09 — Thymesia (PS5) | Sub Quest with Bugs
1MINI-REVIEW: Thymesia is an ambitious indie title created by a team of 7 developers that attempts to cross the fast-paced, deflection-heavy combat of FromSoftware's "Sekiro" with the gothic, blood-heavy themed story of "Bloodborne" — and ultimately falls short of either. What they have achieved IS impressive, however, and viewed on its own it is an excellent achievement for such a small group.
Combat is fast and furious, if unresponsive at times, and does well to imitate Sekiro's systems AND expand on them in interesting, thematic ways. The addition of talent choices and plague weapons mix things up. I highly recommend rebinding the deflect button to something more comfortable, however — after my first (rather long) play session, my index finger was starting to hurt. Swapping deflect to square helped with both the feel and responsiveness of the combat, leading me to be unsure if it is the PS5 controller's L1, the game, or my age that is responsible for the general lack of responsiveness feeling.
While combat is the game's bread and butter, it could be argued that's all the game has going for it. The three available areas are... 'fine'... with a visual distinctiveness that separates them from each other but never really makes them stand out. They're typical Soulslike twisty, but the first and third areas could do with more significant landmarks to aid navigation a little, and a reduction in the overall 'orange' palette of the Sea of Trees would be beneficial. The Generic Fantasy Fortress area does the game no favours towards its end, but they should definitely be commended for the Royal Gardens and Underground Laboratory which I think is where all the creativity went. It doesn't help that there's almost nothing to find or explore in these areas save for a few lore notes.
Enemies also feel very samey. You'll be fighting the same kinds of enemies throughout the 6-8 hour run and it gets repetitive. While there are a handful of boss enemies to break this up, they have their own problems. The first boss is probably a little TOO challenging for where it is in the game, and the latter bosses have to err on the side of spamming dodges and attacks to challenge you for how powerful you've got. In the middle are two optional puzzle bosses: the first of which is a dull gauntlet with awful enemy placement and a QTE one-shot cutscene that is badly framed so it lacks climax, while the other is so easy you can kill it without taking a single point of damage.
Thymesia doesn't outstay its welcome, but it's creaking at the seams where the small team have tried to hold their ambition together. If Mortal Shell is 'like Dark Souls but indie' then Thymesia is 'like Sekiro but indie'. Pick up whichever depending on which soulslike combat style you prefer.
(But grab the PC version if possible. The PS5 version has performance issues and awful motion blur.)
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