don't really have any reason for combat to be in this game". The result is... you fight drunks. That's almost exclusively it, at least in acts 1 and 2.
You walk into a bar as part of an investigation - a bunch of drunks show up and say "we don't like outsiders here" and a fight starts.
You try and get onto a carriage to travel to another part of the city - a bunch of drunks show up and say "that's our carriage!" and a fight starts.
You question a kid about a murder he was a witness to - a bunch of drunks show and say "why are you talking to this child? are you a pedophile?" and a fight starts.
F*cking hell. You can't go anywhere in this city without a bunch of drunks showing up and starting a fight. Why was this necessary? At first I thought it was just because I'm starting out, these are the low level fights and the combat system is just being introduced with easy enemies - but no, like 95% of combat in this game is against drunks who start a fight for stupid reasons. It just feels like a complete waste of time.

To end this review on a high note, I'll mention some other things I did like, other than the setting which I already stated is the best part. I enjoyed the soundtrack, I enjoyed some of the ideas and themes in the story very much, I enjoyed the diversity of demons who come from a variety of different folklore, I liked the fact your actions do have consequences that feel significant (I would have even considered doing another playthrough with different choices if I could be bothered to beat up every single drunk in the city again), and I thought it did a good job of building up a mystery and slowly unfolding it (though, sadly, the mystery is solved quite a while before the ending, and then the game just... keeps going).

It's a decent game, it feels like it was someone's passion project, and I definitely appreciate it for what it is. However, it's flaws are quite significant and do often impact the experience negatively. In the end, I do recommend it, but it's certainly not for everyone.
And if you think the Pokémon comparison I opened with was kinda silly? Well, the game itself acknowledges it - There is a point where you're asked to make a wish, and one of the dialogue options is "to be the very best, like no one ever was".
Thaumaturges are just Pokémon trainers. I said what I said.