… But it still sounds like QT3’s kind of a game!
It says the level design is pretty good, which means I should probably play this. Eventually. (Right now I think other games have me booked up to about 2017.)
Here are 2 statements from the RPS review that I was kind of hoping for in the game:
It’s a stealth game in which you play a goblin – the Styx of the title – sneaking around the Tower of Akenash, a medieval city built so high among the branches of “the World-Tree” that ledges stretch down into a cloudy abyss.
Good. The preview material indicated a unique take on a medieval setting (airships in screenshots) and that description sounds really interesting. I was hoping for a fun setting with interesting level design.
It’s also a strict stealth game: one in which triggering combat means almost certain death, and where you’ll spend your time mastering the shadows by hiding in them rather than pouncing from them.
Also good. We don’t get enough games in the Thief lineage where you aren’t a superhuman that is as adept at combat as you are with the sneaky peaky bits. I loved Dishonored and started playing it ghost style with no kills and minimal alerts, but by the end of the game I realized all of my skills and upgrades were focused on combat so I just stepped out of the shadows and became a murder machine.
Now I have to see if the poor controls start denting that workable veneer.
-Todd
Yeah, there haven’t been enough of 1999’s stealth mechanics in games. Styx sounds like a real breath of fresh air. ;)
But, Cyanide. Wait a few months and we’ll get Styx: Legendary Edition, which adds a level, some skins, and kind of fixes the controls.
This comment on the RPS article further fleshes out the level design which sounds really intriguing:
Last thing, I am quite surprised you did not mention the occasional puzzles and the neat small chambers hidden everywhere. Some of them are really well designed and usually require using your clone and your brains to solve them. I loved each one of them, though not have been able to figure out or reach every single one.
The second last thing, the levels are huge and sprawling both horizontally and vertically. Three-five levels up and down are the norm and you will traverse all of them in order to reach your objective. Never played a game with level design such as this! It’s great for an explorer like me.
Very cool.
-Todd
It sounds neat. I love Jedi Knight’s verticality, hopefully this induces vertigo too.
I’m not sure about that RPS article. He doesn’t seem to like the game a lot but it isn’t totally fair: he complains of the upgrades not being interesting because they don’t make you powerful enough (yeah because having a progression system that doesn’t break balance and difficulty is bad…not), he complains the game is “flat and repetitive” or “Near the end, the repetition becomes too much” which actually means is a pure old school stealth game, so the gameplay concepts remains the same with the same pace. He actually explains that much (“Styx’s adherence to strict definitions of a stealth game mean that it feels compellingly old-fashioned. It’s nice to play a stealth game again where seeing carpet underfoot is a blessed relief”), but in between lines you can feel from the tone of the review that this isn’t his favorite genre.
His controls problems with ledges are fair, in the other hand, they are also mentioned by other people.
So has anyone played this game in the mean time? I’m still curious about it, but not curious enough to brave it myself!
I bought it during the Steam Thanksgiving sale, but I only put about an hour into it before Dragon Age Inquisition drew me back in. It was a fun hour, but the controls have me a bit worried. It was quite easy to run off a ledge and I died a few times because of that. If you’re going to include a lot of platforming, you should really make sure your controls are top notch.
Sorry I purchased it on release but haven’t had time to play any games in the last month…I’ve barely turned on my PC!
I did notice that Styx dropped in price during the recent Steam Fall sale to about $14.99. I would check back during the Steam Winter sale (potentially starting Dec. 18th) and it should hit that price again or potentially lower.
-Todd
There was some discussion of the controls in the comments to the RPS WIT. It seems that people that used the M+KB found the control scheme more intuitive over those that used a gamepad. I cited a few examples below, but the comments are worth a read.
I found the game better than the price. Big, intricate, vertical levels. Charming protagonist. Decent amount of depth.
I like that when you’re standing on a rafter or something else high up, you can fall off if you screw up. You’re not stuck to it by the game mechanics. Even though third-person, it’s an FPS feel to the controls that way. The trickiest bit is getting used to dropping off a ledge. Shift key while moving forward and releasing when the fall animation works every time I do it right. When I miss, it’s just me. But it did take some getting used to. In the game’s defense, it does say this in the tutorial. But the text does go by damn quick and could be easy to miss.
I’ve not yet had any troubles with controls or ledges, but perhaps that’s due to controllers; I find the key/mouse extremely cooperative and haven’t had a problem doing anything other than getting out of combat. Dropping down ledges and hanging on is pretty much just down to shift+walking off the edge slowly and he’ll hang on, and escaping combat is just rolling backwards a couple of times to break the lock.
-Todd
I just finished this last night after picking it up in the Focus Selection pack when it went on sale for $30 a couple weeks ago. For me this game is the poster boy for what a 7/10 game really is. Some stuff that’s crap, some stuff that’s really good and some stuff that’s just amazing.
The crap:
- The controls can be a pain in the ass. Getting the right angle for a jump or getting the hopping up on a ledge vs hanging from the ledge action right can be frustrating. There were also a couple controls that either weren’t explained or the tutorial text came and went really fast. So I didn’t know that there was a way to roll or a way to call a guards attention until more than half way through the game when I happened to go look and see if there was a quick save key.
- No quick save! This is a game that just screams for a quicksave button. Pulling off that one in a million jump, sneak, assasinate, hide sequence where you feel like a goblin ninja and then dying to a missed jump a minute later and getting sent back to your last save which was the start of the mission 30 mins ago, really sucks.
- The game reuses the same levels after about half way through. So you go through the tower, then you basically have to go back the other way. Would really have loved to see more unique levels.
- By the end it really felt like it had gone on maybe 5-10 hours too long. And I wasn’t doing any sort of completionist run and skipped a lot of the treasures and the bonus objectives.
The Good:
- The story and voice acting is alright and I liked the main character. Overall the story isn’t going to win any awards but I enjoyed it and liked the twist and ending. Story wise this game is a prequel to their RPG Of Orcs and Men.
- They give you lots to do if you want it. Collectibles, optional relics, hidden rooms, extra points for meeting certain requirements (no detection, no kills etc) I didn’t complete any of those and wound up just shy of unlocking everything by the end. So doing a few of those along the way would leave you plenty of points to unlock all the skill trees.
- The AI, while not genius level, does a good job of keeping the pressure on. Enemies that detect you will alter their patterns and if you get detected enough if of they find a body, they will start searching and will pull you out of hiding if the get to your ledge/closet/table/urn etc. Of course you can use all this to your advantage too.
The Amazing:
- The real star of the show here is the levels themselves. Each level is pretty damn huge with loads of verticality and a number of different ways you can go from one end to the other. Lots of hidden passages and secret rooms, this is an explorers dream. The level designers for this game really deserve a gold medal. I don’t think you can ever really get stuck as there always seemed to be another way to get where you need to go.
- The stealth mechanics are well done and they really designed the levels to make the most of your skills. I really enjoyed being this sneaky little goblin moving around, over, under and through these levels. How to tackle this room? Poison the water? distract them with a clone? watch their patterns and move during those few seconds when everyone is turned away? Throw a knife at one then drop a chandelier on the rest? Or some combo of all of them, so many choices on how to work your way through the levels.
Overall if you’re a stealth fan and an exploration fan this is a great little game to grab on sale. At the very least to play through the first half until you start to repeat the levels in reverse order.
This is currently on sale for $10.19. My google-fu is saying there is a quick save button (F5), at least on PCs.
Well even after digging through the controls in game I never found it!
But there is hope for the next one! Next one you ask? Why yes, Cyanide has just announced Styx:Shards of Darkness. They’re claiming a bigger budget and more ambitious design to go along with it, plus a jump to Unreal 4 for an engine.
Styx: Shards of Darkness is out today on PC and consoles.
Super bad timing. Too many new games to play right now. I plan to check out the sequel… at some point!
I picked Styx: Master of Shadows up during the Steam Summer Sale last year for $7.49. If anyone is interested in buying it, I suggest waiting for it to go on sale.
I liked what I played of Styx, especially the verticality of the level designs. It’s a respectable spiritual successor to Thief. I didn’t finish it, but then it seems I don’t finish many games these days.
shellfishguy says above that this seems like a good example of a 7/10 game. I may go a bit lower than that, but is isn’t bad. I only finished the first real mission where you get to the hideout and then go to the atrium.
I made the mistake of turning off the mission objective marker and spent wayyyy to long on the first mission, which may prematurely burn me out on this.
Thanks! Eliminated from Backlog. I had no idea this thread existed.