I was really excited for this game, but The Thaumaturge ended up not clicking for me. A big part of it was the gameplay, which I tried to push through to try and enjoy the incredibly interesting setting. A game set in early 20th-century Poland during the 1905 revolution is not something you come by everyday. The mythological-God collecting aspect really peaked my interest as a fan of SMT, too. I also like to read about East European history, so I got excited with this idea of the game being like this historically-accurate Polish SMT.

It did kinda live up to that. The "demons" that you gather help you fight, not unlike an SMT game. They're also super awesome looking. I took a lot of pics lol. Running around in this real setting was cool too, especially for someone who likes Eastern European/Polish history. A video game around that kinda mix was super exciting to me, I thought it would be a gimme. An instant 5/5.

There was a lot I was excited about, so I really tried to push through the parts I didn't like, which was almost entirely the gameplay. It got to the point that I was dreading turning the game back on and playing through, so I ended up dropping it. The fight sequences are awful, I don't know if I was doing it wrong, but they're painfully slow and very tedious. You never get a move that lets you attack everyone at once, instead forcing you to attack one-by-one. There's never an attack you can do that one shots people either. I dunno... I really started to dread getting into fights, a pretty key part of the whole game.

The other part of the gameplay I was fine with, but fine is as far as I would go. The other gameplay aspect is finding clues to continue your story. You simply right click to see what's around you to investigate, and then move to the next part in the map to continue doing the same until eventually you reach the group you need to fight. Just go from point A to point B to point C until you reach a boss fight. Rinse and repeat. The involvement of the Polish Revolution is super interesting, but another part that did bother me enough to put it in this review is when you go to do the "Urban Events", which are these very short side adventures where you experience exciting things happening in 1905 (Russian Partition) Poland. These were things like telescope viewing, cola tasting, even visiting a gentleman's club! They don't show you the area, they just draw you a picture of the event. Don't get me wrong, it's a small complaint, but it bothered me, I think because I was so excited about the general-life aspect of the game a lot and really wanted it to go into more depth. There are missions that do focus on these aspects in more depth (you even go to an actual brothel), but being in more depth = more fight sequences, and you know how I feel about those!! Nitpicking, but funny enough for me to point out; they also start adding in modern gaming references such as saying "I gotta catch them all!" into the dialogue - it was super awkward, I really didn't like it.

I would say you should check out this game if you're interested in the history, but I can imagine you might just get more from reading a history book at a certain point. The gameplay just hit all my pet-peeves and then some, even with these gorgeous demons by my side. I unfortunately couldn't bring myself to finish it because of that, but maybe you might enjoy it differently.

2/5