SOULS-YIKES
I am requesting we stop making Dark Souls rip offs like THYMESIA
Ban Souls-likes. Please, for the love all that is holy, ban them. I cannot think of a sub-genre that has so thoroughly burnt itself out in so short a time while producing so little of value. Numerous imitators have come and gone while the very games they’re trying to ape continue to be made. What good is a middling Dark Souls clone when Dark Souls is right there? This very year we had Elden Ring for goodness sake!
Of course, there is one beloved From Software property you can’t play on PC (at least, outside of some wonky streaming options). Bloodborne has long been demanded for the platform and so, maybe, Thymesia has a place here? Offering players a taste of an experience beyond their reach? If it’s a taste, it’s no more than a mouldy breadcrumb.
Tell me if you’ve heard this before: in a city ravaged by plague that turns people into monsters, it’s up to one gifted hunter to cleanse these foul streets. I try to take games on their own terms but Thymesia is nothing but a pale shadow of its obvious inspiration. Not so much wearing its influences on its sleeve as wearing their entire skin. From the protagonist looking like a cheap Halloween costume alternative to
Bloodborne’s Eileen the Crow to the hub that is obviously intended to be the Hunter’s Dream and even the fonts, this is a game without an original bone in its body. That’s a problem when your source material was lauded precisely because of its originality, twisting the
Dark Souls format into something wildly different, introducing players to what seemed like a Gothic infused romp that eventually revealed itself to be something grander and cosmic.
Bloodborne was imaginative in so many departments, with its trick weapons and dream worlds, it leaves
Thymesia’s flaws exposed like gaping, festering wounds.
ELDEN BO-RING
Despite a novel conceit in which you steal the essence of enemy weapons and ‘summon’ them at opportune moments, Thymesia feels bereft of the range of From’s combat, ultimately treading closer to a character action game than an RPG. That’s not necessarily a bad thing except for the fact combat in
Thymesia always feels a little stiffer and a little more awkward than it should be. Animations are just a bit simplistic and lacking in the character that elevates From Software’s battles into memorable encounters. The limited tools at your disposal also leave fights feeling quickly repetitive as every enemy essentially requires the same fundamental attacks in the same order, varied only in length as determined by their preposterously large health bars. Even with some upgrades, combat remains a case of spamming attacks until you get the little prompt for a follow up with your green glowing claw attack. Enemies also only take ‘wounds’, which means that you can knock off all their health and still not kill them. To do that, you need to use your claw to leach their power and finish them off. Failure to do so will see enemies recovering their health.
Like many bad Souls imitators,
Thymesia takes difficulty to heart and expects that it’s going to be the draw for many players. Even aside from the missing legwork required to make me care enough to confront difficult foes, mysteries and intrigue, Thymesia forgets that From Software’s games build in numerous clever affordances that let players tackle enemies in clever ways to overcome the baseline difficulty. Bloodborne for instance would give players pebbles and Molotov cocktails, tools that could be cleverly used to manage crowds or take big chunks off an enemy health bar with ease. Thymesia provides you with precious few tools and instead really commits to the ‘git gud’ mantra of Dark Souls fans. There’s no multiplayer either, no way to rope a friend in for the game’s challenges.
Animations are just a bit simplistic and lacking in the character