Thymesia, while a simple souls-like, has an outstanding and unique gameplay that has made me fall in love with the game. a group of seven developers did what many big companies with big pockets couldn't. The fighting style and parrying is just so unique and satisfying that i'd say after Sekiro, parrying never felt more right!
Spending hours to farm barrels just to Plat the game shows how much I loved the game.

Fantastic game with great souls-like gameplay/mechanics and a unique aesthetic.

TL;DR: Ultimately Thymesia falls not because of the combat which admittedly can feel stellar throughout, but because of the lack of build diversity (There's actually none) and a horrid "backtrack-progression" system that is definitely not in a cool metroidvania-style either. IT WOULD BE FINE if you had a singular reason to give a ♥♥♥♥ about the respawned enemies and elites (Ie. Dark Souls, where in some cases it is HEAVILY beneficial for you to go back and respawn-farm trash packs for hours) but as said, all collectibles become redundant like 5hrs into the game, making the sub-quests a sliding simulator, where you just dart your way past EVERYTHING to try and find the level ending key item. Gets boring the first time you experience it.

+The bosses are nice
+The aesthetic of Corvus is top notch
+The combat is pretty fine tuned

--The game doesn't know how to build cohesive levels, instead dividing the same level into 5ish "sub-quests" that you have to complete in order to get to the good part, fighting the bosses.
--These sub-quests are nothing but super heavy filler and involve mostly heavy backtracking, with respawned and recycled elites & trash. This game would be fine if you didn't have to complete a sub-quest for the 4th time in the same level to find a piece of document you're never going to read anyways.
--The need for actually fighting enemies, elites and gathering mats falls off at like 5hrs into the game. You already have everything you will ever need and every collectible afterwards just exists as empty code.
--No itemization whatsoever to keep things interesting. Sure, the plague weapons are varied, but their upgrade system requires you to go back to a level to farm shards... from the same enemies you already cleared on your 4th subquest, ffs. Everything else you get besides souls is useless.
--On the subject of itemization, the RPG-elements of the game are BARE BONES and HEAVILY SO. You have 3 stats to "level up". That's 3; HP, ATK and Plague, which is just your secondary ATK.
--Did I mention, no items or gear? nada.
--No voice acting, just random "hms" and "uhs"
--The lock on system is slippery as hell and has you bouncing around different targets who are on the other side of the room.