Seven: Enhanced Edition

Seven seems like a really promising game: open world stealth sounds great, and the real-time 3d isometric perspective looks pretty good. But then you get to actually playing the thing. In practice, Seven is basically a standard open-world RPG that is very confused as to what it wants to be, and lacks satisfying core gameplay loops to sustain itself. You do an AWFUL LOT of fighting for what is supposed to be a stealth-oriented game; there are standard RPG arena-type quest lines that are straight combat, and many of the beasts and enemies in the wilds can't be effectively snuck past: you either fight them or bypass them. The combat is miserable and unpleasant, with a rapidly-depleting stamina bar and every enemy being a damage sponge. The prospect of freeform thieving in big urban areas, which seems like a cool idea, is uh. Basically dead on arrival. The cities are dominated by buildings designed for plot missions, and there's never any exciting loot: 95% of the stuff you find is literal garbage that is used in the game's crafting system, and if you do find anything cool- special weapons or clothing, etc, you're likely to be unable to find a merchant with enough cash to actually buy it from you. Also, you can just murder most merchants and take their stock from their corpse without consequence, meaning cash, even when you get it, is only useful for buying access to new sections of the map. The plot is. Uh. Nothing. It's a dull nothing that is difficult to follow at best (poor translation? and lots of made-up in-universe terms and ideas), and there are no memorable characters to root for. None of it is very interesting. I wanted to like this game so much more than I did, and it's obvious a ton of work and love went into making aspects of it- the art, the level design, the music, etc. But it's less than the sum of its parts, because there's no compelling gameplay to tie it together.

Visually stunning game... vibe/gameplay make me think of Shadow Tactics and Satellite Reign, but with just a single character to manage. There's a few rough edges in its launch state... some technical, some mechanical. The game defaulted to a 30FPS cap, so don't panic if it happens, there's an option in the menus to up it... it also crashes upon exit randomly. It's an Unreal title, so it's really solid with frame rates/performance... I'm on a 165Hz G-SYNC 1440p display with a 1080 Ti and it maxes out those frame rates silky smooth. Gameplay-wise, there are some frustrating mechanics issues like no indication the enemy's field of view, so it's hard to judge when they'll see/detect you... traversing over small objects will break your sneak/crouch just to have to hit the crouch again... the game doesn't really tell you everything you need to know right off the bat, so going into the menus and looking through the tutorials will be a big help starting out... there's no way to hide bodies? (seems strange for a stealth game)... controls could use some finesse in general... I played with both M/K and an Xbox One controller... I think I prefer the controller right now... But besides those things, there's a lot to love here... game encourages exploration/experimentation, the atmosphere is awesome, everything is super polished... menus, sound, etc. The hacking mini-game is really fun. I would say it's a solid buy right now (if you're on the fence) knowing that some massaging through some patches will probably address the issues it has right now. Really glad to finally play this and hope the devs find succeess with it!

The good: Very engaging concept. If you enjoyed the Thief series and always wanted an open world thievery game with interesting heists added here and there, you're gonna like this game. Between sneaking through balconies, taking the bathroom windows, disguising and waltzing through the front door, etc... You can steal everything that isn't nailed down to the ground (literally), clean out shop inventories, pickpocket everyone in the world. Everything can be stolen if you have the patience. If you are one of those people who somehow ghosted the entirety of Shadow Tactics, you're gonna want to get this game as a matter of principle. This game borrows a lot of the design from ST, like vision cone, enemies reacting to sounds/light level/heights, time of day. There are endless ways to complete the objectives. You may find yourself climbing the fence into a warehouse to disable the security system just to get out, have a beer at the pub, come back two days later to crash land onto the roof from a nearby building and get in that way. The bad: On one hand, Teriel (Basically a cockier Garrett) and the voiced cast are done fairly well. On the other hand, the rest of the town NPCs are bland and lifeless, and I feel like they're just there to eat up framerates. For an open world thievery game with a day/night cycle, there should be an active economy and life simulation, so as a practiced thief you can plan your pilfering accordingly, which would make the experience more immersive. The AIs literally have their memories on a timer. If you went through their tip jar, they stare at you for a few seconds then forget you exist. Performance... My laptop is no powerhouse, but I can run Witcher 3, Dying Light, and Prey on a comfortable Medium with minimal CTDs and no massive framerates drops, but I cannot run this game on Low without stuttering everywhere I go and CTD every half hour or so. Turning AA to Temporal helps. I love the game so far, but please patch the performance issue, it's sucking the fun out of the game.

I bought this on an impulse yesterday based on seeing a video in the past and the CD Project RED veteran credentials. I'm digging it so much and it does a lot of fresh things I haven't seen put together in this exact way before. I've been playing RPGs and isometric games since the early Ultimas and this one is surprising me with its design choices in really good ways. For an isometric game, the world and action of it is extremely fluid. You're definitely in the driver's seat as a player and it's not the style where you click and wait for a character to walk there. For how many ways you can bounce around the environment, it moves and handles extremely well. If something looks reasonable to climb, you can do that and the feel of what's possible is quickly intuitive. The hustle and bustle of the city environments is well done. It might be one of the few RPGs I've played where the number of people in a city area feels right and fuller than usual. This matters as you're a thief and it has an effect on what you can and can't get away with. The openness feels really alive. After the tutorial chapter, you're given a wide amount of freedom of what to go do as you explore this new world. If you want to go running into a militarized zone you don't have a visa for, you can totally do that. Just don't get caught. Exploration gamers who like open settings will really like the feel. The vertical nature of the game also feels very fresh and creates some fun puzzling. You might know a secret hideout might be just below your feet, but figuring out how to get to that particular story of the building is part of the fun. The level design is interesting and there's clear care in how it was put together. The lore and world building is fresh. For people who like me who like lore, there's a lore section like the Witcher where it fills with people and place descriptions as you explore. Finally, I haven't run into technical problems yet. My desktop is three years old if that helps.