Styx: Shards of Darkness

Styx is an imperfect stealth game, but if you can play through it's flaws it can be an enjoyable experience
Story (Spoiler free)
Styx himself in the beginning is insufferable, let's not sugarcoat the fact of the matter. Constant references to popular stealth games can be funny, but in this case I feel like it's rather overused and can distract more than break the 4th wall as intended.
Other characters are pretty underdeveloped but make sense, and there are some stand out characters that really make the story pop out.
If you play games for their stories though, don't expect much though, I found it really dissatisfying.
Gameplay
Oh boy. Now this is where I am them most conflicted about my feelings. Gameplay feels fluid when on the ground, but the parkour still is rather rigid and unresponsive. It is not as bad as in Styx Deadly Shadows, but I still, even after 20+ hours didn't get comfortable with it. But other than that, Styx controls awesomely and if you can get a hold of the controls you can start doing some really impressive and wacky stunts.
The AI however, is horrible. This being a stealth game, requires at least a decent AI. In this game it is anything but. I have encountered numerous glitches and bugs that really broke the game and in many cases required a quickload to my previous save. Being stuck in level geometry, in physics objects, not moving until I got close (even after maxing my settings.)
If you can get through the initial barrier of bad AI and bad parkour, this game can be a really fun experience though and anyone who loves stealth, will find something to love about this game.
Environment and graphics
This is by far the biggest improvement from the last game. The graphics and environment are fabulous and spacious, the world is interconnected and vast, even though most of it is empty space.
It is a lot of fun to explore and experiment with all objects and ways to kill the NPCs, the AI can make this either awesome, infuriating, hilarious or mix of the three.
Should you buy this game?
YES, GIVE YOUR MONEY TO CYNIDE SO THEY MAKE STYX 3!
All jokes aside, this game is very imperfect, and can be super infuriating if you don't get used to the jankyness of it. But inside it is a loveletter to stealth as a genre and a fun one at that.

Great improvement over the first one.
THE GOOD:
+ Great story.
+ Large maps with multiple pathways to your objectives.
+ Stealth mechanics.
+ Skill tree with specializations.
+ Stealth boss battles.
...AND THE BAD:
- No improvement in combat.
RATING: 9/10

Had a personal challenge for this game: Every time i died, i had to do 10 push ups, now i'm so ripped i can participate in the next Mr. Olympia.

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.
Furthermore, it's a 3D game with platforming. A lot of it. It's not particularly hard, but the movement controls are not fantastic. Movement is merely fine.
The levels are decently large and can be explored pretty much at will, which is great... but there are two things to note. First is that most of the levels of the first half of the game are revisited in the second half, albeit with different objectives, new enemies and minor changes to the actual levels themselves. And second is that the levels can be somewhat hard to navigate through. This is rarely an issue, but it's noticeable in one particular level, which takes place in a mine. The early part of that level can be a bit of a pain, though it doesn't last long.
The game consists of ten levels. A single-stage intro mission and tutorial, eight two-stage missions and a final one-stage mission. That last one is linear, and the tutorial is mostly linear as well. The rest are (as mentioned above) freely explorable while you're in the level.
Enemy AI is relatively smart for a stealth game. Once they are alerted (not necessarily by you, since they can alert each other as well), they will no longer eat or drink, thus preventing you from poisoning them. They check possible hiding places. They can track you to a limited degree if you turn invisible. At the highest difficulties, it's perceptive enough to offer a decent challenge.
The enemy variety is actually pretty good in this game. You have the standard humans, dwarves, elves, trolls, flying insects, walking insects, acid-spitting plants, exploding mushrooms and a golem that shoots lasers. No orcs outside of cutscenes, which I found disappointing. Many of them have special tricks as well. For example, the dwarves are capable of finding you by scent if you get close enough. The walking insects, the roabies, have extremely keen hearing and can detect you even while crouch-walking. The flying insects can see you from greater distances than any other enemy. Armoured enemies can't be killed by your regular blade or darts, requiring poison, acid mines or other non-standard means of murdering them. And the enemies with quartz weapons can get fucked.
Stealth gameplay is fairly solid, as should be expected. You can make noise to distract or attract enemies. You can put out torches, though passing enemies can reignite them. You can make use of a decent number of hiding spots, should you ever need them. You can make a controllable copy of yourself, and you can later weaponize it or teleport to it. You can turn invisible, though this rapidly drains mana that doesn't regenerate by itself. You are very mobile, allowing you to get almost anywhere. You have a small array of items to use, including the mentioned acid mines. You can poison food, which doesn't require an item.
Equipment is quite simple. You have an outfit and a knife. You can pick between the standard knife and standard outfit, a version of either found in certain levels, a version of either unlocked via the skill tree, a version of either that's available as DLC... and you can decide to leave one or both behind. You can craft gear from a handful of materials at a crafting bench, and that is about it.
Now, the skill tree. Completing objectives in levels earns you skill points, and these can be spend at special tables at the hideout and in some levels to unlock new abilities. There are 35, spread over five paths. If you have quartz, which is obtained at the end of levels 3 and 4, and as optional objectives in 5 through 9, you can use one of them and a ton of skill points to unlock one of the two mutually exclusive final abilities at the end of a path. No, you do not need to unlock all seven regular skills in a path to get the ultimate ability. Four is enough. And if you have an ultimate in each path, along with the last two pieces of quartz (which requires finishing the game), you can unlock Flow Control, which allows your normally finite mana to slowly regenerate for free. Note that you can refund any ability to get the skill points you spend on it back. Refunding a skill has no further cost.
Story-wise, the game is rather... poor. Styx: SoD is very much gameplay over story, and it shows. Don't expect to be moved to tears.
Visuals and music are fine, though the levels get a bit dark.
Something something, imagine I wrote an amazing final paragraph to close this review. Thank you for reading, and have a nice day, night, weekend, holiday, nuclear apocalypse or end of the Universe.

The first Styx (Master of Shadows) was kind of rough around the edges, but the sequel improved on it in pretty much every way. The basic gameplay is the same, the game is still a hardcore stealth game, but the movement, controls, gameplay and stealth felt better right from the beginning. For example the lighting of the engine is much better, now you can tell wether you’re in the shadows or not just by looking at the game world, though we also got a lightgem to help us. Styx’s special abilities return, both the invisibility and the cloning, the latter allowing us to safely recon ahead or distract guards. Enemy variety is still great, although there are no major new additions.
There are also items to aid us in our quest, like the familiar throwing knife to deal with unarmored enemies, or the pocket sand to extinguish torches, and some new ones like the acid trap, which kills any enemy, and dissolves the body so others don’t find it. The major new aspect of these is that we no longer just find them, we have to craft them from raw marerials found in the levels. This was a really good idea, since hunting for materials gives another reason to explore the locations. And explore we can, since compared the the first game, the levels are bigger, and less linear with more paths. Apart from doing secondary objectives and collecting materials, there are also so-called Tokens to collect. This is also better than in the first game, since there we had to collect all of them to get rewards, but now we get some xp even for getting half of them. Another reason to thoroughly look around the levels.
I mentioned xp: the small rpg system from the first game returns, allowing us to upgrade Styx’s abilities from the experience points we get from completing objecitves. Most of these are actual, meaningful addition to the gameplay, and some of them are quite clever. For example, one ability allows us to craft a clone cocoon, which can be thrown and it spawns a clone at the point of impact. Another ability allows us to teleport into our clone. Combining these we can significantly increase our mobility, which I felt was cool.
So the gameplay is really fine, with one exception: there are two bossfights. You kinda have to use stealth in those too, but you can’t save, and it’s easy to die, so they end up being quite annoying, although having the right abilities can help a lot. I rarely encountered bugs, only one where I had to reload a save to be able to complete a secondary objective. I’d also mention objective markers. The game is designed around them, so you have to use them, otherwise you can’t really find where to go. I don’t consider this a problem, even though it would’ve been better to have, like, a map and compass or something.
The story was entertaining as well, although not as good as in the first game, but kept me interested until the end. There I received a big slap unfortunately, since the game ends in a massive cliffhanger, and there’s no Styx 3, so that’s kinda disappointing. The writers tried to be funny in this, and while the fourth wall breaking humor was pretty bad, the rest of game managed to make me smile often, despite the humor being quite crass and juvenile. Styx is an a**hole, but he’s an entertaining a**hole, at least he was for me.
All in all, the game is a big improvement over Master of Shadows, and in my opinion is actually a good stealth game. I’d recommend it to anyone who likes the genre.

Insanely underrated title. Solid Stealth gameplay, gorgeous maps, sarcastic, 4th wall breaking humor, a snarky anti-hero protagonist. Dazzling, almost AAA good graphics, that can be tweaked to be ever better. Levels of challenge from noob to wunderkind.
Grim dark/High fantasy. Some of the NPC's are just very lovely, but not in a tawdry way.
The game does things that I have wanted to see happen for years. The first real level is on a
Pseudo-Victorian (Steampunk?) Airships.... and they MAKE GOTHIC STEALTH work in THAT setting.
The next level? An elven fortress inside a mountain.... with a giant door for AIRSHIPS.
It just keeps getting better, and I don't mind the grotesque number of deaths I am experiencing.
AI is really dumb, but that isn't really a problem since smart AI would just kill me more often.
There was a pretty good Boss fight!
Will update.
Worth it at full price and more.
Man I wish this Studio could do a game with a AAA budget.

Buy on Sale. Play on Normal. Ignore medals.
2/5 - Fun but unfinished.
_
Story shabby
Characters shallow but fun
Maps neat but theres like 3 of them
Stealth pretty good!
Combat bad.
Skill tree/Upgrades decent
Music pretty good
Graphics actually pretty great
Missions gave you a lot of freedom. Fun to explore and just go nuts killing everything. Not frustrating on Normal. The AI wasn't bad - Important in stealth games. Tutorial neglected to cover SEVERAL abilities you start out with (LIKE A LOT).