Styx: Shards of Darkness Reviews
If you want to play an “old school” stealth game, you have many options that aren’t the price of a new game. If you want crude humor, there are far better options in games and other media to enjoy. If you want to get berated by an ugly creature who thinks he’s better than you, well, Twitter is free.
Styx: Shards of Darkness sometimes feels like it's the purposely edgy teenager who doesn't want you to like it. It's, by all means, a game any stealth fan should try, but it's not going to grab and keep you coming back for more. Instead, it feels like wading through mud, and the payoff you're receiving is too small to really gloat about. There's potential here, but behind buggy AI, clumsy controls and a lead character who is more annoying than likable, it all feels for naught.
Styx: Shards of Darkness will provide stealth fans with a brief thrill, but wading through levels multiple times and dealing with poor attempts at variety will grate at even the most jaded of players by the time the campaign is through.
Styx: Shards of Darkness is a promising stealth experience with massive stages and an interesting blend of genres.
Styx: Shards of Darkness does well with its detailed level design and humorous main character, but the inconsistency in its gameplay mechanics and a forgettable storyline stand in the way of its prominence as a stealth action game. Entertaining, to say the least, but far from a must-play.
Styx: Shards of Darkness offers an excellent and varied style of gameplay with massive and beautiful fantasy world, but suffers from repetitive level design and awful jokes and commentary, in addition to weak indoor graphics that lack detail.
Review in Arabic | Read full review
Styx: Shards of Darkness is a solid, enjoyable game, but a number of flaws hold it back from being anything more.
A dark, challenging stealth game undermined by an unimaginative and rambling story littered with crude gags and lazy pop culture references.
A mechanically strong stealth title with some of the most eye-rollingly awful dialogue I have ever been subjected to. Styx as a character is obnoxious, unlikable, and immersion breaking, but he does wield some of the most impressive and well-designed infiltration abilities in the genre. I just wish he would shut the hell up.
Styx: Shards of Darkness never progresses beyond being a moderately functional game with low-fantasy aspirations.
Shards of Darkness could have been a big step forward for the series, giving you a more rounded set of gameplay possibilities, alongside the better looking environments and other areas. Alas it’s not as big an improvement as I’d hoped and is let down by bugs and inconsistencies. It’s a stealth game with one foot stuck in the past, and that remains both a blessing and a curse.
Many of the pieces that make up Styx feel dated, but they still come together to make a competent stealth-action experience.
Amid an overcrowded season full of newly launched triple-A titles, Shards of Darkness, at its very best, works as an inconsistent but serviceable stealth experience.
Styx is a solid game with polished mechanics that simply fails to justify its higher asking price. Combine that with its release date being sandwiched between so many 'must-have' titles and it doesn't even fill a void of having nothing to play. Still, it is a solid stealth game, and one that provides plenty of entertainment in its solid campaign. I just cannot justify the steeper price for what still feels like a lower-budget title.
By no means a perfect game, Styx: Shards of Darkness is still an improvement on the first. As the series continues to progress we can hope to see some better storytelling, world building and crisper graphics and sound, but for now at least we have an enjoyable experience with some interesting ideas to experiment with
In short, Styx: Shards of Darkness, is a massive improvement, not only upon its predecessor, but also the AA category as a whole. It is a title which offers the variety of gameplay which even some AAA games lack these days, and the inclusion of the co-op mode only further promotes it up the ladder of desirability. However, despite its strong technical and artistic foundation, Styx: Shards of Darkness, is not a perfect game by any stretch of the imagination. And what prevents it from reaching the upper echelons of the grading scale, is the fact that at its core, Styx: Shards of Darkness, is a title which suffers deeply from its mechanical shortcomings, which are so brazen at times, that they take all the joy away from the title
Styx may not be the most anticipated stealth adventure of the year, but it’s definitely one you should be checking out If you’re a fan of the genre. Gameplay can unfortunately start to feel repetitive after a string of deaths, but those happy to take their time will find an adventure to enjoy.
A notable improvement over Master of Shadows only held back by some uninspired mechanics and skill tree.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Styx: Shards of Darkness improves from Master of Shadows on many fronts and introduced a lot of new features that adds more depth to the franchise. But the failure to completely address control issues from the previous game prevents me from enjoying the game to its fullest.