Styx: Master of Shadows Review - Hit or Miss?
Styx: Master of Shadows has an appropriate name, mostly because this game completely caught me by surprise. I did hear the name before, maybe I saw a gameplay video or two around the internet, but I completely forgot this game was coming out until I received my review copy. The big question is, should Styx have kept to the shadows or is it a good time for it to come out?
In short, Styx: Master of Shadows is a stealth game, as you might have guessed; you take control of the titular character, Styx, a goblin with the goal of retrieving something called “The Heart of the Tree” from a mysterious tower. The story is nothing to write home about, it’s purposely vague at the beginning and, as it progresses more and more things are explained. What you do know straight away is that there is a very precious element called Amber which is harvested from this giant tree. The Tower you are in was built to protect and harvest amber and is run by both humans and elves. The two races don’t get along very well, and both sides know this is only a temporary alliance until one side no longer has any use for the other. Your motivations as Styx are still unclear, but things quickly start falling apart.
There will be plot twists, even if none of them really took me by surprise, but the way the story plays out is quite clever and it is entertaining to see how things play out exactly. The story spans through six chapters, each of which takes two to three hours to beat, mostly due to the fact that you will be hitting that Load button quite often. In typical stealth game fashion, the levels are actually quite short if you know the way and how to get past each room of guards, but figuring that out the first time round is the hard part. I’ve lost count of how many times I had to reload my last save, but it’s definitely the top reason why at the end of the level the timer only counted one hour, when I’ve been playing the same level probably twice as long due to the constant reloading. This makes the whole game clock to about to 15-18 hours for a standard playthrough without doing many side objectives, but a more complete playthrough will be much longer than that. Not bad for a $25 downloadable title.
Naturally, a long campaign isn’t always a plus if the game doesn’t have the mechanics and story to support that. Luckily, Styx‘s story and mechanics, whilst still not perfect, are definitely up to snatch to support such a long experience.
The standard stealth game tropes apply here: stick to the shadows to avoid detection, wait for the right time to stab or sneak past the guards and make clever use of your surrounding to help you out. What Styx does really well, however, is designing the levels in such a way that there are always numerous paths to your objective, making different play styles viable in most circumstances. That is actually the aspect I enjoyed the most about Styx, when you look at the objective marker and then all around you can already start seeing the different branching paths to get you there. Ledges and metal bars allow our goblin to gain highground to move over certain areas or drop behind an unsuspecting guard; tunnels are another way to get around but tend to be infested with creepy-mutated roaches with a sharp sense of hearing, naturally there are plenty more hidden passages which can help you get past the obstacles.
The stealth works as you might expect, crouching muffles your footsteps, allowing you to sneak around guards, whereas walking and running is much loader and can trigger alerts. As is the case, you’ll find yourself moving whilst crouched for the large majority of the game. Styx takes the stealth mechanics a little bit further: dropping from a height on carpets is a great way to muffle the sounds of a fall compared to the hard stone floor and crouching under a table is an excellent way to make your way through a busy room - unless you accidentally hit a chair as you walk by it. In fact, you should always be careful where you step; objects tend to bounce off you quite violently, meaning that if you sneak too close to a mop or a vase, chances are that you’ll knock the thing over and have the whole room react to the sudden noise.
If sneaking around guards isn’t exactly your cup of tea, Styx always carries around his trusty dagger. With it, you can chose to kill someone quickly at the cost of having the room hear his scream or you can do a silent takedown which will be much less noisy but, on the other hand, leaves you vulnerable for a few more precious seconds. Not all enemies can be taken down with your dagger; Knights, for example, always wear heavy armor and can’t be harmed by a measly blade, therefore you’ll have to get creative if you want to take them out. You also have a handful of items at your disposal to aid you in either killing guards or distracting them. Throwing knives is a great option to kill a far away guard without having to get your hands dirty, meanwhile potions keep your health and Amber meter full. You can extinguish torches by throwing balls of sand and, finally, you can dispose of a body quickly by dousing it in acid to leave no trace behind.
Styx’s tricks don’t end there; you may have noticed I mentioned an Amber meter previously, which is this game’s equivalent of Mana. Amber is a powerful and rare resource which helps Styx in his quest for the Heart. You can use Amber to enter “Amber Vision”, a state similar to Eagle Vision in Assassin’s Creed or Detective vision in the Batman Arkham games. I didn’t find myself using it often, but it’s a quick way to identify possible hiding spots and secrets along the way. Amber can also be used to temporarily turn invisible, granting you a free pass by any guard in the game; however, the duration is very limited and its Amber cost is very high - not to mention the fact that if you decide to run instead of sneaking it will drain faster, with guards still able to hear your footsteps. Lastly, the most interesting use of Amber allows Styx to create a clone of himself. You can take control of the clone to distract guards, get to places you can’t reach and opening gates and such or even as a mobile smoke bomb. Amber is very limited, however you cannot fall below a certain amount, meaning you can always use Amber Vision or create a clone in times of need.
After each mission, you’ll earn points depending on how many side objectives have been completed; these points can then be spent on improving your skills to make Styx a little bit better for future assignments. None of the upgrades I found to be essential, therefore it is completely up to you to chose what you want to invest your points in - there is no right or wrong answer.
Styx: Master of Shadows, unfortunately, isn’t perfect. It seems like the game was rushed in the later portions of production: at the beginning the game has some in-engine cut-scenes but, once the story starts, all the cut-scenes are basically paintings of the characters voiced over by their respective voice actors. In addition to that, the majority of the voice acting isn’t very good. Styx’s voice is fine, but all the other characters have unremarkable voice acting, not to mention terrible lip-sync when the odd in engine cut-scene happens. The game also suffers a bit in the graphical department: the lighting in Styx is fantastic, but a lot of the models and assets tend to get repeated way too often and don’t look particularly impressive. I also ran into my fair share of visual bugs, nothing game breaking, but there are a lot of models clipping through walls and furniture and odd interactions when guards turn around corners. Overall, it’s not a deal-breaker, but it is a shame that more polish didn’t go into the game.
Lastly, I wanted to talk about the difficulty. I played through the majority of the game on Normal, which provided a decent challenge. I did find that at this difficulty guards tend to be a little more on the dumb side, not spotting Styx when I was right next to them, ignoring the fact that they are the only man left standing in a room which was packed with guards just moments ago and returning to their patrol path after the tenth time that they spotted me for a brief moment of time. It does break the immersion at times, but if you are really worried about dumb enemies and the game being too easy, Goblin mode is for you.
Goblin mode is Hard with a capital H. I went back and tried some of the earlier levels again and I found that enemies are a lot more responsive. If they catch sight of you they will almost immediately become alert and, once they are on to you, your only option is run or reload the last save since your ability to duel is disabled. Dueling is enabled in the easier difficulty and basically gives you the ability to parry the opponent’s strikes once they spot you and engage until you find an opening to kill them. It’s noisy, it’s usually not worth it and it doesn’t help if there are more than two guards on you but it is a good way to give you a second chance if you alert just one guard at the end.
Not having dueling as well as more responsive guards makes the game a lot harder and a lot more tense - you’ll always think twice before taking out a guard or moving out of cover. Personally, I found it a bit too difficult and frustrating, and ended up screaming “Bullshit!” at my TV more often than I would like to admit, but for stealth purists, or people seeking a real challenge, this mode could be adequate.
Styx: Master of Shadows has the potential to be a sleeper hit this year; it’s a deep and very well designed stealth game which is longer and more focused on stealth than a lot of other, full priced, AAA titles such as Hitman Absolution. Fans of stealth games could definitely look past its flaws and enjoy the long story mode as well as tackling all the optional objectives, but the game may end up being a little bit too hard core or boring for people who are used to fast and more action packed games. At only 25$ or your regional equivalent, Styx packs in tremendous value and I would recommend it to anyone who has been disappointed by the likes of Hitman Absolution or Thief and is ready for a real stealth game.