Buy Styx

Styx: Master of Shadows has some sweet stealth action, good level design, interesting cloning mechanic and just a really cool goblin. It also has a clumsy story and occasional bugs

Styx: Master of Shadows - 8/10

I came into this game right after playing Of Orcs and Humans, right off the bat you can see that this is not a B list game; the developers have put a lot of effort into making this as close to a AAA as possible.

I've not played many pure stealth games before; even in the games in which you're given a stealthy option I always was going guns blazing. In Styx it's stealth or bust; but that's not a bad thing as the stealth elements are satisfying.
Combat is frowned upon; Styx is usually at a disadvantage when it comes to dueling opponents. To make matters worse the racket sparked from weapons colliding will usually attract other enemies which will have no qualsm in pincussioning you with throwing daggers while you try to block your opponent.

So you're left with the stealth option. There will always be more than one way to get past areas, some easier some harder. Slowly trying to make your way through, killing and hiding corpses or just slipping by.

Mechanics wise, the movement is pretty crisp. The only problems I've had was with jumping/hanging on to ledges.

Story-wise this is a prequel to Of Orcs and Humans and answers some of the questions that're raised in the game.
It is also a lot better written and paced.

My favorite part of the game was: Carrying the sidequest corpse through the area without being seen.
Least favorite part of the game: Final boss battle, really annoying to not be able to finish it in a stealthy manner. Having to rely on just fighting your way through.

Picked it up during the summer sale but would definitely pay the full price now that I have tried it.

Great third-person stealth game. It's a little buggy and the controls are a little too loose sometimes, but for the most part the game is massively enjoyable and challenging.

There's a feeling in this game of really earning the title, "Master of Shadows." The sneaking, murdering, and climbing you do require actual skill -- there's no parkour button to automatically bounce around the nearest convenient platforms, and hiding bonuses work in shades of gray. You might usually be invisible while hiding in a trunk, but sometimes aggrivated guards will make a point of peeking under tables and into all of your handy hiding places. The lack of predictability and precision add a layer of risk that should obviously come with the task of leaping from ledge to ledge that is rarely implemented in such a satisfying way.

There are just a few issues in the game worth pointing out: the game can be fickle in how it handles ledges. Some ledges can be hung from and shimmied across, and some can't, with no visual cue to discern which is which. This means that my ellusive goblin spent several missions plummeting face first down bottemless pits where I expected him to gracefully cling to the edge. Also, guards often get stuck on other guards in their patrol routes. Two guards walking towards each other might spend several moments mashing their faces together before sliding off and finally passing. Two guards in conversation might find themselves locking eyes in silence for eternity, instead of going about their patrol routes. For these reasons, I highly recommend save scumming through your first adventure, as the autosaves aren't exactly generous.

All in all, this is my favorite stealth game on steam, and I would highly recommend it to fans of the genre.

This is the best Goblin simulator ever made. It's also a damn fine pure stealth game. If you lose stealth you can recover by parrying and trying to hide again, but we all know if you get seen you are supposed to reload your last save. That's how you play a stealth game.

Styx: Master of Shadows is an amazing stealth game with an awesome story. (Even the ending is satisfying) I can’t go too far into the story without spoiling it, but basically you play as a goblin assassin/rogue that has forgotten why he is on a mission to steal the heart of the amber tree. You follow him through his journey learning his past and his true self. The stealth gameplay is amazingly polished and any true stealth fan will love it, but the combat for when you get caught is very clunky. (You will want to be playing stealth throughout the whole game) The first 15 or so minutes (the tutorial portion) is very unforgiving and turned me off of the game, but I powered through and it got 100 times better once the tutorial is over. Most of the in game levels/areas have tons of different ways to traverse the map and you can replay all of the missions. Another really cool thing in Styx: Master of Shadows is the skill system. You can basically level what skills you use the most and these dramatically changes the way you play the game.

• Amazing story and lore
  
• Great stealth elements
  
• Great level design
  
• Nice Parkour/climbing
  
• Great voice over
  
• Awesome ending
  
• Cutscene art style is awesome
  
  

• Clunky combat
  
• A few issues with gameplay (nothing game breaking or too annoying)
  
• The beginning is really unforgiving
  
• A few clipping issues
  
  

Styx: Master of Shadows is a great stealth game with tons of different features that make this game worth playing. Unfortunately, the combat when you get caught is very clunky, but this doesn’t ruin the game. It actually make the player fight the stealthiest way around. I highly recommend Styx: Master of Shadows to anyone who loves stealth games or just wants an awesome story with a challenge.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPi4gHdYmmQ


-HiPFiRED


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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.

(Full review follows below)

• Game Name: Styx: Master of Shadows
  
• Original Release: 2014
  
• Genre Tags: Stealth; Action; Adventure; RPG; Noir; Steampunk
  
• My Overall Grade: A-
  
• Estimated Playtime (Campaign): 12-20 hours
  
• Multiplayer Aspect: None
  
• Recommended To: Established fans of the genre; Aesthetes; Game atmosphere connoisseurs

Styx: Master of Shadows is a third-person adventure/stealth game that is pretty good, but isn’t great. It has all of the typical stealth game properties in abundance, but it lacks any novel ideas. It is a solid game, but certainly could have benefitted from some extra features and more finely tuned controls. That said, if you are a fan of third-person adventure/stealth games, and you are looking for a new game to beat, then you will probably enjoy this. But it is unlikely to become one of your favorite games ever.

The best aspects of the game, in my opinion, are the game-world and the atmosphere. A good job was done in creating an unstable, militaristic city in the steampunk style. The narrative was mildly interesting, albeit confusing. Even after beating the game, I’m still not entirely sure I “get” everything that happened in the story. The voice acting was also subpar and cringe-worthy at times, but ultimately it was tolerable.

The gameplay itself was fun. You really need to use stealth to get by, and there are usually multiple paths to choose from in order to accomplish your goal in a stealthy fashion. You definitely want to avoid combat, especially in later levels. The controls are mostly good and fluid; however, there are some situations where the controls get a little clunky… particularly while climbing. Throughout your playthrough you will probably encounter a handful of situations where the controls screw you over. If you make use of quicksaves, this will only amount to a minor annoyance, if at all. If you are someone who buys into the “save-scumming” nonsense, and want to play using only checkpoints, then this could prove to be significantly more frustrating for you.

There are a handful of abilities at your disposal to facilitate your stealthy progress, and you can increase the efficacy of those abilities by using skill points to upgrade them. Most of the abilities are available from the start, and you don’t get access to that many new abilities by leveling up; so the incentive to earn skill points dwindles midway through the game, when you already have all of the effective ones. This may not be the case if you are after the achievement for unlocking every ability, but doing so will require multiple replays of each level and this probably won’t appeal to most gamers.

Styx: Master of Shadows is a fun game. It has some flaws and it is lacking in some areas, but ultimately I can look back and honestly say I enjoyed the experience quite a bit. I definitely recommend this game to fans of the genre; it is worth a playthrough for anyone seeking a new stealth game to beat. Just be aware that it isn’t perfect.

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