Patience is the name of the game in Styx: Master of Shadows from developers Cyanide Studios. But the kind of patience that swings like a pendulum back-and-forth from good to annoying. You see, Styx is essentially a game about stealth and shadows. For those of you that can remember the PC day of old, Styx has is heart firmly set in the Thief series of games. Well, not that latest game that came out this year since that game essentially killed that series.
At its best Styx feels like an almost sequel to that series with its attention to keeping in the shadows, dispatching enemies from a distance, and actively doing your best to stay out of combat. Another aspect that keeps it in line with that seminal series is that each level is set up as an open world allowing you to find your own path in accomplishing your goal. The way I play a level will almost certainly be different from the way you approach it. That is great as Styx offers a great deal of replayability, and on many occasions I went back to try a different approach.
Our titular character Styx has a number of abilities and tools at his disposal which will is necessary as combat is not an option. This is one way in which the game deviates from the Thief series as Styx is almost worthless in a fight. About 90% of the time if you get caught by one of the games enemies, you will be quickly made into mincemeat.
For such a cool character, Styx can’t even hold his own in the most basic of fights. Your only real option when forced into a fight is to parry the enemies blows until you can initiate the kill command. Problems arise when a guard calls for help, because if there are more than one enemy to deal with you will become overwhelmed with almost no chance of survival.
Sure, this takes away a little from the overall experience, but if you plan your route and play the game as intended you won’t often have to deal with said enemies. While each stage is an open environment that you can explore, they aren’t gigantic, meaning that death won’t set you back too far. If you are like me and save after each hairy situation death shouldn’t frustrate you all that much while playing, even though you will be experiencing it a lot.
As the shadows will become your best friend you will need to use a number of abilities and tools to help you stay hidden. The entire premise of the game has you searching for the world tree and the amber it produces for yourself. As you have been touched by the amber you have abilities that set you apart from most of the rest of the world. Instead of a mana gauge, you will have an amber game that your powers feed from. You can activate a second sense that shows all enemies nearby as well as highlighting action spots that Styx can interact with.
On top of that you can turn invisible for short bursts to aid you in bypassing small groups of enemies. Many of these abilities can be upgraded in an RPG style when you reach your hideouts scattered throughout the castle complex. These locations are optional, but finding them will make your experience a great deal easier. You also have a number of physical weapons that you can purchase or find while playing. Balls of sand to extinguish torches, knives to launch into the heads of enemies, and other tools make the game fun to slay enemies from a distance.
Graphically Styx holds up pretty well. You are bound to run into a number of clipping issues and well us the ugly texture here and there, but for the most part it is a good-looking game. Styx himself looks great, but you are going to be seeing repeating enemies at an alarming rates. There doesn’t seem to be a great deal of variety in facial models, but if you keep to the shadows you shouldn’t get close enough to make it a big issue. While the sneaking is a lot of fun, you will see a number of weird glitches when you attempt to stealth kill them near pillars. When Styx goes into his kill animation (he has many, all of which are fun to watch) the enemy will slide to an open area so clipping won’t be an issue.
It’s a weird scene to see for sure as enemies ice skate a few feet away before to kill them. It would seem that this was to make room for the kill animations, but many times characters will become stuck within the environment regardless. I never ran into a situation where the game froze, or bugged out so I couldn’t keep playing, but it was annoying nonetheless. Your mileage may vary as I was playing a final review build, so one hopes most of these problems were addressed at launch.
Sound wise Styx: Master of Shadows does a good job setting the mood with dark and creepy music that feels period appropriate, well, as appropriate as it can be within the weird story of Elves and such. Where I was disappointed was in the voice acting department. Whoever was the voice actor playing Styx just never quite sold me.
The voice just never clicked with the character model and the games writing. Everything just seemed lazy and lacking the proper direction. I’m not saying that the voice actor bad (he wasn’t), but I just can help but wonder if the voice over director just didn’t quite understand what they were going for. Other characters do fare better, but when Styx does the bulk of the talking (he is quite wordy) it starts to grate on you.
In the end Styx: Master of Shadows is a lot of fun even with its faults and offers a lot of play. If you are a fan of stealth games, especially the old Thief series, then you are going to want to check it out. Heck, it’s closer to classic Thief than that disappointing reboot was and for under $30 you really can’t go wrong.
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