With the release of Demon’s Souls, Dark Souls and finally Bloodborne, FromSoftware not only created a completely new Genre, but essentially codified — one that has reached an incredible level among indie developers. It’s no secret that the Indie section often releases one or two Souls-like games every year, but it’s very interesting that few people really succeed. An early example of this was Salt and Sanctuary.
Fast forward a few years and we now have a small Studio that throws its hat in the Ring and tries to make a competent game in the style of souls in Thymesia. Where Thymesia is different from the others is that it is not inspired by something like Dark Souls, but by Bloodborne. And this is really one of the first clues that OverBorder Studio — The team behind Thymesia – somehow understands this. Where most of the games inspired by the Souls titles fall into oblivion shortly after their release, Thymesia will probably be one of the few games of this genre that has not been developed by FromSoftware to be really adopted by the community. And this is mainly due to the way the team that did it actually understands its influences.
First of all, from the very beginning, Thymesia wears its influences on the Sleeve. It shares so much in terms of aesthetics with Bloodborne that those who are not familiar with the two games could be forgiven for confusing the two. Even his action is faster than what we see from typical Souls that are pretty much reminiscent of Bloodborne. It is borderline impossible not to think about Bloodborne while playing Thymesia, which puts him in a difficult Position – he really has to be an extraordinary game to get out of the shadow of the game that obviously affects him.
The action maintains a delicate balance between simplicity and some interesting mechanics. Usually you have access to a quick strike button, but it’s worth noting that enemies can automatically restore their health over time, and this is where the game’s wound system begins. Staying on the rude or performing a few heavy strikes is almost always necessary to ensure that the enemy does not regain his health. Not only does this effectively double the HP that some enemies might have, but it also has another additional mechanism, called simply Reaving.
Players can use a loaded heavy strike to wrest a skill from the enemy. Since this cooldown is not insignificant and leaves you open to other strikes, even the game’s tutorial recommends doing it closer to the end of a action rather than trying while juggling other nearby enemies. If you do this on certain enemies — those who are struck by a plague -you get a Reave skill. Now you can use this enemy’s weapon for a single strike to deal additional damage.
Although the Reave ability is far from revolutionary, it actually helps to refresh the action a little. Not only are you no longer stuck spamming the same quick strike with The standard weapon, but you also have a Quick Option to deal considerable damage to groups Of enemies.
When it comes to defense options, Thymesia offers you three options: dodge, parry and spring strike. The last one may seem strange, but it works very well in this rock-paper-scissors game where you try to stay alive. Dodging can be used almost at any time, and dealing with several enemies is the preferred way not to be hit. Parry allows you to quickly parry an strike while dealing a little damage. But then the enemies could use a charged strike that can’t really be parried. It’s when you use your spring strikes.
Spring strikes quickly interrupt your enemy’s charged strikes and inflict a lot of damage on him. Thymesia’s action system consists of dealing damage, as two of your three defense options also deal damage. This seems like a great starting point for upgrades and the skill system. With a soul-style method to improve your stats, Thymesia also offers you a number of skill trees that all focus on different aspects of your character. There are skill trees for your regular strikes, your heavy strikes, dodge, parry, spring strikes, everything. And in an interesting twist, Thymesia also allows you to freely redefine your skill trees, which to some extent encourages experimentation.