Seven: Enhanced Edition

I am over 20 hours in and have been loving it. However, there are some major mechanics that were never mentioned, and if you are not aware of it, the experience becomes absolutely terrible. First one is stealth and noise. Lower right, on your radar, the outline will wiggle. This is your noise meter. Heavier armor causes more noise, and can be so bad that turning around while crouched will alert guards, but that statistic is not shown as a number. If you want stealth, look for armor that gives 0% reduction in movement speed (commoner's clothes). Noise will negate Invisibility as enemies will attack "thin air". If you need quick getaway, you need to go Invis, crouch, and do the roll/slide away. Second is combat. Your evade button is the recovery button. If you get hit, and you mash evade, you will immediately recover and dodge. This button needs to be pressed a lot in combat. Doing rolls, slides (they stun enemies a little), back step (no direction evade), then attacking out of an evade. Almost all of these were discovered by accident and completely change how combat feels. Using fists to KO instead of trying to kill guards will make a difference. KO enemies do wake up, but you can do this in the beginning against tougher units. This KO can also be done as a drop attack if you can't get behind an enemy. Last one is a general tip. Exploration do NOT unlock more skills. You need to follow the main storyline to get skills like Chronosphere, Invisibility, etc. Also, there is a limitless supply of money via constantly respawning people, so don't be afraid of selling random weapons and armor that you find.

If you like third-person or top-down stealth games (Hitman, Skyrim, Heat Signature) buy this game. I've put 90 hours in and have completed probably 80+% of the side-quests, including the DLC, as well as completing the main quest line and had a blast. However, there are many annoyances that detract from the user experience. With a bit of experimenting, though, the game really opens up and becomes very fun. You MUST save-scum. The one-shot-kill environmental features and unrestricted fall damage means you will have to use the save system intentionally. Since even side-quests can have different endings, you are encouraged to play out the various options by quickloading and trying a different approach. Many things aren't adequately explained to you such as the icons in the menus, how or why to upgrade weapons and armour, the stash system (available at the safehouse and every fast travel point and crafting bench) and how to upgrade your "magic" abilities, how to use them properly, differences in weapons, necessity of dodging or techniques for combat (the latter two encourage experimentation). You cannot ghost through the game which may put some people off when the game says you can "choose your playstyle". Combat is required for the two fights mentioned above and thus, watching for better weapons and crafting upgrades for them is also necessary. If you can get over the lack of guidance from the devs, this is a gem of a game that detractors haven't invested time into (e.g. Piflik's review can be softened by just explaining that he has to dodge more, switch between long-range and melee weapons, save-scum, use sense-mode more often to detect traps early, sliding is slower than the teleportation ability, don't pick up items you don't need, pay attention to upgrade requirements, use the invisibility ability, crouch more, read the tutorial on the fast-travel system--most of these things would apply to Skyrim too but you need to learn the systems of Seven).

This game is top-notch. I think the devs of this game had thought off the right solutions to common RPG traditional mistakes. For example, this feels like a real open world, not only because of map extensión but for the map verticality and well-designed environments. Every heavily guarded zone has multiple entrances, and there is no linear solution to find an objective. Going in through certain zone maybe let you approach the mission objective more easily than others. How profound the mechanics of this game are! That's the word I think describes it best: Profound. It has AAA RPG characteristics: looting, crafting, diary, combats, upgrades, choices, and collectibles, in an easy and light manner for an indie-looking game. And man, the lore! It is all about a dystopian cyberpunk world where technological advances and science together with human nature produced a kind of totalitarian state where people find even a religious, existential, and divine sense in worshiping technology. My favorite lore part is definitely the population control part. Everyone needs a VISA pill to wander around certain parts of the city: you can collect the money to buy the pill in a dispenser machine, wander around perilous map zones and, hiding and seeking, find an entrance on your own, or you can do some quest with certain important low-life character and earn a pill after stealing a container in the city docks. What I just said is pretty much what this game is about plenty of freedom.

The good: - The world building is great - Easter eggs are funny - Isometric perspective makes stealth fun - The melee combat is fun The decent: - Overall decent history The bad: - Navigation and maps are terrible, mostly due to the fact that there is a single map view in a vertical world - The ranged combat is riddled with bugs and issues, it's practically impossible to play using ranged weapons

First let's clarify what this is, it's Thief + Fallout + Witcher 3 with cyberpunk elements to explain apparently magical powers and an isometric view. You control one character whose job is to sneak around and steal stuff, it's up to you if you want to be good or evil, no karma bar, only consequences. Lots of RPG elements like levels for gear, although getting good gear is not that difficult, just have to take out the right people, silently. I got one crash after about 4 hours of gameplay, but it was not a problem since there's quicksaving. I suggest you save a lot. There are melee and ranged weapons, but I have never used the ranged ones since the damage sucks. There's also a lot of looting. Not a lot of selling stuff for cash, because the vendors are broke and are not there to buy stuff - this is strange, I'm not sure if it's a good or bad thing. To stealth kill, you have to be exactly behind the target and watch for the prompt, it's not hard to do. Anyway, it's an almost totally sneaking game with combat when you get detected and a lot of toys in it, the game seems to be in a combined wooded/urban enviro with a cyberpunk feel, so it's not all city/pure cyberpunk area like in the demo. To be honest I haven't finished it yet, I just wanted to post a review to tell you it's a good game if you like post-apocalyptic sneaking games.