Styx: Master of Shadows

It's a good (very good even) game as long as you stick to one rule. Play goblin difficulty. Really it's almost a must as the games combat is abysmal and possibly even worse than combat in Thief 2014. This is not a big problem however as Styx is a pure example of a stealth game. Styx is not like (the new) Sam Fisher who upon being discovered just flips a table and clears the map with machine gun fire. Far from that! He's a puny goblin who will get his butt kicked and head caved in if you don't play the game to his strengths. The maps are all very well designed... with one glaring issue however. You are going to see them all at least twice as you start playing all the maps in reverse from chapter 4 and onwards. On the upside the maps are well designed and still work well even played in reverse. The good: Expansive levels with a lot of verticality that rarely make you feel like you're being forcibly shoehorned into a predetermined path and if there is one you can easily break out of it by creative use of your clone or invisibility. Chatty (and funny) main character. Minimal handholding. Even silent kills cause some noise so there are no scenes common in many stealth games where entire formations of densely packed troops are silently murdered without them even realizing as long as no one looks directly at the Grave Walker. The bad: The guards occasionally stop patrolling upon loading a saved state and just stand in place. The maps are all played twice... and one even thrice. The map is useless not only not showing the main characters position but also showing a pretty small fragment of the actual map due to all the verticality and the map being drawn from a top down perspective. On some maps that's almost like not showing over half of the level. This might be intentional however, as the game takes after Thief titles where the maps made or received by Garret were often not particularly, accurate or complete. The combat is laughable and best completely avoided.

The artistic direction refers to the classic fantasy of humans, orcs, elves (here proposed in a creepy version) and various, placed in majestic architecture. When the eyes turn to the sky in open scenarios, it is difficult not to be impressed by the babel of towers that stand out above and below us. As if Styx wasn't already little on his own. Yes, Styx, a setting and gameplay completely sewn on this "nice because ugly" protagonist. The megatower, Akenash, is full of tunnels in which to slip like a xenomorph, of high protrusions from which to observe what is underneath like a gargoyle, of containers in which to hide like a mouse, in a rhythm that makes us always, constantly prey and predator, capturing the true soul of a stealth game. If the frontal attack is unthinkable even against a worker with a mallet, Styx expresses his personality with very badass kills on unsuspecting opponents, performable from above, below, from the side, in aggressive and rapid mode, or in slow mode, but silent, imposing constant timing planning on the player. There is also the opportunity to get rid of light sources, to make invisible for a short period and to hide the bodies in wardrobes and trunks, when not to even dissolve them on the spot through special vials of acid. The opportunities gradually wind up, creating a triangle between Styx, its upgrades and the setting that reveal each other and finally giving great satisfaction to the credits, because you really have the feeling of having revealed everything. Pleasant also the story, which although not transcendental (obviously it's a fantasy, there is little new to be said), makes good use of the nature of the protagonist, doing something more than the archetype that would only like him as a disgusting slimy green gnome, and indeed, continuing a red thread that starts from Of Orcs and Men. Nice things, I'll definitely go through the sequel too.

A nice stealth-game with a level-design to remember. The excessive verticality is something for sore eyes and makes for a great game-world to maneuver the foul-mouthed but likable rapscallion Styx around in. The missions very long as those levels are quite huge. That is not necessarily a problem, but it takes a while in between visits to your home-base, where you are allowed to level up your avatar. The game would be a total 5-star-contender if the devs hadn't make a couple of questionable decisions: a) you are not able to take on enemies in a non-lethal way (all hail the Blackjack) and b) what on earth possessed the devs to flood players with a non-ending cacophony of high-pitched frequencies around 4kHz in one of the later levels? I stopped playing the game because of that in 2015 and again nowadays. Still though: for that price it's a must-have for every stealth-gamer.

I love Stealth games as a genre. I love finding ways to avoid enemies instead of just running and gunning. And Styx is a masterpiece at this style of play. I also love how many of the levels are vertically oriented, not just horizontally. There are lots of interesting ways to go up (or down) around the main plane of activity for the guards, are more often than not, you are rewarded with new ways through for trying it out.

As the title says, its a really fun game that has that OG stealth feel. That said , there are some major glitches in this release that are supposedly fixed in 1.03, which isn't available with GOG. Quick suggestions, no matter how appealing, do not replay any missions until you have completed the game. This isn't the version where you want to 100% each level before progressing the first time through. You will end up stuck with no way to progress from the hideout.