Guys.... this video is more than worth the $2.99 I bought it for on sale...
This was my introduction to the immersive sim genre, and hoooolllllyyyyyy coooow. It just so cool to be able to forge your own path throughout all of these levels, and to be able to use this incredible stealth system is a privilege on its own. By far the best part though, in my humble opinion, HAS to be the world itself. Each level is gorgeously crafted, impeccably unique, and has so much depth and complexity to it, even after putting an hour or more into each and every level and exploring them almost to their max, I still know little of the actual genius design behind each level. While the game does have its high and low points, it is worth playing solely for the incredible levels that Arkane created, and then you're able to marvel at the siiiiick systems that the gameplay itself creates. incredible game 4.5/5 stars

I really love the first Dishonored, but I'd heard the sequel wasn't exactly setting the world on fire and also had some performance issues, so I passed on it. But it's on Game Pass, so I figured "why not" XD. 52-ish hours later, I have completed my no powers, no kills, never sighted run of the game, and I more or less agree with the statements I'd heard about it before. It's not a bad game, but it's overall a rougher package than the original.

Dishonored 2 is certainly more of the first game on the surface, but there are some fairly neat innovations made for the stealth system. The most immediately noticeable is that they have made the leaning far more like classic Thief's leaning, where it moved your camera AND your body. Gone are the days of Dishonored 1's poking your head far around corners but still technically being hidden, and as someone who played the game with no blink or see-through-walls abilities, many many quick loads were done after being sighted while leaning XP. The other most significant change is to the enemy AI. Now their line of sight is no longer tied to where their body is facing, but it actually comes out of their eyes. If they tilt their head to the right to light a cigar, their line of sight also shifts to the right. It's a really neat addition that took me a while to realize, but makes the game feel a lot more alive.

The last slight addition outside of the super powers is to how enemies react to things. Some enemies will react to some things being different in the environment in a way they didn't do before, like going over to inspect a door that was previously shut, but this isn't universal. It's only some enemies and some doors/windows/etc., and honestly it just makes all the times they don't do that that much more noticeable XP. They aren't all positive additions (I really hate how they changed leaning), but it makes the nuances of the stealth feel different from the first game at the very least, even though the broad strokes of it are still very similar.

By far the biggest casualty from the first game to the second is the narrative and storytelling. Where the first game was just Corvo, a silent protagonist, now you can choose at the start between Corvo and Emily (as this game takes place well in the future from the first), and each has different powers from each other to make the stealth and combat feel different depending on who you pick (at least if you choose to have powers at all). Both characters now have voices. They talk in the opening cutscene, they'll have conversations with NPCs they meet (of which there are many more, even in the stages themselves and not just in the between-level hub area), and they'll comment on things they see.

However, this largely only drags the game down. The monologue comments are rarely ever anything more than just stating the obvious of what they see (or making the rare homage to Thief by repeating a well-known line from those old games). When they aren't, they're what most of the rest of the dialogue in the game is: shockingly ham-handed talking to the camera in the most blatant way possible. This game very routinely throws away any attempt at nuance in its storytelling by genuinely talking directly to the player character to explain the moral stance/position of a certain character at a certain moment. It comes off as very unnatural, and makes the already fairly small cast feel really weak and unmemorable.

There is so much dialogue of the variety "I am sad, so I will paint" or "I feel bad because of X, so I will Y" that it often feels a bit patronizing. There is never any need to try to infer how a character's actions or comments speak to their real intentions because they will always outright tell you what they really think and why with a long line of exposition (especially in the voice recordings you find). It's like they either didn't really have any interest in making characters whom you learn about in more nuanced ways like the first game, or they just assumed their audience was incapable of understanding even the remotest hint of nuance. The VA also ain't that great, and is at some points stand-out bad (particularly the Duke).

There are a few things that are interesting tried with the plot, I will admit. The diversity is really nice (PoC major characters, characters of varying sexualities and even a major trans character, even an insinuation that a certain major character might be asexual, which I thought was cool). They go for a different angle on the main villain and try and make them a more sympathetic figure than the first game (even if they go about it in an often comically tactless way). It doesn't make up for the poor way they tell the story, not by a long shot, but I do have to give them points for making a real effort to not just have the plot of the first game again. Other than the new hub area inherently being far worse than the old one, I don't think their changes to the plot are to blame for the other presentation aspects falling a bit flat.

Speaking of presentation, the visuals and music will be very familiar to anyone who played the first game. The grungy, cynical not-quite-Victorian-England style for the world and the characters is back from the first game, although the actual environments have a more Italian vibe to their designs. The weird way the people look is absolutely still a feature though. It doesn't really look better or worse than the first game, although it does have a bit more color to it. Especially the more interesting levels like any of the big mansions have a lot of neat aspects to their designs. Overall the game's architecture and level layouts are far more memorable than most of the characters, if I have to be brutally honest XD.

The music is still very Dishonored, I think, but I wish there was less of it. Very often I found myself wishing the music would just shut the hell up from trying to be atmospheric so I could hear if there were any enemies around me XP. The physics of how dialogue work are also very strange, with the direction you're looking playing a very uncannily huge part in whether you're hearing a conversation or not, and trying to ease drop can be a real technical challenge trying to find just the right spot where you can hear them talking.

The level design is pretty on-par with the first game for the most part. A lot of early levels, especially without powers, are a real bastard to get through without being seen because the world suddenly becomes a corridor you have no chance but to try and get lucky to sneak through when the 4 guards around it happen to be looking away. And that's if they don't decide to just see you through a wall or magnetize directly to you instead of the distraction item you threw (technical bugs like that were few, but often enough that it was very annoying).

The game's first half is far weaker than its second half, with the game having some really cool level designs and gimmicks (particularly levels 6 and 7). One level even lets you skip nearly the entire level if you want to spend like an hour decoding a very difficult logic puzzle (which I did, and then did the level anyhow X3). It has some very high highs, but I can't help but feel like the choice to design the game around having blink AND not having blink compromised the level design to make the lows feel as low/frustrating as they do. I honestly wish I'd played through the game with powers instead of without, and also kinda wish that a no powers option had been restricted to NG+ or something to save me from myself XD.

Verdict: Recommended. While I definitely can't recommend this over the first game, it's still a fine first person stealth game. It's more of the first but a bit weaker, but being a bit disappointing doesn't mean it's awful. If you really want more Dishonored gameplay, this will totally scratch that itch. If the slow world building and voyeuristic approach to learning about side characters was the part of the first game you liked the most, you should probably temper your expectations a fair bit for this one.

Solo he jugado el juego como Emily. Soluciona muchos de los problemas que tenía con el primero: el gran alcance creo que es un cambio bastante interesante, no te permite escapar de cualquier error que hagas como el guiño, y además es más difícil de empezar a usar, pero tiene una mayor profundidad mecánica con un mayor abanico de posibilidades. La visión tenebrosa también ha recibido cambios importantes, ahora tiene un rango mucho menor y funciona por impulsos como un sonar, ves a menos enemigos a menos distancia, pero a cambio tienes mayor información sobre ellos como sus rutas y destinos. No es una herramienta tan fuerte que llevara prácticamente todo el rato activado como me pasaba en el primer juego, sino que la activaba en momentos clave y me permitía pensar mejores estrategias. Otra cosa que se agradece es que han añadido muchas más opciones si juegas de forma no letal, poniendo sustitutos de objetos que de normal matan y haciendo que les puedas dar usos diferentes a las habilidades si quieres matar o dejar inconsciente a la gente. La historia también se me ha hecho mucho más interesante y me gusta le evolución de Emily a lo largo del juego.