The Thaumaturge, a brand new spooky CRPG with Pokemon-like collectible creatures that I will never fail to misspell on my first try, is getting rave reviews on Steam after a successful Steam Next Fest demo.
We liked The Thaumaturge's Steam Next Fest demo so much we called it a "must play," and now that it's fully out on PC, Steam users seem to largely agree. The premise is, well, it's a little all over the place. It's a fairly traditional isometric story-driven CRPG with turn-based battles and "morally ambiguous" choices that'll challenge your sense of right and wrong and lead you down various narrative paths and toward one of several endings. It also a mystery game where you explore an alternate history early 20th century Warsaw as an investigator with the ability to manipulate the temperaments of other characters. It is also horror Pokemon.
"Salutors, much like Pokémon, roam wild, seeking out humans to bond with, amplifying their flaws the longer they latch on," reads a press release accompanying the game's launch. "As a Thaumaturge, you're tasked with both cleansing normal human folks of their Salutor woes, but also using a sacred pact to bond with them. This, much like the interdimensional confines of a Poké Ball, lets you wield the unimaginably spooky creatures in battle."
As protagonist Wiktor, you'll put on your detective hat and snoop around Warsaw to uncover secrets and unravel complex political conspiracies. And in between turn-based battles, you'll encounter the genuinely unsettling Pokemon-like Salutors and, after defeating them in battle and capturing them, use them to "discover secrets hidden within the human soul and speak to the Darkness."
Look, I don't claim to know what's going on in The Thaumaturge either, but 86% positive Steam reviews at the time of writing - with the majority of complaints being performance related - suggests it's a wild trip worth taking. Reviewers generally praise the writing, worldbuilding, detective mechanics, visuals, and combat, while one review in particular sums up why I'm excited to dive in: "You get to go on a buddy cop adventure with Rasputin and your Zombie Pokemon."
The Thaumaturge is coming to PS5 and Xbox Series X also, but there's no release date yet for those platforms.
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