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[Demi-OT] Styx: Master of Shadows

Karak

Karak

Member
Data West said:
Wonder if it'll go up at 'midnight' with Driveclub then. It's not up on the store at all for pre-order, so I assume it won't be up until the store updates.
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Actually thats a good question. I asked the folks so maybe they will answer back before midnight. If they do I will post.
 
Karak

Karak

Member
Steverulez said:
Im pretty sure its the 8th on XB1, according to the store anyway.

I should (all being well) have my review of the Xbox One version up sometime tomorrow
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Weird my email says all versions release tomorrow. Maybe they just mean reviews instead of release.

Rechecked email "Styx: Master of Shadows will be available for download from the 7th of October, on PS4, Xbox One, and PC. (€29.99/£24.99./$29.99)"
 
Phawx

Phawx

Member
Posting this in the October Steam Thread and the Styx OT thread.

Our review for Styx: Master of Shadows is live now, you can find it here:

http://www.brainlazy.com/article/reviews/styx-master-shadows-pc-review

The Good Stuff

The level design is superb. Not just in terms of usability, which we’ll get to in the Gameplay section, but in terms of visual detail. The levels are positively crowded with nooks and crannies to explore and enjoy. Early in the game you’re treated to such sprawling eye candy as a massive, crowded sky city, departing airships, and the obligatory dank gothic sewers. If there is even one usage of a skybox in this game, I didn’t notice it. Everything has the look of being reachable if you just try hard enough.
Character models and lip sync aren’t exactly groundbreaking, but I’ve often found player models to be the weakness of the Unreal Engine, so no surprise there. That said, I was really pleased with the creativity in character design. Styx himself is precisely what you’d picture a goblin assassin to be, and the character actually goes through some significant visual changes across the events of the game. There are humans, orcs, and elves in the setting, and each looks enough like their classic namesake to be recognizable while still having a suitably original feel to them. Work has even been done to make enemies recognizable at a distance, vital when you’re trying to avoid wasting precious throwing knives on enemies immune to them.
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With a few exceptions, the gameplay of Styx is extremely good. I particularly admire the level design. In a game that gives extreme flexibility regarding how you achieve your goals, the levels do a fine job of facilitating each. For stealth there are plenty of dark corners, low passages, and high ledges. For exploration there are endless crevices to hide collectibles and consumables. And for combat you’ll find plenty of ambush points and traps to spring.
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Styx is an assassination game. In that way it is quite unlike the Thief Series, which tends to frown upon killing. (I suppose one might unavoidably compare it to Assassin’s Creed, but really there isn’t much common ground in my opinion.) You play as a pint-sized creature, which right from the start has its plusses and minuses. On the plus side, you can hide under tables and crawl easily through vents. (The architects of the game loved vents.) On the minus side, you’re not really a match for the people you’re up against. Seriously. The combat in the game is an absolute last resort. You can’t take on crowds, so much so that the only non-assassination combat in the game is called “dueling”. You defeat people in duels by parrying their attacks enough times to create an opening for a kill. This more or less guarantees that they’ll get at least one hit off on you. Ideally, you’ll be doing your killing through alternate means, and there is no shortage of those.

The main method of kill is to sneak up behind someone. Holding the attack button for about five long seconds will do a muffled kill, which makes almost no noise. If you’re in a hurry, or there’s no one nearby to alert, you can just let go of the button and your victim will scream before dying. As you earn skill points (for primary and secondary objectives) you’ll unlock additional kill methods ranging from the indispensable (killing from around corners and from above) to the almost useless (I don’t know if I was able to perform a single hanging kill).
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Since darkness makes you less detectable, you’ll be spending a lot of time extinguishing light sources… which makes things a lot more difficult to see. To combat this, and also highlight interactive elements, the game lets you use “amber vision”, named for the substance that fuels it. Amber also allows you to create my personal favorite game mechanic, the clone. Styx can vomit up scrawny duplicates of himself, then control them. These little buggers can flip switches, poison food and water (so can you), and unfasten hanging hazards to crush enemies. Later they can get seriously tricked out, gaining the ability to detonate as a smoke bomb, booby trap chests and even go invisible. Of course your clones aren’t the only ones who can go invisible, as that’s the final amber-powered ability you have. Amber itself, aside from being crucial to the plot, comes in vials of which you can carry only two initially, so invisibility (which doesn’t restore your amber) needs to be used sparingly unless you’re particularly good at finding fresh vials of the stuff hanging from guards or sitting on shelves.

Using these abilities you can either slash-and-slice your way through the level, leaving no one alive (my favorite method), spare the lives of the whole level (useful for the “mercy” insignia for each mission) or some combination of the two. You can even beat a level without raising any alarms at all. In almost all situations there are paths that will let you avoid confrontation, or methods to kill even those enemies immune to your weapons. And naturally certain levels will take away certain skills, making stealth the only option if you, say, don’t have your dagger.
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The Bad Stuff

The platforming of the game is slippery. Styx can drop off an edge and catch it on the way down. This is a vital skill for both navigation and evasion, but to do it you need to slowly walk off the edge. I could NOT get this to happen reliably, and thus spent a lot of time loading after falling off a ledge I’d meant to dangle from. There is an “anchor point” mechanic that lets you climb walls by jumping from point to point. This works great. What doesn’t work great is jumping from points to ledges. I can’t count the number of times Styx decided only to jump half as far as usual, or to grind himself across a wall instead of jumping toward a ledge. Some enemies were a bit overpowered, too. Holy crap, those roabies… I really feel that between the roabies and the orcs, having human guards possibly become their targets instead of just me would have made more sense dramatically and gamemplay-wise. Imagine getting a group of guards to wander into a crowd of mutant death beetles… If only. The in game map isn't terribly helpful, in that it's just that, a map. Not a map system. It's clever in that it requires you to keep your bearings and identify landmarks, but it's irritating in that I wasn't good at doing the bearings part. Fortunately the objective pointers do the job well enough.

Also, there’s at least one escort mission. Enough with the escort missions, developers. Seriously.
Click to expand...

Again, you can find the full review here if you want to read a bit more:

http://www.brainlazy.com/article/reviews/styx-master-shadows-pc-review
 
Karak

Karak

Member
Hi guys, here is my review at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLqa-oy7kNI

But if you don't like my reviews or youtube I can give some pros and cons and also answer any questions you have about the game.

Pros-
Worlds atmosphere
Sound, music and voice work(one or two misses here)
Styx is is a master of his tools not a tools using master. Lots of thought needed here but not as many tools as some other games which is perfect.
Stealth is just plain fun

Cons
Control when dropping down from above
Some jumping issues
Texture work
Fighting system shows that you should NEVER get in a an actual sword fight in the game. Its pretty bad.

All in all I liked it so much. The feeling of atmosphere the different way in which the at typical bad guy is a good guy here isn't just window dressing but is reflected everywhere in the game. Something is amiss in this world and I wish these guys had AAA money.
 
B

Buttonbasher

Member
MickeyKnox said:
nick_frost_main_cr_26b6uoh.jpg
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Good work.
 
P

publicpwnerer

Member
I'm tempted to pick this up asap. Any details as to how it runs on the various platforms?

EDIT: I can't see this game on the PSN or XBO store...nor can I find it retail.
 
Tizoc

Tizoc

Member
publicpwnerer said:
I'm tempted to pick this up asap. Any details as to how it runs on the various platforms?

EDIT: I can't see this game on the PSN or XBO store...nor can I find it retail.
Click to expand...

Are you on US or EU PSN? US PSN will update within the next 24 hours so it might go up by then.
EU PSN updates on wednesday.
 
J

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.
publicpwnerer said:
Cheers, thanks guys.

It's already the 7th here...but I should've known that'd be tomorrow+.
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The game unlocks on Steam in a little over five hours (which, funnily enough, is midnight the 8th here), but I don't know how much control publishers have over release dates/times on PSN and XBLA, so you may be waiting longer still.
 
S

Steverulez

Member
Tizoc said:
Oooh I like
that magic potion that makes bodies invisible but I wonder if the effect is for a limited time?
Click to expand...

It is limited. You need amber to do it and towards the middle/latter part of the game I found it become in more limited supplies so you have to use it wisely.
 
B

Banjo-Kazooie

Member
I've had it since Friday on XB1.

Without posting a full review yet since I'm not far enough yet, I'll say that the cutscene graphics are pretty brutal, the parry system is pretty awful, auto-saves happen at weird times and are too sporadic, leaving you to try and remember to manually save when you can. The world isn't really "open", at least not in the missions I have played, as it's basically, find ways to get from point A to point B in the level.

However, I LOVE how much freedom you have to get to your objectives on your own terms. Stealth, Muffled Kills, extinguishing lights, ect...it's pretty darn fun and addicting to try new methods, albeit a little bit hard at first since there are a lot of enemies to get by and the parry system (the only way you can attack someone if they notice you) is pretty lame.

Full review coming maybe tomorrow or Thursday, but I'd say it's worth the price if you like stealth games...like actual stealth games where you get punished if you so much as knock over a stool while crawling around.

edit: I would agree with Hawk above...the stealth and the approach of it is really awesome, but everything else falls a bit short.
 
-MD-

-MD-

Member
Didn't plan on doing anything but be stealthy the entire time so the meh combat isn't a big deal to me.
 
S

spacemonkeynation

Member
Magic Mushroom said:
Seems quite a few people in this thread played it and liked it.
Click to expand...

And for that I'm glad. I shouldn't have posted such a generalized statement, but that's been my experience with their products. I always love the presentation but gameplay issues or lack of content always stick out. I wish they'd stop trying to provide big budget experiences at a lower price and instead make fun games. Bring the scope back a bit, make shorter titles. They've clearly got great art direction, but there's always huge caveats elsewhere. Price isn't a huge distinction in the PC or digital marketplaces, people just want entertaining games.
 
H

HassanJamal

Member
All right, this game definitely went to a must buy, based on the positives. Knew from that first trailer, this would be an enjoyable stealth game. Possibly more Assassin like than the actual AC games.
 
M

More_Badass

Member
A third person stealth game, with open levels, a variety of tactics, and an agile character? Sold. Just picked this up from GMG, can get it 20% off there

HassanJamal said:
All right, this game definitely went to a must buy, based on the positives. Knew from that first trailer, this would be an enjoyable stealth game. Possibly more Assassin like than the actual AC games.
Click to expand...
Exactly! This looks like what I was Assassins Crews was like
 
B

Banjo-Kazooie

Member
-MD- said:
Didn't plan on doing anything but be stealthy the entire time so the meh combat isn't a big deal to me.
Click to expand...

Yep, it's pretty awesome finding new ways to tackle tough situations. You also have this energy called "amber" where you can use it to create clones to use as distractions and eventually weapons, you can turn invisible for a short period of time, and you can use this vision that highlights certain objects to get a better lay of the land...all of which are upgradeable as you gain experience in the levels.
 
Karak

Karak

Member
Morokh said:
Does the game actually requires you to fight at some points ?
Click to expand...

Not at any point I can remember but the somewhat tough AI and makeup of some of the levels its not hard to get caught if you aren't perfect in some areas. They are super aggressive at calling for help which is awesome but once you have even 2 enemies on you its hammer time.

One of the most fantastic parts of the game is when you try to escape and climb into a tunnel only to get torn out of it by your belt, thrown across the room and kicked in the ribs. The game really does a good job of removing some of the easy patterns set by other games.
 
L

Labadal

Member
I started this on Goblin difficulty. I'm not very far in, but it seems decent so far. I have killed some enemies, not because I have to, but it looks so damn funny when Styx jumps on them. Jumping is a bit iffy, but you'll get used to it. Fighting can be a pain in the ass because I suck at timing and Goblin difficulty will supposedly have enemies one-shot you if you fail in your timing.
 
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