Abandoned this about 7 hours in, towards the end of the first proper mission.
I deeply disliked the effect the morality system has on the game. The game tells you from very early on that you have to avoid killing people in order to get a better ending. Upon learning this, and wanting a good ending, half the items and skills in the game became completely irrelevant if they were intended to kill enemies. Meanwhile the game turned into a mad flurry of saving and reloading (which I find very not-fun in games) because if an enemy ever saw you your inability to kill them meant all you'd be able to do is run away anyways, so if you don't save every time you knock someone unconscious and load whenever you're spotted the game takes forever. The condition attached to the good ending is also just very wishy-washy in a way that stressed me out too; how many enemies can I get away with killing?, am I going to be punished for humans dying for reasons beyond my control (apparently, yes, which was very frustrating)?, am I allowed to kill guard dogs without it hurting my good-ending chances (apparently yes, but I'd really like this to be stated in-game as it's just not intuitive)? Remove the morality system, and make killing people or being a stealthy ghost feel more like a play-style choice rather than something I'm being judged on with rewards being attached to one of the two options, and I'd instantly be much more on-board with the game.
Somewhat relatedly, I found playing the game a very stressful experience. When you're trying to play stealthily, such that you won't let yourself kill or attack anyone in an attempt to get the good-ending, you're super vulnerable. If an enemy sees you all you can do is run away and hide (as they take chase). Mechanically playing with this approach already starts to feel like its bordering on being a horror-game (weak, vulnerable protagonist tries to avoid relentless, essentially-immortal enemies whilst trying to reach the thing that will stop them attacking you), but these vibes are emphasised many times over by the oppressive atmosphere that the game's plague-ridden flavour conjures up. I think either the flavour or the mechanics on their own would have been fine for me, but combined these things led to me just being constantly stressed, on-edge and miserable.
A bunch of other stuff bothered me beyond this; it's very unclear what the range of sight on enemies actually is, attempting to knock enemies unconscious from behind just wouldn't work some amount of the time, I personally really dislike that the game requires I kill rats. Probably the biggest point in the game's favour, from the small portion I played, is that the two powers I unlocked (blink-teleporting and night-sight-that-lets-you-see-lifeforms-through-walls) are compelling and pleasing to use. The worlds I was exploring also seemed to have an impressive level of depth to them too, enough so that I'm a bit sad that not enjoying the way the game encourages me to engage with it mechanically prevented me from exploring it further.
I deeply disliked the effect the morality system has on the game. The game tells you from very early on that you have to avoid killing people in order to get a better ending. Upon learning this, and wanting a good ending, half the items and skills in the game became completely irrelevant if they were intended to kill enemies. Meanwhile the game turned into a mad flurry of saving and reloading (which I find very not-fun in games) because if an enemy ever saw you your inability to kill them meant all you'd be able to do is run away anyways, so if you don't save every time you knock someone unconscious and load whenever you're spotted the game takes forever. The condition attached to the good ending is also just very wishy-washy in a way that stressed me out too; how many enemies can I get away with killing?, am I going to be punished for humans dying for reasons beyond my control (apparently, yes, which was very frustrating)?, am I allowed to kill guard dogs without it hurting my good-ending chances (apparently yes, but I'd really like this to be stated in-game as it's just not intuitive)? Remove the morality system, and make killing people or being a stealthy ghost feel more like a play-style choice rather than something I'm being judged on with rewards being attached to one of the two options, and I'd instantly be much more on-board with the game.
Somewhat relatedly, I found playing the game a very stressful experience. When you're trying to play stealthily, such that you won't let yourself kill or attack anyone in an attempt to get the good-ending, you're super vulnerable. If an enemy sees you all you can do is run away and hide (as they take chase). Mechanically playing with this approach already starts to feel like its bordering on being a horror-game (weak, vulnerable protagonist tries to avoid relentless, essentially-immortal enemies whilst trying to reach the thing that will stop them attacking you), but these vibes are emphasised many times over by the oppressive atmosphere that the game's plague-ridden flavour conjures up. I think either the flavour or the mechanics on their own would have been fine for me, but combined these things led to me just being constantly stressed, on-edge and miserable.
A bunch of other stuff bothered me beyond this; it's very unclear what the range of sight on enemies actually is, attempting to knock enemies unconscious from behind just wouldn't work some amount of the time, I personally really dislike that the game requires I kill rats. Probably the biggest point in the game's favour, from the small portion I played, is that the two powers I unlocked (blink-teleporting and night-sight-that-lets-you-see-lifeforms-through-walls) are compelling and pleasing to use. The worlds I was exploring also seemed to have an impressive level of depth to them too, enough so that I'm a bit sad that not enjoying the way the game encourages me to engage with it mechanically prevented me from exploring it further.
AzeXiR
1 year ago