Been meaning to get around to this for awhile since I’ve been on an immersive sim kick ever since I played Prey 2017, so saying I went into Arkane Lyon’s first really big attempt at the genre they're best known for; so overall my feelings are very conflicted.
The one thing this game gets down very well is the level design which is genuinely near perfection. The amount of different ways you can traverse the level with all the different powers and tools at your disposal; it’s no joke the most fun I’ve had with a game in some time. On top of that, the general movement system and combat is also really solid. The creation of the blink ability is probably the best idea game devs have come up with since the grappling hook, the amount of versatility it offers is staggering and add that with other power you can get throughout the game you can turn Corvo into a literal unstoppable killing machine. In one level your goal is to reach these two rich fuckheads in a brothel and there are multiple ways of getting rid of them; for me however what I did was, blink near the front entrance; summon a plague of rats to kill most of the guards in the front and stealth killed the rest from jumping above, them I froze time and killed three lobby guards at one by shooting three arrows; and while time was still frozen I stuck a barbed wire spring trap to the back of another one killing four of them once time unfroze. Then I went upstairs froze time again and stealth kills the remaining guards upstairs and then forced pushed a guard off the side of a balcony as I watched his body ragdoll and splat onto the city street; then I ran into one of the rich dickheads room and brutalized him, and then immediately ran down to the steam room where the other rich dickhead was and killed him by locking the doors and burning him to death with hot steam, I then blinked out of their without anyone ever seeing me finishing the mission.
That was a highlight of the game, when every single tool and power is being used in near perfect tandem it leads to a ballet dance of death and it is fucking euphoric; but by doing ANY of the cool stuff I just mentioned then your gonna get the bad ending of the game.
The whole game runs on a system called the chaos system, where depending on how any people you kill or depending on what kinds of actions you take over the course of the game it can leads to the city becoming of infected with plague riddled rats, more guards on patrol that are more alert then normal, and just a general dower state for the city as a whole. Not only does this system work, it works very well. Almost every action you take over the course of the game may be through story choices or how you progress throughout the level adds to how much chaos you want to bring to the city and what ending you want to achieve. The only problem is if you want have low chaos you’ll have to take the stealth approach for almost every single mission in the game; on top of that you have to self handicap yourself since 70% of the tools and powers you can use are all very much lethal leaving you with a very small pool of options on how you wanna proceed through the level. The chaos system is very cool and works pretty well but I feel the system itself almost breaks the moment to moment fun the combat had since if you want the good ending you’ll need to play it a very specific way, and that was honestly not very fun.
Dishonored as a stealth game first is very mid. The guard's AI are kinda dogshit where sometimes they can spot you nearly half a mile away and other times can’t see you at all because they have no peripheral vision. They don’t react to areas being changed like unopened doors now being open, they don’t react to items being missing from rooms they were just in. The stealth is just very surface level with very little going on under the hood; and to top it off the mid salad the game gives you Arkham vision that’ll highlight all guards in your vicinity sucking almost all the remaining challenge the stealth would’ve had right out the window. Sure you could just not get the power and play the whole game without it but that just adds to the long list of self handicapping you’ll need to do to have a challenging experience and at that point I’d rather just play a better stealth game. Having the “good ending” be locked behind this one style of gameplay is honestly a fucking bummer since it’s missing the game’s biggest strangth; the choices the game gives you to execute however you want, no no you can’t chop off someones head and then chuck it at another guy while he’s not looking that’s bad you need to do it like this otherwise the characters in your hub area are gonna hate you. Oh yeah that’s another thing I completely forgot about, the characters and story.
The characters are….their…….umm……I just finished this game a few days ago and for the life of me I can’t remember a single character's name besides the main character, the benevolent God that watches over everyone, and Emily the plot device. The rest of them are all written…well. Not badly but not memorable enough to where it sticks with me long after I’m finished with the game, also the story is also just kinda there. Just like the characters it’s not god awful; I’ve seen far worse from the 7th gen but it’s only purpose is less to tell an engaging narrative and more so to push the game along and to have characters tell Corvo where to go and who to kill. The story doesn't do anything with its chaos system or the choices the player could make; it just feels like it’s only reason for it to be presented the way it is, is to push the game along, and honestly it’s a damn shame because the worldbuilding Arkane Lyon made is very striking and interesting, I love this diesel punk Victorian London setting and I want to learn more about it, I just wished the story was even the slightest bit interesting or engaging. Now this might sound bad but in my opinion the moment to moment gameplay and level design is still strong enough to hold up the game despite all the falling the story and characters have, unless you play it with the stealth “good ending” approach where the gameplay is mid at best then you’re going to have a miserable time.
I know the last bit made it sound like I really don’t like this game but I’m still giving it an eight and I’ll tell you why, because even when the game tries to take you down the most boring “good ending” path possible the game is still packed to the brim with the other stuff that made the game a standout immersive sim. Yeah it’ll take you down the evil path but I already don’t care about the story or characters all that much so it doesn't bother me that much. This is one of those very rare cases where the moment to moment gameplay is so good and replayable that it counteracts most of the poorly designed aspects that still remain.
The one thing this game gets down very well is the level design which is genuinely near perfection. The amount of different ways you can traverse the level with all the different powers and tools at your disposal; it’s no joke the most fun I’ve had with a game in some time. On top of that, the general movement system and combat is also really solid. The creation of the blink ability is probably the best idea game devs have come up with since the grappling hook, the amount of versatility it offers is staggering and add that with other power you can get throughout the game you can turn Corvo into a literal unstoppable killing machine. In one level your goal is to reach these two rich fuckheads in a brothel and there are multiple ways of getting rid of them; for me however what I did was, blink near the front entrance; summon a plague of rats to kill most of the guards in the front and stealth killed the rest from jumping above, them I froze time and killed three lobby guards at one by shooting three arrows; and while time was still frozen I stuck a barbed wire spring trap to the back of another one killing four of them once time unfroze. Then I went upstairs froze time again and stealth kills the remaining guards upstairs and then forced pushed a guard off the side of a balcony as I watched his body ragdoll and splat onto the city street; then I ran into one of the rich dickheads room and brutalized him, and then immediately ran down to the steam room where the other rich dickhead was and killed him by locking the doors and burning him to death with hot steam, I then blinked out of their without anyone ever seeing me finishing the mission.
That was a highlight of the game, when every single tool and power is being used in near perfect tandem it leads to a ballet dance of death and it is fucking euphoric; but by doing ANY of the cool stuff I just mentioned then your gonna get the bad ending of the game.
The whole game runs on a system called the chaos system, where depending on how any people you kill or depending on what kinds of actions you take over the course of the game it can leads to the city becoming of infected with plague riddled rats, more guards on patrol that are more alert then normal, and just a general dower state for the city as a whole. Not only does this system work, it works very well. Almost every action you take over the course of the game may be through story choices or how you progress throughout the level adds to how much chaos you want to bring to the city and what ending you want to achieve. The only problem is if you want have low chaos you’ll have to take the stealth approach for almost every single mission in the game; on top of that you have to self handicap yourself since 70% of the tools and powers you can use are all very much lethal leaving you with a very small pool of options on how you wanna proceed through the level. The chaos system is very cool and works pretty well but I feel the system itself almost breaks the moment to moment fun the combat had since if you want the good ending you’ll need to play it a very specific way, and that was honestly not very fun.
Dishonored as a stealth game first is very mid. The guard's AI are kinda dogshit where sometimes they can spot you nearly half a mile away and other times can’t see you at all because they have no peripheral vision. They don’t react to areas being changed like unopened doors now being open, they don’t react to items being missing from rooms they were just in. The stealth is just very surface level with very little going on under the hood; and to top it off the mid salad the game gives you Arkham vision that’ll highlight all guards in your vicinity sucking almost all the remaining challenge the stealth would’ve had right out the window. Sure you could just not get the power and play the whole game without it but that just adds to the long list of self handicapping you’ll need to do to have a challenging experience and at that point I’d rather just play a better stealth game. Having the “good ending” be locked behind this one style of gameplay is honestly a fucking bummer since it’s missing the game’s biggest strangth; the choices the game gives you to execute however you want, no no you can’t chop off someones head and then chuck it at another guy while he’s not looking that’s bad you need to do it like this otherwise the characters in your hub area are gonna hate you. Oh yeah that’s another thing I completely forgot about, the characters and story.
The characters are….their…….umm……I just finished this game a few days ago and for the life of me I can’t remember a single character's name besides the main character, the benevolent God that watches over everyone, and Emily the plot device. The rest of them are all written…well. Not badly but not memorable enough to where it sticks with me long after I’m finished with the game, also the story is also just kinda there. Just like the characters it’s not god awful; I’ve seen far worse from the 7th gen but it’s only purpose is less to tell an engaging narrative and more so to push the game along and to have characters tell Corvo where to go and who to kill. The story doesn't do anything with its chaos system or the choices the player could make; it just feels like it’s only reason for it to be presented the way it is, is to push the game along, and honestly it’s a damn shame because the worldbuilding Arkane Lyon made is very striking and interesting, I love this diesel punk Victorian London setting and I want to learn more about it, I just wished the story was even the slightest bit interesting or engaging. Now this might sound bad but in my opinion the moment to moment gameplay and level design is still strong enough to hold up the game despite all the falling the story and characters have, unless you play it with the stealth “good ending” approach where the gameplay is mid at best then you’re going to have a miserable time.
I know the last bit made it sound like I really don’t like this game but I’m still giving it an eight and I’ll tell you why, because even when the game tries to take you down the most boring “good ending” path possible the game is still packed to the brim with the other stuff that made the game a standout immersive sim. Yeah it’ll take you down the evil path but I already don’t care about the story or characters all that much so it doesn't bother me that much. This is one of those very rare cases where the moment to moment gameplay is so good and replayable that it counteracts most of the poorly designed aspects that still remain.
STRM
7 months ago
I'll get around to it when I want feel like inflicting pain apon myself.