A Goblin can be a stealth master? Review of Styx: Shards of Shadow

Cyanide Studio seemed intent on carving out a niche in the field of action stealth games; although their initial Styx was not highly acclaimed by the industry, they were determined to continue building "a pure stealth game".

Sword and magic, how the Goblins survive

Styx (transliteration of Styx), the name of a Goblin. The Chinese group has literally translated "Styx" as "Styx", but considering the game's use of this word as a name, we might as well call it "Styx" instead.

Traditional stealth games are dominated by the use of hot and cold weapons, and the concept of "magic" rarely appears in this genre. Magic, or witchcraft, is more common in RPG games. The main RPG game background is derived from Tolkien's "Middle Earth". "Middle-earth" established the concept of fantasy literature. Elves, dwarves, orcs, swords and magic, and "Goblins" all come from the fantasy world. After a full circle, the two elements of "stealth" and "fantasy world" that should not be related to each other meet in the game.

The game uncharacteristically sets the main characters as Goblins, who in the eyes of others are devious, greedy and snobbish, always making enemies of those who invade their territory. This is true, but when you look at yourself and your surroundings as a Goblin, you will find that it is not so. Players can use Styx's eyes to see behind the dirty dealings of humans and elves, or other despicable practices.

Interestingly, Goblins' short stature and agility make them more suitable for "sneaking", and shelter points such as beams and drainage channels are easier for them to shelter in. In the same way, it is not good for the Goblins to fight head-on against humans and elves who are very tall. Styx's "Powers" seem to be some kind of magic, allowing him to subtly evade the eyes and ears of others, creating opportunities to get behind enemies and deliver deadly attacks.

It's much easier for players to be accepted as an anti-hero than as a decent character. We are used to the "hero", we are used to the so-called "justice", when we kill the enemy in the game in such a capacity will not doubt the morality of their own uphold. In contrast, using an antihero character to do something is less of a violation, and it also digs deeper into humanity.

An immersive dive experience

Compared to Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor, this game is a more pure distillation of stealth. The game does not advocate a frontal attack, high difficulty enemy attacks are deadly. The game also does not provide the player with much combat skills, if you trigger the alarm on high difficulty to expose the enemy crowd, the result is only to read the file. The game quick save function is very practical, and the game can be saved at any time without triggering the alert state of the guard, which greatly improves the fault tolerance rate of the action. That said, if the player has the patience to try again and again, the problem will be solved.

Styx has five skills that can be developed: cloaking, killing, Alchemy, dopey, and audiovisual. The experience points required to learn a skill are awarded for completing the task.

Each mission is divided into four challenges: Agility (time challenge), Shadow (no alarm trigger), Mercy (no kill), and Thief (collect). Challenge project under the gold, silver and copper three standards, in the system is a high playability of the work, for players like challenges, repeated play can earn all the experience for skill unlock. And light players don't have to worry, Styx's skills are redistributable, players can adjust according to the needs of the mission before the start.

Using a split body to lure enemies is interesting, some of the game's "trouble" scenes can be used to use this move to distract the enemy, there are two guards can also use the split body for synchronous killing. If you do not want to do it yourself, you can also use the game chandelier and other destructive scenes to create the illusion of "accidental death" of the enemy, and poison in food is also a good way.

"Trackless" diving is the ultimate pursuit of many stealth game players, and this game really provides players with such a challenge. The scene scale of each level of the game is very large, and it has a high vertical space, which is already a headache in the route selection. Not to mention that the cross-field of view between the guards is relatively wide, and to achieve "traceless" may need to try every line possibility.

Pickable items are not common in the game, drug supplies, throwing knives and other projectiles need to be synthesized through materials, so the game can see various items synthetic materials everywhere. But in general, the use of props should be considered carefully, because there is no guarantee that there will be enough material for the next scene. Items and magic are best used in critical scenes, and it is still best to wait until you have to.

Hiding in the shadows, watching the guard's movements, waiting for an opportunity. This is the most traditional dive gameplay, and also the most playable dive gameplay. Its greatest sense of achievement is to enter and exit various checkpoints without blood, or to appear "like a fly" in a strictly forbidden place. This kind of gameplay is addictive, and Styx: Shadow Shards is the game that provides it.

The guards' alerting system is one of the best in its genre, and while they are not as annoying as in Metal Gear Solid: The Phantom Pain when enemies call "CP" (command post) at the first sign of an anomaly, they are also able to alert and alert when they find the body of a partner who has been killed by a deadly weapon. The game to a certain extent limits the player's non-infiltration of high profile gameplay, in high difficulty close to the guard is found will be immediately killed, cause suspicion will also search nearby hiding points. The game sends a message back to the player through various threats caused by triggering alarms: read the file and try again. The pursuit of diving, the pursuit of pure diving, the pursuit of perfect diving.

progress

Compared with the previous game (Styx: Master of Shadow), this game has a significant improvement in the picture performance and movement system, the scene is wide, rich in details, fine modeling, and the character movement is natural and smooth (except for jumping). Operation (handle) : The use of cover and roll action is more comfortable, props and skills use layout without conflict, quick saving function is very convenient to use. Inherited the basic characteristics of the previous game, but also made up for some shortcomings, in addition to the new online cooperation model has also made innovation to a certain extent.

Styx is also a master humorist

Sum up

May be because the image of Goblin does not meet the public's aesthetic, so that this game is relatively small, the quality of the game itself is good, interested players can try it.