4/5 ★ – stk_kreations's review of Styx: Master of Shadows.

I've always liked goblins, and I usually always try to go the stealthy route in games when I can, so a game about a goblin where the gameplay is focused around stealth, yep, sign me up! Styx originated from a game called 'Of Orcs and Men', but I never knew about it until halfway through this one, and will likely never play it (unless they remaster it for current gen consoles). 'Master of Shadows' is a standalone adventure for Styx, and from what I've gathered you don't need to know anything about 'Of Orcs and Men' to enjoy it. And now let's start my long, random, meandering review: The game takes place in Akenash, a floating labrythine tower that is suspended by the magic of the World Tree. That magic is fueled by Amber from the tree, and you'll need amber to refuel your own magical abilities. Towards the beginning you're led to believe the Elves made you from the amber, which explains why Styx can hear countless elvish voices in his head (the elves are connected through the amber) and gets amber withdrawal headaches like an addict. Through all the voices one stands out as claiming to be your old friend who is imprisoned and is asking for your help in freeing him. Thus starts your journey through Akenash, a dark and gloomy place filled with humans who will kill any vile creature on sight. The game's story is great, but I won't go into it anymore so as not to spoil anything. Styx's abilities, powered by Amber, will help make your traversal of Akenash a little easier: - Clones: Styx has the ability to make an imperfect clone of himself. He does this by puking up a phlegmy-looking mass that expands and forms into a goblin. Gross, but cool. These clones only last a short while, but they can save you from an untimely death by surveying areas ahead of you, or opening locked doors for you. - Invisibility: Styx can turn invisible for a very short time to hide from alerted guards or to help sneak by someone/thing. Even though it's a stealth game I rarely used this ability because it drained a lot of your amber and didn't last long at all (you can upgrade this later but it still drains super fast). - Amber Vision: Akenash has a lot of shadowy areas, which is good for you, but sometimes it makes it difficult to see. In those times you'll want to activate your Amber Vision, it will allow you to see in the dark (very similar to the vision skill in 'Batman Arkham Asylum', if you've played that). The good thing about this skill is that your amber refills what was spent so you can use it again. These skills, and other traits, can be "upgraded" after gaining points from completing levels. There's different tasks you'll get throughout levels, some of them are secondary tasks that you can choose to do or not, but if you do you'll gain extra points. There's also a thing called Insignias for each level, these will net you even more points but are difficult to achieve. There are four Insignias for each level: Shadow, Mercy, Swiftness, and Tokens. - To gain the Shadow Insignia you cannot alert any guards/knights/anyone (ultimate stealth). - To gain the Mercy Insignia you cannot kill anyone. - To gain the Swiftness Insignia you'll have to complete the level in a certain amount of time. - The Tokens are the easiest Insignia to achieve. There's 10 tokens in each stage of a level, you just need to collect them all. But make sure you collect all 10 before advancing to the next stage (or "leaving the zone") because you can't backtrack. You can replay levels as many times as you want to try and gain all the Insignias. I only collected all four on the first level. The game gets progressively harder with each level and I just couldn't bring myself to replay any other levels. And speaking of difficulty, yes, this game is really hard, to me at least. I love games but consider myself a "casual gamer" when it comes to difficulty settings. This is by far the hardest game I've played, with exception to like the old Battletoads (oh god, flashbacks of screaming and slinging controllers). I died. A lot. And then I died a lot more. Most of those deaths were due to the difficulty (and I even had it on the easiest mode), but some were due to some inconsistent mechanics like Styx not grabbing onto a ledge and just falling to his death or landing on a knight who would then club me to death. For a game where you're certain to die a lot I would have loved to have had shorter load times from your last save. The difficulty had me constantly thinking about the game though, thinking of how to do something different to get through an area, replaying things in my mind while daydreaming at work. Needless to say this game is as addicting as amber is to Styx. Even with all the death I just couldn't get enough. I've seen complaints about the combat. Yes, the hand-to-hand combat is not done well, but guess what, it's not supposed to be. Styx isn't a fighter, he's a sneaky little goblin and the point of the game is stealth. There's only one way to fight someone in hand-to-hand combat, and it's through parrying, which you can level up to make a bit easier. But the point of stealth remains: you're supposed to look for a stealthy way to do things. And there are kill skills you can get like covered kills where you grab someone from cover, aerial kills where you can take someone out from landing on them with your trusty dagger, throwing knives, and hanging kills where you can pull people off ledges. All of that doesn't apply to all enemies though. There are knights who are fully armored that your dagger or throwing knives can't penetrate, and arbiters who wear iron masks so your throwing knives won't work. For people like these you'll have to find other means of taking them out, or avoiding. You can carry items, but in a very limited capacity. Health and amber potions (2 of each unless you up the skill to 3), throwing knives (2 unless you up the skill to 3), acid (dissolves bodies so no one stumbles across them and is alerted to your presence -- 3), and balls of sand (you use these to put out torches from afar to keep you in the shadows - 5). You'll find replacements throughout levels, but they're definitely not in abundance so you'll have to use your skills and throwing knives sparingly or strategically -- yep, nothing is easy haha. The biggest complaint I have isn't the difficulty, but the glitches. In the fourth quarter of the game I started experiencing glitches where the gameplay would completely freeze and I'd have to reset the system, sometimes losing a lot of gameplay time. One glitch had me restarting an entire area because it wouldn't let me open the door I needed to leave the zone. So the lesson here is make sure you have multiple save files, and make one before doing anything big just in case. ::: Let's talk about the art and visuals for a second. They're great. The gameplay graphics are superb and highly detailed. I often found myself just admiring the beauty of the grungy and dank atmosphere. And the character designs were great. I might have died a few times from staring at armor and not seeing the guard it belonged to turn around. The cutscenes are done in an illustrated style, showing still shots of stylized illustrations with voiceover work. I maybe would have preferred CG cutscenes, but I'm not opposed to this style, though I do think a darker and grittier art style would have lent itself better to this game's setting and atmosphere. And the level designers deserve a huge round of applause. There are eight levels, but the second half of the game is backtracking, going through levels in reverse. Not only are the levels beautiful, but they're designed in a way where you can get to areas in more than one way, and also in a way to where you can traverse them in reverse in the second half of the game.