Thymesia, like a charismatic but incomplete soul

A dark world on the brink of collapse, a blood-related plague and a hero who must put his rivals aside while allowing a mysterious female figure to guide him. No, we’re not talking about Bloodborne, the new game Cross-Border Studio: Thyme.

It’s always a soul-like adventure, perhaps more Sekirian than Bloodbornian (if you let neologisms), but not without some original ideas. However, the most important thing is to understand that Thymesia is nothing more than a plant. independentunfortunately size and expectations are less high than initially thought.

We had the opportunity to test this action game a few months ago through a small demo that hinted at the strengths and weaknesses of the game. But in recent weeks we’ve finally thoroughly tested the full version, which was delayed for a few days to allow the developers to add some improvements and certain changes.

Let’s see all the details in this news thyme reviewWe played in the PC version. The game is also available on PS5, Xbox Series X | It will be available on S and Switch (Cloud version).

corvus

We are Corvus, a memoryless warrior who finds himself somewhere. Hermes’ reignA place where alchemy has long been a source of salvation and wealth but now seems to have led to the downfall of the entire society.

Corvus travels to what’s left of the kingdom to recover a set of “cores”. wound. The princess of Hermes, who leads us, is a girl much wiser and more mysterious than her age.

The plot is actually on a superficial level, as a whole it doesn’t go much further.”lore“For each place we investigated what had happened before, it is told in a series of textual notes with no idea what happened to the other or who the incumbent boss is.

The lore is nicely structured with lots of details that slowly follow the events of each location: don’t expect anything overly exciting, but if you want to spend some time on it, you can at least contextualize the game world. However, it is not clear who is at fault and who is trying to do good, so when we reach the end it is difficult to tell which one we are about to act on. In general, not for this complo That Thymesia should be played.

Sword and Claw v.2

Thyme is a kind like spirit and the most important thing is the feeling that the controller is in your hands. It is worth noting right away that the work of OverBorder Studio in this regard is quite “strict”. You don’t need to imagine a Dark Souls game where you can create your own character that transforms from a melee to a mage according to your taste.

Corvus has one fighting style suitable for it and its nature cannot be changed too much. The focus is on the use of the sword and claw: First, it deals a certain amount of precise damage and a good amount of “plague” damage, or some kind of wound to the enemy. The wound will heal automatically after a short time unless you turn it into permanent damage through the claw. Finally, when the opponent’s life is zero, a final blow must be dealt.

The purpose of this system is to force the player to focus on one opponent at a time in case of group fights or group fights. be aggressive and be cunning against the strongest enemies. Similar to Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, if you only take a few hits and then lose your rhythm, if you go too far in defense, you will lose your progress. We must put pressure on the opponent and not exhale, but choreograph small attacks, dodges and claw kicks without stopping for too long.

The problem is that Thymesia not refined and diverse You can’t expect the same level of AAA from an indie game as FromSoftware’s. Thymesia offers quite a few repetitive enemies in several areas: this means that the strategies to adopt are more or less always the same. More importantly, OverBorder Studio’s work failed to reproduce that fluidity Miyazaki staged with Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice.

Let me be frank, the final result knows how to entertain, especially after the team released a pre-launch patch that rebalances the game. This is the first time we’ve clearly completed Thymesia 100% with an old version and overall the difficulty was pretty high. Fortunately, the developers knew they had gone too far and changed a few things, especially when it came to bosses and mini-bosses.

In fact, we think they’ve reduced it. difficulty a bit too much in the early stages of the game, especially on the aggression of some enemies, but the final result is still better than the “zero” version. Don’t expect a particularly complex task, but you also don’t need to be afraid of being stranded for hours against the first boss or leveling up as much as I can.

this farming also not attracted by developers at all. Leveling up slows exponentially from level to level: to make you understand, know that you can complete an entire exploration by climbing ten levels in the first area, a double in the second, and one in the third.

Level ups and upgrades

In Thymesia, buffing is not so important for increasing stats (practically increasing sword, life and claw), but once you get a point to spend in many games skill trees. There is a maximum number of points that can be obtained and then you stop accumulating them, but this is a reasonable limit that makes it impossible to abuse abilities.

Increase in sword damage or active skills These quickly become basic, such as adding a healing effect or dodge for each kill, or getting the dodge (basically just dodge). Skill points can be repositioned unlimitedly from each lantern (the Thymesia bonfire where it levels up and enemies respawn), allowing us to pass all the tests we want and make use of the right skills depending on the fight.

Added to a second mechanic is one of Thymesia’s best game systems: harmful weaponsor very powerful special attacks. Harmful weapons can be stolen from enemies: in this case, the energy cost is zero, but the number of uses is only one. However, you can permanently unlock a plague weapon by obtaining enough “fragments” from opponents. Equipped pest weapons cost energy, which can be recovered in various ways by combat.

Weapons are varied, very useful and the only real element that will make your Corvus stand out from other players. It’s worth spending some time in each area to get loot from enemies to unlock and upgrade various types of weapons.

Settings and tasks

However, there are several opportunities to loot throughout Thymesia’s adventure if you take your time. the game consists three main tasks, required to unlock the final boss, to which a large number of secondary missions have been added and some have their own unique bosses. In terms of number of hours, rushing to finish, and avoiding non-essentials, we believe that the most skilled can achieve about. three hourshowever once you complete all the missions the game time is definitely between ten hours and fifteen hours depending on the skill level.

Most side missions they are placed in place of the main quests, but the areas are “remixed”, changing some shortcuts and allowing us to explore them in the opposite direction. On average, however, we’re talking about fairly linear spaces: there are classic shortcuts at times, but mostly you’re going from chapter to chapter, leaving behind the completed parts.

in terms of graphic variety, each area has its own unique style and is slightly different from the previous one, but fails to capture the eye of the player, especially due to the not very high technical quality. The update has improved the situation, especially when it comes to performance, but there are still some uncertainties.