I'll write a proper review once I finish the game 100% but after 50 hours in I can say this game is AMAZING if you love hardcore stealth games. While some people gripe about the combat system in place I find it a refreshing pace when I rarely DO mess up and have to defend myself. I do the little parry dance/kill minigame or dodge/roll thrown knife and/or escape and see if I can successfully hide away then I load a prior save and do it again the right way... without being detected... EVER. I personally enjoy finding how to kill EVERY SINGLE enemy on a map without ever being detected. As such, it has kept me playing this game for a long time without finishing it yet. You have to use some pretty clever tactics when you start coming across multiple knight patrols (immune to takedowns) and more sinister things I won't spoil for you. While a mission will take me 4-6 hours to beat in this manner of killing every single enemy without being detected, as well as finding all the loot, it is a very enjoyable time. Then after I beat it like that I redo it in the handy 'mission replay' feature as a speed + mercy + shadow run. So I guess I can vouch for all styles of play, both the fast paced and the ridiculously slow, super careful, pace. This game is well polished all around. The freedom of movement is something to be really thankful for after seeing recent quote unquote stealth games have a push button to win method of movement. If you like to engage your enemies head on, this is NOT the game for you. This is a stealth title as they were designed decades ago, don't get caught or you lose and hit your quickload key. Story is top notch, voice acting is superb as well. Game runs extremely well and looks/sounds/feels fantastic. I use a keyboard and mouse to play and it feels very natural and fluid. Having full control over what happens in your movement is very important here. There is no "I win" button for ledge traversing and there are no defined paths... if you miss a jump, it is your own fault. Make use of your shift (slow walk) and drop/lift/jump keys to do all you need exactly how you need to do it. This is something many early reviewers did not take time to realize and as a result many people think the controls are bad when in fact they are very intuitive and responsive. You just need to be smart enough to utilize them properly. If you lack patience, you likely won't enjoy this. The original Thief games (not the remake from a few years ago) are something to compare this game's approach to. If you enjoyed those you are likely the target audience for this game. Age 30-45 gamers who grew up playing unforgiving titles that challenged you and didn't hold your hand should find this a nice nostalgic feel compared to the current trends. Well I sure dragged on and on... but:

TL;DR This game is amazing! WELL worth the price tag and then some. AAA title at a B price. You can't go wrong with that, unless of course you don't like this type of game. To each their own though!

I strongly recommend this game for people who are looking to play a stealth game.

However pure stealth games are very punishing, this is not action stealth like Splinter Cell where you can run around killing everyone and still win. The same goes for Dishonored, there is no panic action of killing an entire room of foes.

Styx is much more like Mark of the Ninja or the old Metal Gear Solid games.

If you like sneaking around, manipulating enemies, hiding bodies and having a very open ended way of problem solving areas then this game is for you.

+ Graphics
+ Stealth works pretty good
+ Big levels
+ Plenty to upgrade
+ Secrets

+/- AI hit and miss
+/- Story isn't terribly interesting

- Hand-to-hand combat is terrible (I can understand that they want to force you to take your time)
- Dropping of off ledges
- Missions take just too long, with too many seperate parts

[Rating: 73/100]

i highly recommend buying this game
-stunning graphics
-amazing gameplay
-great story line with huge unexpected twists
-awesome voice acting

all up amazing game 100% worth playing
10/10

Pros:
-good story
-good gameplay
-good MC
-lots of different ways to achieve each objective
-fun abilities
-many different ways to dispose of people/monsters
Cons:
-ROABIES

8.5/10

Awesome Game,

Good stealther, quality graphics, fairly decent price wise.

All in All.... 7.5/10

Video - 8/10
Gameplay - 9/10
Audio - 8/10
Replayability - 9/10

Got some spare cash? Toss it at Cyanide and enjoy this really good game.

One of the better stealth games to come out these past few years. If you are into "If I get caught I'll just kill everyone and hide again" this game is probably not for you. But, if you enjoy the sneaking, hiding, misdirecting, and occasional killing of someone then this game should be right up your alley.

Sehr gutes Stealth-Game, nur die Steuerung ist leider ( auch mit Xbox-Controller ) etwas schwammig.
Alles in Allem aber ein gutes Spiel!

This game is fantastic! It remides me a lot of dishonored but imploys more needed stealth elements to get through missions. Graphics are fantastic. It is difficult as well I strongly recommend this game to anyone looking for a challenging stealth game.

Great game, good story, nice sneaking system.

Styx is basically a Thief-like sneaky-steally-stabby kind of game, you being an unscrupulous goblin with pointy dagger and sticky hands. And this game does this sneaky-stabby part really good - I had really lots of fun while either crouching under the table until the guard went away so I could steal the shiny token unnoticed, or dropping the chandelier onto his head so I could steal the shiny token unnoticed.

One pointer though - game allows for free saving-loading in the middle, when I discovered this I immediately restarted on the hardest difficulty - which even then was not that hard but enforced nicer, more sneaky walkthrough. I advise everyone to do the same.

Story itself was great - with very nice twist in the middle and nice uncertainty almost to the end. Before playing this game I played Of Orcs And Men to which this game is a prequel (OOAM being released two years before Styx). And though both of those are really good games, OOAM didn't leave this fuzzy warm feeling of accomplishment in me that Styx did.

About A/V - graphics were great, Audio... not so much.

Overall I give it an 8.5/10.

Styx is a very entertaining game for stealth gamers. Huge maps. Many routes to accomplishing missions. Interesting story for those RPG minded. Completely immersive if you really let yourself engage the game. Graphis are no more no less than what they showed be for the set design. In other words, graphics ar e good and do not in any way distract from immersion. I have heard that ledges are a problem. Must have been patched because after 12 hours I have had no problem whatsoever. This hails back to the original Thief games but is not Thief. Other than the stealth, you will not be reminded of Thief. At least I have not been. I highly recommend this game for stealth gamers.

Rikimaru - The Game

Not something I'd play again, but it was a fun ride until the end.
The game is limited it mechanics, but shines in level design. You always have multiple solutions at hand and are not forced to only use a set amount of possibilities to make it trough a puzzle. You always have multiple possible routes.

There are also a ton of collectibles, if you're into that kind of thing.

Overall 7/10

You are a "drug" addict goblin who hideing is shadows, killing peasants and stealing things. So simple, so clever, so good. 10/10

Well... I'm a big fan of stealth games and RPG-s (and I play a rogue/assassin in an RPG, if possible), and a big fun of anti-heros too... so this was a 'must have' title for me. And I'm so ♥♥♥♥in satisfied!

Pro:
+ your "evil" protagonist's personality consistent with the "evil" things, what are you doing trought the semi-open gameplay.
[Most stealh game must have an objection to "Y U DO DIS", and its usually sucks, or not moral-friendly. In this game the objection is you, and not the revenge, anger or fear. If you like imagine it to your character, and act in games as he/she may act in his/her word, you will be feel yourself totally free :)]
+ the voice and the music are amazing!
+ the level design and atmosphere is epic! The complexity of the vertical levels is perfect for me. You will not get lost, but you will enjoy the exploring. The leves can finish in few min, but if you want you can find all of their secret in a hour or two, but before you start getting bored.
+ you have very limited inventory to consumables, so you only pick up what you need. If you like "maxing", don't need to be a kleptomaniac idiot. Steal 10 coin and a relic and kthxbye.
+The AI and their timeing is perfect for epic gameplay. Yout should thinking (if you attacked by 2 or more guard at same time, u probably die, but you don't need ♥♥♥♥ in a bush for half hour, for w8ing when they lost your track. (in normal)

Con:
what con dude? no con. buy it, at full price (ok, maybe not at full), let the developer team make more awsome Aarklash game for us

A great little game. A real diamond in the rough. You can play it as you like, head on or in the shadows. There are real challenges here that are satisfying when you reach the goal.

A nice little story line but that is always secondary to me. It's really just an excuse to tie a bunch of levels together. And the levesl aren't small. There are plenty of ways to get where you want to be. The extra challenges make you explore more to get what you want.

This is a must for stealth fans, especially those that were dissapointed by the latest Thief. The combat isn't great, but if you are in combat then you've done something wrong. Sorry but it's true. Search around some more and you wil find the path you need. And they are not obvious.

Overall a great little game with a fun ugly little green hero. I totally recommend this game to stealth gamers and those that like the genre.

Best game i've played for a very long time. :)

9/10

This game is phenomenal. I would say that it's better 5 times than new Thief. Would try to play with controller and fail miserably again. 9/10

Well, long story short, this is a hardcore stealth game. Would seriously only recommend to those who like the old school stealth games, or are used to bumping up the difficulty settings in the newer ones. It's not a bad game...no, not at all. Just that anyone who's going to be playing this for anything other than stealth will have to endure a mightily frustrating time! I consider myself a semi-hardcore (if there's such a thing even) stealth gamer and I found it just a tad frustrating on Hard difficulty. No complaints though...I'm gonna man up!

Anyways, the biggest pro is that the levels are huge (like really huge...it took me just under 2.5 hours to complete the intro alone!). Lots of routes to take, and there's lots of verticality to it. There are ample number of collectibles to find, and potions to collect and conjure more magic tricks. And you are encouraged to not kill anyone, or not be detected, or steal all loot by unlocking rewards at the end of levels. AI seems to be decent too, if not unforgiving!

The stealth elements are standard from what you'd get in Thief for example. Guards can see you when you are in light and in their line of sight. They can hear you (even tripping over pails and broomsticks). And you can hide in the shadows, where a tattoo on your body will glow orange. However, you cannot abuse the shadows as much as Thief. Even when you think you are in a dark area, if a guard comes too close, he will smell you out.

Story is so-so for me. Too early to read too much into it. Visuals are just OK as well. Some textures look like they're brought right in from 1998 though. But on the plus side, I get to max out this game on my meager GTX 750 and get 60fps most of the time at 1080p. So yeah, it's not at all graphically demanding. Voice acting is mediocre as well. Nothing bad, but nothing memorable either. The same goes for the soundtrack/sound effects.

The controls are a little finicky and you will need to spend time in the early game to get used to them. Certain jumping actions are not properly explained in the tutorial. But aside from the jumping controls, the movement controls of Styx otherwise are solid.

In closing, the game feels like the most brutal stealth game I've played, and I can assure you I've played just about all of them released in the past 5 years. Still it should be a good challenge, and I assume as I progress and get used to the gameplay more, the experience will only get better.

Has the classic vibe of a stealth game, massive maps, and an alright story behind it all.

Pros:


Lots of potential with maps.

I've a mere 4 hours and I have only completed the first mission on "Goblin" difficulty (which is the hardest of the difficulties. The maps are incredibly large. full of many possibilities of your sucess or demise; be it the convinient tunnel, heavy objecting hanging above a guard, malfunctioning machines, gob in a box, the common ledge, the miscalculation of one's eyes, and much more.

A game for nitpicking.

There's quite a handful of enemies on each map, you can keep to the shadows and aim directly to the objective, or you could just run aimlessly assassinating every living thing you can find. While I could have skipped a good 90% of enemies without killing them, I simply could not pass on finding and assassinating EVERYTHING. l got a lot more of this game trying to clear an entire map over simply running towards the next loading screen.

Smooth Graphics.

Cyanide certainly knows how to make a good optimized game with some nice graphics. It's no next gen, but I'm sure many of us care for gameplay over graphics these days. I'd say I ran at a smooth 60 FPS at the highest settings, with very little tearing. I'm using GeForce GTX 560 Ti, non overclocked with 12 RAM.

Good Handling.

Controlling Styx is quite seamless with a gaming mouse. The amount of his abilities make a gaming mouse quite useful, but for those that don't own such luxuries can change any keybind through the options. I attempted playing it with a 360 controller, and I would say I much prefer Mouse+Keyboard combo due to easy access of key binds. Let's just say Styx isn't the best at grabbing ledges sometimes...

It's better than Thief.

That poor poor franchise.

CONS:

The AI

This is a stealth game, so I constantly had many "Really?" moments. The enemy AI is no different from any other stealth game and pretty much comes in two ways: the first being "Guard notices you, you run to hide, guard can't find you despite being a few inches away with a very obvious glowing orange tattoo" or the second which is "Guard notices you, you engage, dodge, parry, counter, dead guard, move on". I noticed I went through a lot of the second way through my first playthrough on Hard. To combat the non-stealth feeling and linear gameplay, I simply switched the difficulty to the highest which is "Goblin". I would not recommend any other difficulty if you truly want the feel of a "stealth game". Getting one shot can be quite annoying, but hey, what kind of "Master of Shadows" would get caught in the act of murder?

Bugs like a Bethesda Game.

I have only experienced a few bugs, but none that made me reload. Any bugs that I did encounter were in a "Bethesda" way. Floating bodies, launching dead bodies after a kill, stretching rag dolls, teleportation when assassinating, and minor clipping. None were game breaking, and is clearly something all games these days face. I'm sure patches are to come.

A "Bioshock Infinite" feeling.

Those familiar with Bioshock Infinite might get a retaste with Styx's abilities. While Styx has several abilities, you might find yourself only using a few of them in most situations that aren't forcing you to use them.



Overall opinion:

It's definately worth the $30, but I HIGHLY recommend you play on the highest difficulty to get the real stealth feeling. You can easily make the game last a few hours if you simply run through the enemy and go for the objective; make the most of it by slaughtering everyone in the area and collecting relics/coins. Abuse the amber! Amber powers can easily be forgotten if you don't use them often, they can be quite helpful on many maps! Exploration is important. There will always be more than one way to kill an enemy. Sometimes there's ways of clearing an entire map by the push of buttons...Keep your amber vision lit... Oh and, I hope your virgin ears are ready for the constant f#cks and sh#ts both Styx and NPCs spray out like a rainy day.

I give Styx: Master of Shadows an 8/10.

This is my first proper review so please forgive any armature shortcomings.

Let me start off by saying that, before buying this game I did a lot of review reading and found quite a few negative points.
The most prominent of these points being 1.Graphics 2.Game mechanics (mostly due to ledge detection) 3.Poor controls 4.The map 5.The Combat system and a few more smaller issues that I’ll get to later

1. Graphics No the graphics are not great. The general scenery I found to be appealing, but when you look a little closer you will notice how this games graphics really are a let-down. Faces are jus.... well let’s say they could be improved.
But when did a games graphics become more important than gameplay when considering buying a game?

2.Game mechanics The biggest issue people seem to have with this is ledge detection, I personally haven't missed any (well placed) jumps due to this on my end. I don't really see much of an issue with regard to ledges myself, sure Styx enjoys hovering in mid-air just off the edge of a ledge but that can be forgiven. (You can't however hang-crawl from one ledge to another...)
Other mechanics issues tend to be with shadowy spots being difficult to determine, which is true it isn't easy to tell whether Styx is hidden from view judging on whether it seems he is in a shadowy spot or not, BUT he does have a tattoo on his arm which lights up when he IS hidden (very easy to see and make use of)


3.Poor controls This seems to be causing people to miss jumps and plummet to their deaths, are they perhaps just not good at the game? I couldn't say, what I can say is that (again) I haven’t had any real issues with this, but then again I have only played the game with a (Xbox 360) controller so I don't have any real experience using a keyboard to control Styx.

4.The map It's terrible, it will NOT help you don’t use it.
That being said, it encourages the player to explore the areas a little more.
Although some navigational input via a map that actually helped would be nice.

5.The Combat system is not fun it isn’t engaging and it leaves Styx utterly useless at fighting... well pretty much anything. THIS IS A HARDCORE STEALTH GAME! If you're using the combat system you're doing it wrong

Side Notes I read that someone found it frustrating that there was no way to distract enemies.
All I have to say to this is THERE IS A WAY. Styx is able to make a noise (default is hold 'x' on the keyboard or 'down' on a gamepad) this noise will lure guards to the source of the notice. "Great" you say thinking how useful it's going to be luring all guards to your current location. But fear not! Your clone can also make a noise, in the same way Styx does. So move your clone around the other side of enemies press 'x' and boom guards walk towards the noise and out of your way.

THE PROS
-It's got an interesting story
-The Gameplay is absolutely wonderful (personal opinion here)
-It's difficult! Which leads to much planning and enjoyment of your success
-Huge maps, with multiple ways of navigating and completing levels
-STEALTH STEALTH STEALTH! This is a stealth game, it relies heavily on stealth, and stealth is needed to accomplish anything! So if you're a fan of stealth games this is for you

One last thing Quicksaving IS your friend do not be scared to use it

After playing Styx: Master of Shadows I have to say that it is probably one of the best stealth games we've had in many years.
The game is truely challenging and offers many ways to approach each mission.
If you are like me it can get a bit save/load scummy as you struggle to go for that "no detection" mark during a mission.
The controls are for the most part very responsive but it can get a bit wonky sometimes when you are trying to drop down from platforms.
The game has that Spiders/Cyanide Studios charm with corny dialog and sometimes odd animations, I personally love it but I can see how someone used to AAA titles might find it off putting.
I think the story was solid, music is great and the gameplay very enjoyable.