Styx: Shards of Darkness
Ah, yes. Styx. You know, I’ve never actually finished the original. Got about halfway, then lost interest. So this game already did better in that regard, since I’ve not only gotten all achievements but actually enjoyed it enough to keep playing after. So what can you, a potential buyer expect?
Let’s get the obvious things out of the way first. It’s a stealth game. Not a stealth-action game like Dishonored. Pure stealth, which means that you’re not meant to fight fair. The combat system is very basic as a result, and on the highest two difficulties it’s outright disabled. If you get caught, you either flee or turn invisible.
– Real player with 106.3 hrs in game
Read More: Best Dark Fantasy Co-op Games.
After almost 75 hours of play, it’d be hard for me to say I didn’t get my money’s worth, but while I had a blast (most of the time) playing Styx: Shards of Darkness, I think it was frequently in spite of the game rather than because of it.
Shards of Darkness is a stealth-focused, third-person action game with some great, sprawling maps that often had many paths to your objectives. The main character, a chatty, 4th-wall-breaking goblin named Styx, has a ton of unlockable skills and tools up his sleeve that offer a lot of replayability, despite most of those maps being reused two or three times. The game is at its best when it drops you into a level with all your tricks and leaves you to yourself to find your way. Unfortunately, it also suffers from some hyper-annoying bugs and poor design that will account for the vast majority of your deaths and reloads.
– Real player with 77.7 hrs in game
Until Sunset
Until Sunset is a stealth puzzle, you need to think carefully before making any decisions.
You find yourself in a school shooting, you need to go out and also understand what happened. There are clues about what happened throughout the school, use this to your advantage.
There are several shooters in the school, try not to confront them, stealth is always better. Are you ready to escape this?
Main Features
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Puzzles
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Stealth
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Story
Read More: Best Dark Fantasy Puzzle Games.
Relentless: Ranger
Relentless: Ranger is a fantasy side scrolling rogue-lite RPG. Slash, shoot, sneak, die, and repeat as the next strider to brave the impossible mission. Each ranger lives once. Once he dies, you must select another to attempt the quest.
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EXCEPTIONAL SOUL-LIKE COMBAT
Bows, swords, and spells. Use a variety of weapons and magic to overcome your opposition in tough but fair combat. Beware that brainless button mashing will get you nowhere fast. You must also utilize dodges, jumps, and impeccable timing if you hope to survive.
THE TICKING CLOCK
In a land where evil reigns, not only are the odds stacked heavily against you, you must complete the quest in a limited time. With each passing day a ranger spends, the Dark becomes more powerful until the challenge becomes inevitably insurmountable. Will you spend extra time to heal in town? Or will you trudge on to save time and hope you get lucky?
RANGER SUPERPOWERS
Nine disciplines to train from Archery to Beastmastery to Acrobatics. Combined with inherent talents and flaws, each ranger will play differently. Perhaps you will pick a Legolas-like archer of death who can plow through levels through sheer arrow power? Or select one who relies more on stealth and magic? Or another who relies on the aid of forest animals?
SURVIVAL MANAGEMENT
Rescue villagers, find artifacts, or just invest money in the town. You will be rewarded with better weapons, more potions, and beds with less fleas. Help make the town a better place and the mission less unreasonable, if not for you, at least for your successors.
CHOOSE YOUR OWN PATH
Choices matter in addition to the procedural generation of fate. Each ranger will encounter different people and situations during his quest. Depending on your choices, his subsequent path will be altered, taking him to new locations, dangers, and treasures. Although all seek the Seed, no ranger will travel the same path.
Read More: Best Dark Fantasy Perma Death Games.
Fox face kills!
If found, fail immediately!
A man in a fox mask invades the abandoned city to help girls from a mysterious phenomenon called “Wolf.”
This is a stealth action game where you hide from the wolves on every stage. You then use gimmicks to defeat the enemy and proceed.
Dialogue free
Conversational sentences etc. are not displayed during game play. You don’t need to know a specific language to play.
- There is light English such as title screens and menus.
Stealth Game
Essentially you can’t fight a wolf head-on. Hide behind or in objects first, then you can kill the wolf with a chain from behind.
You can also get special bullets by killing wolves with the chain. You can use those bullets with a gun. However, many enemies will be wary of the firing sound.
If the enemy is vigilant you will be spotted even if you are hiding behind objects. It is necessary to think about the situation before firing.
In addition you can successfully hunt wolves by tossing cans to guide them, turning off lights to blind them, using gimmicks set up on a stage, etc.
Wolves have a weak sense of smell and poor vision, but you can still be found if you are within their sight.
The player turns to stone if spotted by a wolf and must restart the stage.
Wolf
One of the mysterious phenomena. The vague existence is told in the folktales of this country. It is rumored that the ancient wolf god ate human flesh and fell into evil.
They wander the dark nights, catch women and children, and take them to the abandoned city to eat.
Unlike the animal, the wolves have a weak sense of smell and poor eyesight. Instead they have cursed eyes, called evil eyes, that can turn humans to stone.
A Man With a Fox Mask
A mysterious man who happened to be there when the girls were kidnapped.
He can jump about 10 meters.
Ninja? Are you a ninja? Oh no.
Special Bullet
The wolf’s body is ambiguous, and physical attacks have little effect.
However, by mixing fang powder from the wolf’s carcass into a silver cartridge, the wavelengths of bullet and wolf come closer and damage will occur.
Chain
A blue chain carried by the man with a fox face.
It has been carefully purified over many years in a sacred place.
It can physically interfere with vague and disturbing beings.
Memories of Fireflies
The game is genuinely creepy. It features a good balance between the run and hide, leaving you on your toes, not knowing what to expect next. The visuals are very pretty and the story interesting!
– Real player with 1.1 hrs in game
Indie stealth puzzle platformer + atmospheric + interesting mechanics = Hide, crawl, run, light up as you delve through the mysterious world and evade creatures of all sorts. Controller recommended. Released previously as Fireflies.
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– Real player with 1.0 hrs in game
Styx: Master of Shadows
SLIGHTLY IMPERFECT BUT WELL-EXECUTED AND TRUE STEALTH GAME
There are three things you need to know about this game.
1. It’s chock full of potty-mouthedness, including from the main character.
2. It is NOT a game you want to play if you like being the alpha badass.
3. It ranks up there with the original Thief games and others (skip down if this is all you care about).
I’ll address these and more in sequence in this review. It’s a long one, but maybe worth the read.
First off, as regards #1 above, if you’re too young, or if you, your parents, or your professed god do not approve of you being exposed to cussing and other adult humor, skip this game, cuz it’s not for prudes. That said, it’s all just words, put-downs, and sarcasm–only a little more advanced than the stuff that your average first-grader might hear daily on the playground or in the back of the school bus. I didn’t see any nudity or erotic content, so you won’t have to worry about that. Nobody was particularly racist, gay-bashing, etc., although masculine status does get insulted in a few spots. There was at least one subtle joke about masturbating–again, nothing that kids don’t know about already. Guards pee, and you can see the stream from any angle, but the source organ is never rendered; in fact, pants never come down, although associated movements do occur. I’d give it a PG-13 if it were a movie.
– Real player with 138.0 hrs in game
Caveat: the recommendation is intended for existing fans of the stealth genre. If you’re not familiar with espionage/infiltration gameplay, you’re unlikely to gain an appreciation for it in “Styx.” Though the story is decent, that plot progression is gated behind some maddeningly patience-trying stealth sequences, especially at the end.
Hope you’re looking for a challenge, because “Styx”, like DMX, is gonna give it to ya. Some of this difficulty is deliberate (enemies such as Knights and Elves, difficulty selections such as ‘Goblin’, mission insignias, etc). Sadly, some of it is a consequence of mixed design goals and sloppy controls/interface. What’s more frustrating than getting caught because, instead of dropping off the ledge to slip past a patrol, you instead slid across that same ledge and climbed up onto the next platform? Rather than the clever use of environmental interaction that worked in the same situation earlier, the same commands now send you on a completely unanticipated course, like some kind of slapstick scene in a comedy show. And in full view of the two Knights and elite crossbowman who had nothing better to do than hang out on the same balcony. All. Fucking. Night. The answer my friends is nothing. Nothing is more frustrating than that.
– Real player with 74.6 hrs in game
Thief™ II: The Metal Age
This is going to be a long one! As my name entitles, this is probably one of THE best stealth game ever made! I will go in depth why it is and why you should be playing it:
Let’s start off with a list. What makes a stealth game one of the greats? In my own personal opinion it is: Have engaging, functional, and consistent stealth mechanics. Provide the player with alternate routes and methods of completing an objective. have interesting, unique levels. Have said levels progressively provide harder challenges to overcome. little to no combat, and have an engaging story and setting that makes the player want to progress. Every stealth game I have ever played usually doesn’t have all of these things checked marked on the list. MGS has forced combat and has a questionably written story. The first two Splinter Cell games were far too linear and also forced combat at times. Not to mention the sub par stories. Conviction tries way too hard to un-check every thing on this list. Dishonored’s story is cliche and is WAY too easy any way you play it (Yes, even the non lethal no powers run is too easy). The list goes on. That’s why everyone’s favorite stealth games usually are Splinter Cell Chaos Theory, the Hitman series, Death to Spies, and other games that manage to check the checklist. What about Thief 2?
– Real player with 238.7 hrs in game
Intro
Thief II The Metal Age is easily one of the best games of all time and the pinnacle of not only stealth in video games, but level design and story telling. I may be in the minority in saying that I prefer both the original and Deadly Shadows more, but goddamn if this isn’t a worthy successor in every way, continuing the series and building upon the world that you helped shape by the end of the last game.
The Great:
++The sound design in this game is phenomenal. The propergation engine, the voice acting, the ambient effects… it’s totally unique (to this day!), and hugely innovative in its connection to gameplay, etc. Everything is just at the highest standard possible, which is to say, totally unmatched.
– Real player with 237.4 hrs in game
Hollow Witch
This is what I call a precision platformer! Simple moves, run, jump and dash that added to all the crazy traps and flying stuff makes your mind count time to evade danger. I mean it is a puzzle platformer in a way. Loved the illumination, mood and the music gives the final touch. Strongly recommend!
– Real player with 18.9 hrs in game
I loved this game! Its dark, the music is so good to focus and the simple mechanics makes it fun to play. Very challenging levels, lots of traps and projectiles to evade. The illumination is something else it makes the mood of witch stories very believable. Congratulations to the developer!
– Real player with 13.8 hrs in game
The Count Lucanor
This is a smart and surprisingly literate little game. There is some obvious jank in the controls and general presentation, but it does little to detract from the overall experience. The game really nails the dark and disturbing tone of its most obvious story inspirations, which are old fairy tales and moral fables. You won’t find much for jump scares and modern horror gore, but the whole affair just drips with heavy atmosphere and tone. So, if you’re into a more frenetic, slasher-thriller style of scare, this probably won’t be for you. But if you want something more deliberately paced and that builds a quiet horror by giving you nasty little things to think about and puzzle over, which is much more my speed, then I think you’ll find this a treat. Be aware, this applies to gameplay as well. There’s no combat in the game whatsoever, just avoidance. And your walk speed is fairly plodding. I didn’t find it an issue, as you never have much ground to cover to get where you’re going and the ambling pace helps to maintain the atmosphere. Others will find it slow. You’ll hopefully know your own tendencies well enough to know if this will be an issue for you, because the game is resolutely and deliberately stuck in first gear the whole time. Caveat emptor.
– Real player with 9.4 hrs in game
Review originally posted on Vox Ludicus - Review: The Count Lucanor . You can read it there with glorious formatting and images, or just the text (without image captions) below. DISCLAIMER: Game played on retail code provided by the developer.
Playing The Count Lucanor made me realize how rare fairy tale games are on the PC, and this game is very much a video game of a fairy tale. A tad on the grim side, perhaps, much like pre-Disney stories were, but a fairy tale nonetheless. With its pixel graphics and Bach’s works turned into chiptune as a soundtrack, as well as a few cutscene sequences that’ll remind you of a Studio Ghibli film, there’s little doubt that in the aesthetics department the game is well furnished – and what of the rest?
– Real player with 9.0 hrs in game
Stela
First impression: It has flesh-eating bugs (instead of rats like in Plague Tale) to oversized Gollum and a pyramid-shaped Tet that zaps you into “Oblivion” (movie with the same name)
Well, I’m kinda fond of the atmospheric, minimalistic game that’s has a puzzle/maze element and this one makes no exception. However, this particular puzzle-platformer has a lot to desire compared with other similar games I played before. Visually, Stela is a striking atmospheric game in a side-scrolling format but technically it’s low-poly though enough care has been put into the visuals and environments where they all feel alive.
– Real player with 3.6 hrs in game
B-E-A-UTIFUL! That was the first thing that sprang to mind when I delved into STELA.
From the barren wastelands of fields to the cold and desolate snow-swept landscapes, STELA is absolutely caked in artistic imagery. Everything is designed with a keen eye and attention to detail.
This is particularly important as, much like games such as Limbo and Inside (which this game will no doubt draw comparisons to) there is no dialogue to tell the story. Much of what you gleam of this tale is from the images presented to you. Without spoiling anything, much of what this story entails is told from pillars found throughout the game.
– Real player with 3.4 hrs in game