Thymesia Review

Thymesia

Release: January 1, 1970
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Genre: PlayStation 5 Reviews, PS5 ReviewsXbox Series X Reviews
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Thymesia is a grueling action-RPG with fast-paced combat and an intricate plague weapon system. In a kingdom where death spreads, play as a mysterious character known by the code name “Corvus”. Prey upon your enemies, wield the power of disease and find the truth in your own memories.

The once thriving Kingdom of Hermes has fallen to an age of calamity.

Seen as the answer to all the kingdom’s ailments, alchemy became a widely used practice across the land, with denizens welcoming it into their homes, using it to enhance and heal as they saw fit. When the price of alchemy became too steep, attempts to halt its use were made, each as woefully unsuccessful as the last, with the catastrophic consequences felt across the realm. Within days, the kingdom fell to chaos, infected monsters prowling the blood-soaked streets, all hope of a cure lost.

Corvus is the kingdom’s final hope, the fate of Hermes resting in his feathered hands. The truth is buried deep in the memories Corvus left scattered throughout the punishing world, and only by collecting these lost memories can the kingdom be saved, but each time he dives back in, trying to piece together the truth, all he finds is more secrets.

Thymesia is another entry in the hardcore RPG “Souls like” genre of game. Where combat is king and one wrong move can send you to an early grave. Enemies are relentless and unforgiving so you have to be quick and careful to survive. Thymesia’s gold star is grounded firmly into the games combat which in order to dominate you must master dodging as well as parrying and using your numerous abilities to take your foes down.

Some of the unique features to Thymesia include:

• Harnessing the plague: Using your claw if you are careful, you can take Plague weapons from enemies to unleash at the right moment utilizing their own weapons against themselves. It takes some time to charge this attack to take their weapons, so timing is very key to not leaving yourself open to attack.
• Embracing the Raven: Utilizing your Raven form allows you to throw dagger like feathers used to interrupt your enemies’ attacks allowing you to rush in with precision strikes to give you an advantage.
• High customization: You have lots of upgrade options to affect your movement, weapons and ability styles to allow you to fight the way you want to, or the way you can use to stay alive.

The point of the game is to travel around and locate your memories which are scattered throughout the games three main areas. These memories are essentially the lore that builds out the story, so sometimes it’s hard to follow and you may miss pieces while playing as well. So, it can be hard to follow the already convoluted story at hand. You do revisit the main areas in forms of little side quests which change the world (even just a little bit) to keep you on your toes. As you complete each main objective of course you are faced with a boss battle. These are some of the best experiences (and most frustrating) the game has to offer.  The combat truly is king here with Thymesia.

Some of my issues with the game are level designs, they are often so dark you end up running right into an enemy without even noticing they are there. I get the vibe they are going for however the lighting effects could have been utilized a bit more to help with this. The other main issue is the lack of cohesive story and dialogue. There is little to no voice acting or cut scenes to help build out the story and characters of this world. It feels that Team17 could have spent a little more time on this and it would have paid off a lot more.

Ultimately despite its flaws it really was a fun time. While I am not great at Souls like games, I did really enjoy my time with this one and can certainly appreciate the smaller experience without being brutally punished at every single corner.

You can check out the first hour of the game below on my YouTube channel to give you a taste of what Thymesia is all about.