As a fan of infiltrator/stealth games, when I first saw the screenshots, description, and gameplay video of Styx: Masterof Shadows (SMOS), I had to give it a go. Having spent over a dozen hours with the grouchy Styx now, I’m glad I did. Despite getting off to a fairly slow start and having a few gameplay issues, Styx quickly rights itself and becomes a very interesting and enjoyable experience.
So Styx was created by Cyanide Studios, makers of Blood Bowl and Of Orcs And Men (OOAM), as well as a few others. Styx is actually a prequel to 2012’s OOAM, although I haven’t played it, so I can’t really say much about that connection. Anyway, Styx is a 200+ year old goblin. He’s a thief and an assassin, and a damn good one at that. The story takes place in the massive Tower of Akenash, in which resides a special, enormous tree that produces a sort of liquid gold substance known as Amber. Amber has special properties that can give its wielders incredibly powerful abilities. Styx is intent on getting all the way to the heart of this mystical tree and taking the source of the Amber for himself, but there are many humans, led by Governor Barimen, and who have a tentative alliance with the Elves, that are protecting the tree. Fortunately, Styx not only has some very special abilities of his own, but a few allies that he can count on for supplies and information. Utilizing his time-tested skills as a thief and assassin, over twenty unlockable skills, and a little help from his “friends,” Styx’s goal might be obtainable.
But it certainly won’t be easy thanks to Styx’s weak combat skills and being vastly outnumbered by the enemy. You can play Styx on a couple of difficulty settings by the way, one that allows you to have a chance to fight back if you’re caught (i.e., the parrying system) and the other, Goblin mode, which is meant for hardcore stealth players. I spent probably 95% of my time playing in Goblin mode for two reasons: the parrying combat system isn’t that great, and being practically forced to play with stealth was just far more enjoyable and satisfying. You can switch difficulty settings at anytime, but I never found it necessary, the difficulty is very reasonable and it felt fair and balanced to me. Just know that in Goblin mode, if you’re detected, getting away is much tougher if not impossible, and if you are caught in melee range, it’s game over.
Fortunately, Styx autosaves at reasonable intervals, but even better is that you can literally save your game at any time, and in multiple save slots (I alternated between two slots, constantly overwriting the previous save so I would have a fall back point if needed). The drawback to this is two-fold: first, you have to go to the pause menu to drop in a save (but this entire process takes under seven seconds) and then every load sequence takes anywhere from 28-35 seconds, even if you like die, reload, die, and reload again seconds apart. The load times are hopefully addressable with a patch, but they’re a nuisance as it is right now. Obviously, the goal is to not die and thus not have to reload in the first place, but since I have the ability to save at anytime, I like to experiment with different tactics and play-styles; it’s just that I don’t want to have to wait 30+ seconds to get another crack at things when my attempts fail.
Failing is inevitable, sometimes due to a bad idea, other times due to just plain getting beat. During the first couple of hours of play there were also a lot of falling deaths for me too while I got used to the platforming mechanics. These are a little sketchy, but if you give it some time, it becomes familiar and manageable. The good thing is that Styx is very agile. He’s not the fastest runner, but he can roll, hide in various containers, sneak across rafters, and jump with the best of them. His leaping ability is refreshing if you’re used to Sam Fisher or other, you know, human characters who don’t have a number 23 on their back. The trick with the platforming, that you just have to iron out with some experience, is knowing whether or not Styx can make the jump you’re considering attempting and dealing with hold points and ledges. You have to make sure that your left stick is pointed correctly (and Styx looks in the direction of the stick while on a hold point) and I found pressing and holding the jump button for an extra second or so helped. There are also some instances where I saw a rope or a metal chain that I thought Styx out to be able to grab on to, but on attempt, I just sailed right through them to the abyss; so, knowing exactly what you can jump on to is of obvious importance, too (Amber Vision is great for this). For dealing with ledges, its a bit awkward, but you have to creep very close to the edge and attempt to scoot off, doing so triggers Styx to drop and grab hold.
I have seen a decent amount of AI problems too, although on the whole I’m mostly pleased or even impressed with the AI. By default, enemies are in a alert, but not aggressive state. An icon will appear above their head to show if they are on alert and to what degree (yellow for suspicious, red for they’ve seen you and are on the hunt, with some variances in between). They give up on searching pretty quickly, but, all foes carry some kind of ranged weapon like throwing knives, and their quite accurate (on Goblin mode), plus it only takes two of these to finish you off. And as mentioned earlier, if you’re in melee range, forget it; even the archers, the earliest range-centric attackers you’ll encounter, will smack you with their bow and then shoot you once to finish you off. Dealing with the typical hammer or sword-wielding sentry means an even quicker death, as they’ll simply snatch you up with one hand and bash or cut you with the other. I had a few glitches in which I was hiding in a crawl space and should have been well out of their reach, but the enemy were able to grab me, by clipping through the wall, and finish me off. This isn’t a common thing, but it did happen.
Clipping in general pops up from time to time, it seemed like more so in the first hour than later on for some reason. Being a PC and next-gen only game, I was hopeful that this would be a really great looking game, and in some ways it is, but it’s Unreal3 based and that’s starting to show its age a little bit. At least on the Xbox One, textures didn’t seem as sharp or crisp. On the other hand, a major portion of the game takes place outside, and in daylight too, and the visual presentation is very good in these cases. From both a visual appeal and a level design perspective, I loved the verticality that the designers used. Even on the interior areas, the ceiling heights are vast, and thanks to Styx’s agility, you can usually find ways to get very much above your enemy. You’re likely to be frustrated by the inability to drop down and kill foes or tackle them from cover, but know that these are Skills you learn after that first hour or so of gameplay, at which point my appreciation for this game grew significantly.
From the darkest corners of these “castles” to the outside walls many hundreds of feet above the ground, Styx gets around in many compelling environments. In between these areas you stop in at a hideout to restock your vials of health and Amber potions, your balls of sand (used for throwing at certain torches to extinguish them from a distance), and throwing knives. You can also replay previously cleared missions to try to net more Insignia or top your previous best time, or just play it a different way (full-on predator as opposed to stealth, etc). Furthermore, at your hideout is where you can spend Skill Points for cool new abilities, and it’s worth pointing out that you can un-learn Skills to redistribute points, too.
Skill Points are earned in a few ways: completing main and secondary objectives, finding Relics and Tokens, and earning Insignia. There are four Insignia: complete a stage without killing anyone (Mercy), without even alerting them (Shadow), doing it in x number of minutes (Swiftness), and finding all of the Tokens (Thief). No matter how you get your Skill Points, there are lots of good ways to spend them.
There are 3-4 Abilities in each of the following: Stealth, Agility, Cloning, Amber Vision, Equipment, Kill, and eventually, Predator. Within each branch you have to learn the Skills in order, with their cost increasing significantly between each upgrade. Within Stealth, you will find ways to be quieter upon landing when jumping or rolling, under Amber Vision are upgrades so you can more easily see all interactive objects (enemies, hiding places, tokens), Equipment upgrades allow you to hold more items, Kill enables takedowns from ledges, cover, and from above, and so on. I’m glossing over the details here, but you get the idea. Cloning is a rather unique skill that you allows Styx to generate a clone. This clone will expire in about a minute or so, or you can make them disappear by pressing LT+B (this is key because if you let the Clone die in any other way, you lose the Amber it cost to make it — if you “kill” it yourself with LT+B, you get the Amber back). You press LT+A to create them in the first place, then press LT+A again to control them (during which time Styx is in whatever position you left him in). Clones are great for many things; there are areas that only they can get into, and they can provide excellent distractions for the guards. With upgrades, Clones can eventually kill a guard, but by default they can just attract their attention. Besides this, they can pull switches and grab foes and hold them for a few seconds while you run past them or kill them. Remembering to use your clones is an important key to success and it doesn’t take long to figure out some pretty great, creative ways to implement them. Just don’t expect them to lockpick doors or pickup tokens for you though, that’s for Styx himself to do.
At this point in the review I’m going to run through a few bullet points I made during play that are either pros or cons. First, while hanging onto a hold point, I thought it a bit disappointing that Styx could not throw a knife or sandball, and also can’t make his noise, too. Styx, as well as any clone you create, can make a Goblin-esque noise, a growling kind of sound, by pressing down on the d-pad. This is used to attract nearby enemies, but I thought it odd that neither Styx nor his clone could use this function while hanging on to a hold point (and I’m pretty sure while in hiding, too). Also, you cannot close doors behind you; I don’t think this ever caused me any problems, but its a basic feature I expected to have. Oh, by pressing R2 next to a surface, Styx will take cover and sort of lean into that wall for extra stealthiness — works well, and you can ‘slide’ along these walls, too. When you come to a “turn,” simply press Y to take that turn while staying locked into cover. Additional cover can be taken in various containers, from which Styx can look through about 180 degrees; similarly, on most closed doors, you can look through the keyhole to see what awaits you on the other side before opening. One other quick point: I liked how a tattoo on Styx’s body glows a soft amber color when you’re concealed in darkness.
And with that, let’s get to the summary…
