Styx: Shards of Darkness

If you like stealth gamesl ike Splinter Cell or Thief, then this game is a must play. Excellently designed game.

I took one star off for the exclusion of Co-op option but still an great game regardless. I play single mode only so I do not really miss the Co-0p mode.

Most likeable oddball Styx and the suffering of unbalanced game design... Difficulty of the game in general: Ridiculous. Game difficulty in boss fights: An absolute impudence. The NPCs are almost completely free of any perception throughout the game and you can calmly walk right next to them, practically over their feet. It's a walk in the park. But when it comes to the boss fights, the confusion of the location and the damage that the bosses deal out is such unfairly balanced that you have to replay the entire goddamn scene over and over again until you find out, how you are supposed to get through that fight. On top of that, you are not allowed to save during boss fights. What's the point of increasing the difficulty level of the boss fights so much? Even on the lowest difficulty setting? So that the game doesn't get torn up by the gaming kiddies during their game reviews on YouTube? So that the game reviews in gaming magazines can emphasize that at least the boss fights are a challenge? A pity. Great setting. Cool story (for a fantasy game). Cool protagonist. Poor balancing. I really wanted to like Styx' voyage - simply because he is such a quirky, unusual character. Unfortunately, the game was often spoiled for me by the half-baked game mechanics described above. Took me a load of nerves, not to delete it and play it through...

Styx: Shards of Darkness is the sequel to Styx: Master of Shadows, and improves a lot upon its predecessor. Other than the obviously better graphics, stealth is also much easier to do. Enemies crowd around less and are less perceptive. There are more alternate paths you can use to sneak around as well. It feels more like a proper, well-made stealth game than before. The side characters are also more developed as well, we spend more time with them and they have different personalities. The level variation is one of the most noticeable improvements. While most of the first game takes place in a generic fantasy-styled castle or town, there's variation here such as a shantytown and a cliffside fortress. It still suffers from the same problem as the first game, where some of the levels are just reusing previous ones with different objectives, but this time objectives in the revisited areas are different, making us explore parts of the map usually unexplored or inaccessible during the first visit. My main issue with this gameplay is the lack of map. While it's no big deal since the maps are useless in the first game and there are quest markers, it would be useful when you're doing a collectible hunt. I was expecting more of a modern map which tracks your location, but then again its not really necessary as the maps aren't really mazelike. Styx: Shards of Darkness is a great stealth game, and although it's not an immersive sim like Dishonored or Thief, it's still a decent game. If you played the first one and wondering if you should buy the sequel, buy it, as it's a lot better than the first and a bit longer as well, with improved stealth that made it fun.

Beware, if you game stutters as mine did, try playing in Fullscreen, not borderless window. What can I say, it's more Styx, with improved graphics and sound, more enemy variety, more locations, new traversal options, now with a crafting system so you can choose what gear you need the most, this is good, but the best part is that there's now a dedicated button for hanging from ledges regardless of your movement speed, and the addition of diversion items you can throw is a welcome one. Also, now we can be a goblin of equal opportunities with the addition of female enemies, you can spread death without discrimination, I know, kind of silly to mention it, but it was a little detail that caught my attention in the first game. That said, there are some things old and new that rubbed me the wrong way about this game: Why did they remove the white filter from tokens while using amber vision? now they look like any other collectable, of which there are many since we now have a crafting system, it honestly pisses me off. I know the mercy medal is there for an extra challenge because videogames, but it just doesn’t fit with Styx, you are a goblin, a creature of evil and chaos, and greedy to a fault, having the option of getting a merciless medal would be nice. They went overboard with the heavy armored foes, in the first game there were few until the very last part of the game and 90% of the time there was a conveniently placed mechanic to encourage a clean kill. On this one tho, in the first mission they are introduced they are the most prevalent foe and with little to no recourse for my murderous intent, and that is very boring But the biggest sin of all is that there are zones with points of no return, so if you missed a collectible before reaching it, that's it, a big "f you, restart the mission you dingus" As I said, objectively it should be better, but it didn't grab my attention as the first did, maybe is seeing all those very alive guards I couldn't kill.