The Thaumaturge

It's best to think of Thaumaturge as primarily a Telltale style narrative game with some rpgs elements rather than a full fledged rpg. The rpgs elements aren't bad but they're pretty basic and if you don't enjoy conversations, reading and following clues you'll struggle to enjoy the game.
It's very much a moody, grimey, Slavic detective noir type of story which I personally find very enjoyable. Even the lower budget and somewhat stiff, graphics and animations enhance the experience and come off as charming and atmospheric because of how visually rich and detailed the game is.
Thaumaturge also acts as a bit of a cultural tour of a bygone Poland and especially Warsaw and is full of little moments the purpose of which is to enhance the "vibes" and while these are probably a bit more basic and filler-y than the devs would've wanted they're still worthwhile if you appreciate history and old timey, chic aesthetics.
Despite its dark nature and goings on Thaumaturge feels pretty relaxing to play and there's a decent amount of different outcomes to indivdual events/quests depending how thorough you are with your investigation, skill point distribution and the way you speak to people. Just understand what you're buying and don't be surprised by the amount of walking and talking.

This game is SO. INTERESTING
The story begins in a small rural village in Poland where your main character is investigating the presence of a spirit that has latched onto a villager and is sowing some chaos. Visually, tonally, musically, it's super reminiscent of Witcher 3, in the best way. After you solve this little case, you scoot over to Warsaw, which in 1905 is of course developed and modern, and under Russian influence. There's a shift to a modern political tone which I care for less, only because I prefer a less urban space, although the city is beautiful and the art is easy to appreciate. I do, however, love any kind of historical fiction if you inject supernatural elements into it.
Did anyone play that PS2 JRPG series called Shadow Hearts? The Thaumaturge VERY much reminded me of those games; the turn-of-the-century settings, making pacts with demons, a kind of gothic vibe, light turn-based combat, a certain historical scoundrel bein super sussy, all good things.
Quite a bit like Disco Elysium, as well, in spending most of your time running around talking to folks, looking for clues, interrogating weird little freaks, making morally ambiguous decisions (if you please), etc.
Only complaint is there's too much combat. It's a new and interesting system, but it gets old fast. You are frequently accosted by guys who wanna kick your ass for one reason or another (mostly folks just hate thaumaturges) and you typically have the choice of fighting or talking them down. Talking them down requires either the discovery of clues/information, or using upgraded skills to manipulate them into complacency. For some reason, only fighting grants EXP and thus, fighting is the choice you will make every time. Why? Stupid.
Otherwise, love. Special shoutout to the sound design for the salutors. Mwah

Instead of smashing enemies with giant swords, you psychologically dismantle them while your monster bites their soul. Half the fights feel less like battles and more like hostile performance reviews.
The dialogue choices are fantastic because most options boil down to: be polite, be manipulative or become the most exhausting man alive.
Naturally, I chose option three every single time.

What really sells the game is the atmosphere. It has that “everyone is suffering beautifully” energy that Eastern European RPGs specialize in. Even side characters talk like they’re moments away from delivering a tragic monologue in the rain.
And somehow the game makes reading people’s flaws genuinely addictive. I spent hours walking around Warsaw mentally roasting strangers with supernatural insight:
“This man fears commitment.”
“This woman hides ambition.”
“This child has stolen bread.”

Overall, The Thaumaturge is like Disco Elysium and Pokémon got locked in a haunted history museum together.

This is a 60% yes...

Pros:
+ Game's setup, background, lore, characters are all quite interesting
+ Generally interesting story + good amount of choices/endings to quests and story
+ Good writing
+ Good isometric graphics
+ Good length, I do everything the game has to offer in a playthrough in about 20-22 hours. Game does not overstay its welcome.
+ Good voice acting

Neutral:
= Lots of reading, this is borderline a visual novel trapped inside a wrapper of adventure game
= Forgettable combat, combat has limited depth... I played on Normal difficulty. Without spoiling anything, you get a bit more choices and combinations as you progress and level up, but ultimately you are only doing things slightly differently and will mostly follow 1 or 2 tactics throughout the whole game. I was basically auto piloting the second half of the game... And they sprinkle you with A LOT of combat. Some fights are really unfair even and will kill you on easy if you are not careful.

Cons:
- Small, unmeaningful interactions could lock you out of certain endings. This can be a good thing if you want to figure everything out by yourself and are prepared to do like 5-6 playthroughs. Otherwise, some early game stuff can lock you out right at the end without any indication. Annoying stuff.
- Walking simulator in disguise. This game makes you walk a lot. Even more so if you want to do all side content. I spent like 20 hours for my first playthrough with all side contents done. I would say 5 hours in there was me walking everywhere.
- Wasted gameplay opportunity. As a Thaumaturge you are finding out clues and try to figure out info piece by piece. But as a player you don't really do that. You just keep spamming the "detection" button and pick up anything that is shown on screen (each item with a wall of text), and the game will automatically show you the conclusion. This turns the game into a walk and click game and that's why I call it a visual novel, you are just following things as they unfold, you are not really participating in anything except story choices.
- Some story elements and character behaviors are quite confusing near the end, don't want to spoil it but when I go search it online I found lots of players having the same confusion.
- Weird graphics glitches, character heads will snap left and right randomly instead of fluid movement, there was one time when I was at "home" the screen has a screen tearing effect near the lower 1/3 of the screen. And the game stutters randomly after saving. Not deal breaking but annoying.

All in all, this is a game worth playing to experience the amazing world they built. If you are a achievement hunter, 2 playthroughs or at least 1.5 playthroughs are needed, and make sure to refer to a guide or prepare to do 2+ playthroughs.

Recommended ONLY if you like gorgeous prose and a well-written story with slavic tones.
NOT recommended in every other case.
The Thaumaturge is a very tricky one for me to tackle, because I ADORE "Seven", another game by the studio behind this one, to bits - Seven has a fantastic world, excellent exploration, great use of isometric perspective, ImSim mechanics, flexibility in approaching objectives, and overall a pretty addictive gameplay loop. The Thaumaturge has....none of that.
The world is effectively pointless - there is very little interactivity in the game's design, and even the elements present are half-baked (e.g. you can wait on benches to pass time - but only on SOME benches. This is ridiculous). Side quests are usually very formulaic, and reduce the game to ponderous exercises in right-clicking to find hints and conclusions. Actually, that's the main story as well. And don't even bother with the additional side content - there's oodles of "quests" which boil down to "discover note"->"visit location"->"see a quote on your screen"->"unlock a drawing".
That's it. Our character has the opportunity to learn dancing and it isn't even a dancing minigame. It's an on-screen quote and drawing. That's it. Easily the most wasted opportunity I've seen in gaming thus far.
None of the NPCs can be spoken to unless they serve a story purpose. Time only flows when you want it to, so there's no tension in the game world. I barely experienced any NPC having day-night cycles (not that it matters, anyways).
There's no verticality, there's no collectibles or Thaumaturgic upgrades to find in the world, and generally, it's boring.
With that said, let's get to the writing - the dialogues, flavor text, story beats and progression are BEAUTIFULLY done. This is genuinely some of the greatest prose I've seen in video game writing, even. I've screenshotted so many beautiful turns of phrase, my library is overflowing. The Thaumaturge is written splendidly, with each hint that you pick up sounding like it was crafted by a master orator, with language that flows thick with meaning and imagery.
And your decisions actually do have consequences - albeit these consequences accumulate over time and are only really noticeable in the 3rd and final act of the game. The characters are genuinely fascinating, intriguing, and the varying environments at least make up for the poor realism of the world that the team has crafted.
The combat is decently fun, it isn't spectacular but I loved a lot of the concepts in it, e.g. unlocking significant "side effects" that you could apply onto your main attacks and skills to create chains of damage and healing on your enemies. That was pretty nice.
Overal, The Thaumature is a poem that plays like a dusty old rustbucket Ford on modern highways. Which is to say, not very well. I tolerated it to the ending, and the game deserves credit for inspiring that patience in me.

Well I have to thank Humble for this one, as I have to admit I am not at all a fan of turn based gaming, so I almost certainly would have overlooked this game.
The setting of Warsaw at the turn of the 20th century is an interesting one, it creates a rather depressing and helpless setting that works really well. The addition of Rasputin also is something that appealed to me from a historical perspective and I think that helped pique my interest and keep me playing.
However, this is one of those games where I feel you will know pretty quickly if this is going to interest you or not and for many people, this game is going to bore them senseless. As I am not a big turn based fan, I can only speak from my limited experience and interest but I do think the combat was quite lacklustre. Though the combat wasn’t the draw for me.
The graphical styling from the isometric perspective is really beautiful, the 3rd person cutscenes are not quite so visually stunning but functional enough. I really love this art style though:
Most of the voice acting is really good and the characters are interesting enough for me to get invested in them, I particularly appreciated the character of Rasputin who gave me a constant uneasy feeling that he is a snake who will betray me.
The negatives are that the game will be too slow for many people, with some side quests feeling pointless and others equating to little more than clicking a star on a door and being presented with a still image summarising what happened – all very pointless.
I also don’t know how anyone gets fully levelled up, as I went out of my way to do every single side quest and inspect every document for experience to level up but I still could not max level. Speaking of documents, a there is a lot of reading involved as much of the story is told by various documents and items you find around the world and they all require reading. NPC’s will not react to you openly snooping and rifling through their personal possessions to read their mail etc – not unforgivable but it did make me laugh.
Overall I still really enjoyed this game, for all it’s obvious flaws. I would highly recommend watching 20 minutes of game play on YouTube if you are on the fence with this one, as I do think that will give you a good idea if this game will appeal or not.

The Thaumaturge is a brilliant game with a really interesting setting, Poland whilst part of the Russian Empire. It is fun, humorous and gives a real feel for the time and its social issues.
I had a problem with a scene crashing due to my laptop set up. I contacted 11 bit studios and shared game files, was given a comprehensive instruction on possible fixes. When this didn't work , I shared my save file and was sent a bespoke save file which fixed the issue.
I don't think I have experienced such amazing customer service with any gaming company previously and was suprised at the level of support given.