A good stealth game with a fairly predictable but well told storyline to match. Dishonored has long been one of my favorite games but I don’t think it has stood the test of time in my eyes.
Where the art direction and level design is very strong, along with the freedom most levels give you to tackle your objective, I do think the game drops the ball a bit in terms of gameplay.
Firstly, Dishonored is built around the mechanic of you being lethal or pacifist essentially, killing people makes the world worse so it’s good to avoid it if you want a better ending. It’s a tad disappointing that so many tools are pretty much nonexistent if you are playing nonlethal though. Grenades, guns, springrazors, incendiary crossbow bolts, sword upgrades, as well as interesting powers aren’t really reasonable to use if you aren’t going to be killing.
On one hand this does make sense, since a big aspect of the nonlethal route is that it’s about restraint, being reasonable and level headed in a time where many would resort to violence. At the same time this creates issues in the game where you basically run out of things to buy or spend runes on when you’re not even halfway through the game.
Once you have dark vision, blink, and possession leveled up, there really isn’t any other power you should be bothering with. Same with getting the silent shoe upgrades and maybe the crossbow zoom if you can justify it. Gold and runes become useless pretty fast, and that progression being so minimal for one route is a little lame to me, even if it was intentional.
Other than that one gripe, I think Dishonored really shines in its worldbuilding and NPCs. People love the guards from this game because they’re hilarious, well voice acted, and say the same shit over and over.
And the attention to detail is wonderful, I think it’s what really grabs anyone when they’re playing this game. I remember just sneaking around listening to the heart voice lines when I hovered over random NPCs.
The game’s morality meter, the “chaos” system, also does a lot more than you’d initially think. Increasing the number of guards, weepers, river crusts, and even changes the tone slightly by making the weather worse or the skies darker. Friendly NPCs respond to you differently depending on how you play too.
My gripe with this is that it’s essentially a difficulty slider as well, which means nonlethal never really gets HARD. There are way less guards at posts, which is annoying to me because I would WANT nonlethal to essentially be the hard mode.
Other than my issues Dishonored 1 is an amazing game and it is probably the only good Dishonored game because it’s the only one without fucking witches and tells an easily digestible story about some dude named Corvo who gets a boo boo on his hand and saves (or ruins) the empire.
Where the art direction and level design is very strong, along with the freedom most levels give you to tackle your objective, I do think the game drops the ball a bit in terms of gameplay.
Firstly, Dishonored is built around the mechanic of you being lethal or pacifist essentially, killing people makes the world worse so it’s good to avoid it if you want a better ending. It’s a tad disappointing that so many tools are pretty much nonexistent if you are playing nonlethal though. Grenades, guns, springrazors, incendiary crossbow bolts, sword upgrades, as well as interesting powers aren’t really reasonable to use if you aren’t going to be killing.
On one hand this does make sense, since a big aspect of the nonlethal route is that it’s about restraint, being reasonable and level headed in a time where many would resort to violence. At the same time this creates issues in the game where you basically run out of things to buy or spend runes on when you’re not even halfway through the game.
Once you have dark vision, blink, and possession leveled up, there really isn’t any other power you should be bothering with. Same with getting the silent shoe upgrades and maybe the crossbow zoom if you can justify it. Gold and runes become useless pretty fast, and that progression being so minimal for one route is a little lame to me, even if it was intentional.
Other than that one gripe, I think Dishonored really shines in its worldbuilding and NPCs. People love the guards from this game because they’re hilarious, well voice acted, and say the same shit over and over.
And the attention to detail is wonderful, I think it’s what really grabs anyone when they’re playing this game. I remember just sneaking around listening to the heart voice lines when I hovered over random NPCs.
The game’s morality meter, the “chaos” system, also does a lot more than you’d initially think. Increasing the number of guards, weepers, river crusts, and even changes the tone slightly by making the weather worse or the skies darker. Friendly NPCs respond to you differently depending on how you play too.
My gripe with this is that it’s essentially a difficulty slider as well, which means nonlethal never really gets HARD. There are way less guards at posts, which is annoying to me because I would WANT nonlethal to essentially be the hard mode.
Other than my issues Dishonored 1 is an amazing game and it is probably the only good Dishonored game because it’s the only one without fucking witches and tells an easily digestible story about some dude named Corvo who gets a boo boo on his hand and saves (or ruins) the empire.