Thymesia – Review
Our Score: 8/10
Thymesia is a brutal action-RPG that has complex plague weaponry and quick-fire combat. Play as a mysterious individual known only by the code name “Corvus” in a kingdom where death is spreading. Take advantage of your foes, control sickness, and uncover the truth in your own memories.
You look to be the Kingdom of Hermes’ last chance as it falls in ruins. You are Corvus, and the remedy for the Kingdom’s sickness is hidden somewhere deep inside your memory. Corvus’ memory appears to be rather cloudy, therefore you must now try to recollect earlier occasions in order to find the information you need. Thymesia is a difficult action role-playing game that starts inside of a damaged mind.
Pick Your Poison
While Thymesia is a Soulslike, it does so without certain essential elements and adds some of its own unique concepts to provide a fighting system that is both recognisable and distinctive. While its fighting, for instance, has a similar pace, stamina is not a concern. And instead of having weak and powerful strikes, you have saber-based and claw-based assaults.
Your offence is built around swift and manoeuvrable sabre assaults. The surprising part is that while they certainly hurt your opponent, a lot of that damage can be repaired with time. On the other side, claw strikes are sluggish yet quickly deplete the recovered health. So, a plan of attack should already be taking shape in your head, one that calls for first weakening enemies with sabre attacks before bringing them to their knees with claw assaults.
You’ll do it and bring them to their knees. Another Thymesia feature lets you choose between killing your vanquished foes and charging a claw strike to take their weapon for yourself. These stolen Plague Weapons are strong, but they can only be used once. Consider them a complimentary special assault. However, you may also unlock, equip, and even upgrade permanent Plague Weapons, which expands your range of battle choices.
An Age of Pain
The realm of Thymesia is a grim, Victorian fantasy. With the extra spookiness of circus lights and a ringmaster end boss, the initial sector is reminiscent of Yharnam. In addition, there are more open settings like woodlands and marshes, as well as the maze-like interiors of castles. Everything, with the exception of the hub area at Philosopher’s Hill that you return to at the conclusion of a level, is exceedingly gloomy and oppressively ominous. Thymesia has very minimal voice acting, with the majority of the adversaries speaking only in monotonous moans and grunts. The soundtrack has ominous orchestral soundscapes and an excellent overall sound design. There are creative musical details, such as an eerie carnival waltz playing for the first boss.
Enemy designs are mostly inspired by the best work of FromSoftware. As a result, you have bosses whose movesets must be repeatedly learned, hard-hitting elites, and low-level foes who swing slowly. Thymesia is described as “gruelling” by the developers. Unfairness sometimes or frustration as another word. Parries need absurd accuracy while compromising harm. Because there is no stamina stat, the devs chose to make many adversaries hard to stun or interrupt. I’ve spent literally hundreds of hours playing games from FromSoftware, but I spent an inordinate amount of time on a few bosses. For instance, the first boss is a two-phase foe with teleportation and disappearance abilities. He does a lot of harm. Imagine if Lady Maria from Bloodborne or Genichiro from Sekiro were the opening bosses in those games.
Any rest areas will let you reach the hub area, but all will send you back to where the zone began. No quick transportation exists between bonfires. Each level has a linear layout with a few shortcuts and locked spots to find.
Final Verdict
Thymesia is the perfect game for those who love Bloodbourne and Sekiro. The setting is fantastic, the twists it spins on the formula are interesting and it helps scratch an itch that most games can’t. And while the game can be hard and brutal, its still incredibly fun to pay. Not to mention, very immersive thanks to the great visuals and audio work.
