THIEF 4. Great fun...but that ending...( and frankly the story..)

[Fortysixter_UK]

Possible SPOILERS ahead, please do not read if you have not completed the game yet.

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It is a very good game, certainly worth a solid 8/10 for me. To hell with the professional review sites giving it 6/10 etc etc. THEY ARE WRONG. This is THIEF as you know it from the old series with a few new bells and whistles added. If you liked any of them, you'll like this.
Unless you like to winge and pick fault for the hell of it. ( See comments about review scores above !)

BUT...the story is all over the place. The cut scenes appear to have been made for the game when it had a different story and have been hastily cut & dubbed to match the new story. It didn't work too well. The video quality of the cut scenes frankly look like they came from very old footage. ( original Xbox/PS2 era ) NOT GREAT.

The voice acting is passable, but appears to have been recorded either too quietly a lot of the time, or cued incorrectly ( important things being said when NPCS are shouting in the background etc ).

The more "spacey" or "trippy" elements of the story were not needed nor appreciated. They added nothing to the story and seemed to elevate the trainee thief "Erin" to a level of god like supernatural power at the end. If she was powerful enough at the end of the game to simply wipe out her captors, why not do it a year earlier ?

Oh yes...the "year". Garret gets involved in an accident early on...and loses a year of his life.
And that's about the only mention it gets, he doesn't even ask why he was unconcious for a year !

HOWEVER...all of that criticism is aimed at the story.

The gameplay itself is brilliant and really draws you into the game. Thief 3 had a seriously scary level in an old asylum. This Thief has an asylum level too...and it is the scariest thing I have played since Dead Space 1. Brilliant atmosphere, brilliant level. In fact, apart from the appalling map and the difficulty you have finding where to go, and the duff story, this game is excellent.

Seriously...the ending of THIEF 4 made the Mass Effect 3 ending look sensible. It's utter *******S**H**I**T**E****** !

SO minus 2 points for poor mapping and story, leaving 8 points for fantastic gameplay and level design. Oh, and my save game was just over 22 hours long !

[WarLust]

From what I remember in my first playthrough, I'd concur. Some people may notice the Thief-Taker has a leg brace, suggesting a break. Those that didn't notice or forgot, he got that when Garrett roped his leg when he fell in the prologue. Also, when they talk about the riots in the asylum, I'm sure it had something to do with Garrett and his escape.

[Flying Fox]

okay if there were documents saying that i didn't found or i just skimmed over than he probably was there.
Makes sence too ofc

[WarLust]

I just finished CH. 4 and have the video recorded of Garret and Erin speaking at the end. She tells him he was there. I could throw it up for those interested.

[Inspector Callahan]

I just finished the game and agree with the OP. I did have fun and enjoy the game, but the story deserves to be buried in the bonehoard in a pile of burrick dung. Complete garbage. I get the feeling they did most of the level design, creation and artwork first and planned on building a story around what they had built. They ran out of time and rushed a story together is what it feels like.

[Logisk]

I think the presentation of the story was kind of bad, would have worked 10 years ago, but now days people aint used to read stuff they find, so the story just seems kind of random :p

The game could have been more, but ive said that about all AAA titles since 98 or so ;p

[Nicze]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Draig:

My opinion (and of course I could be wrong, but it makes some sort of sense to me at least):-

There are documents in the Asylum supporting this, and a cutscene also hints at it.

For example, the documents say about a "master thief" being in there. This mysterious master thief, who isn't given a name, is always nicking stuff and stashing it away, and escaping from his cell.

A custscene shows Garrett tied in one of the chairs and getting injected in his eye.

They (the documents) don't say "Garrett waz 'ere", you have to read them and get the strong hints they are laying down about it. (in my opinion anyway)

Nope. The document about Master Thief is from year 689. Game happens in 841-842.

"10 18 NRy689

Let us not forget, however, that the care of the mentally ill comes with a price. We must pay it with our care, with our patience, and with our blood. For it is of our blood that these poor creatures come, and it is to us that they owe their peculiar sentiments.

Take, for example, the master Sneak Thief so attributed to these times of woe. He is a man sorely tempted by that which, to him, does not belong -- a misplacement of desire, to see the world in an order which it must not deviate from..."

The cutscene CLEARLY is Erin's memory and she wanted Garrett to relieve it. I even took screenshots of it to show my friend so here it is: http://imgur.com/a/mkJP7 "I need the Primal out of the girl now", "She's corrupting it", "I'll take her back down to the prison level". You can't go clearer than that.

So no, as far as I know, there is no mention of where Garrett's been the last year.

[Bartschinator]

i too thought, that Garret was in the asylum with Erin.
I didn't check they years though. But it says that there is a male inmate who reacts violently when taken away from inmate (i think it was:) #18 which i remember as Erin.
From all i read there i always thought that violent guy must have been Garret.

[TeslaGirl]

Erin is showing Garret what happened to her during the year he was "gone". He got a piece of the primal in his eye when he fell into the ritual trying to save Erin in the prologue. She is mad that he never showed up to rescue her. The piece of the primal in his eye allows Erin to access Garrets mind.

The Baron was trying to remove the primal from Erin at asylum and failed.

Garret was with the Beggar Queen the year he was "gone"- he awoke when the gloom began (when Erin Escaped the asylum) because her power started affecting the City. The Beggar Queen states this.

Yes, Erin survived the final fall. Her footprints are visible on the planks next to Garret when he awakes and sees the claw embedded in the post.

The Thief-taker General states "You where there" in reference to the original ritual. The 2nd thief on the roof threw the grappling hook/rope which caught in his leg and crippled him. It's why his fight with Garret becomes personal.

The story is a hot-mess. It is obvious that it is pieced together from at least two different arcs because there are characters, locations, and events in the final version of the game that do not align with material released in the comic / art book / trailers or even make sense within the game itself. This is, sadly, normal for a work written "by committee" over far too many editors and revisions.

This game was not as good as I'd hoped it would be...but its far from being as bad as I'd feared.

[Kúsař]

I was beginning to think that replaying this game would clarify some parts of the story but it's actually getting worse. In fact some parts are quite contradicting.

If Garrett was asleep for a year(as beggar queen stated), what about ambiguous references to patient #18 in asylum? Was he imprisoned there at certain time? Did he escape from asylum? I thought that those flashbacks in asylum actually belonged to Erin, as Garrett asked her "...but what did you do? Show me".
And if baron was there when that doctor performed operation on Garrett's eye why did baron looked so surprised when they met later in manor? ("Your eye. YOU were THERE!")

Entire story is way too loosely linked and ambiguous not to mention it's open ended to water it down even more. Previous thief games had grand finale with proper closure yet everybody eagerly awaited next installment. If it was bussiness decision to leave it open than it was a wrong and unfounded one.

[Flying Fox]

Kusaros read before you post this..
Garretts eye wasnt operated it was Erins eye Garrett got the memory of Erin in the assylum

patien#18 wasn't Garrett the time of the data is way too old for this (about 20 years ago as i remember correctly)

"Your eye you were there" means he was at the original ritual in the beginning, he looked directly into the ritualcircle while Erin fell and therefore some of the primal magic got into his eye apparently. The shock of the power and the durability he had to take apparently had the result that he kinda sleeped 1 year. When Erin escaped of the Assylum Garrett. who had a part of the Primal Magic in himself noticed this and woke up by the presence of the changing world or by the presence of the now nearer Erin who was the incarnation of the Primal Power after the ritual.

hope this helped

At first i used to hate/not rly like this open end but as you play it again and read the stuff other noticed you will see enough to get the whole story and this is brilliant.
This is exactly like the Higurashi novel series where you also have no Idea what the ♥♥♥♥ is happening for the first 4 novel volumes (or most people).

[Calliope]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Draig:

He was in the asylum, at the same time as Erin, and got his eye injected at that time also, which is made from the same power infecting Erin. .

His eye was affected at the start of the game when he swings down on the rope to grab Erin. Before the cut scene ends, the last frame is on his face and you can see his glowing right eye. I think they were trying to extract it, not inject him with something.

And can anyone help me reconcile the conflict of him having been in the Asylum and the Queen of Beggars telling him that he was being cared for by her hobos and them bringing him back to The City when he started to awake???

[Barry White]

im convinced garret was not at the asylum. The baron doesnt know about his primal when they meet in the tower which is evident because he is suprised and is alarmed when he notices it in his eye. He would obviously know if he were there because he is the one stabbing the eye. Erin says he will show garret what happened to her and then he experiences the baron stabbing his eye implying that that happened to erin to get her primal. Garret did just vanish for a year with no real explanation but wherever he was he must have been known by the queen of beggars because she brings him back and as flying fox says i would imagine this is due to erin playing with primal.

[Corvo Attano]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Fortysixter_UK:

Oh yes...the "year". Garret gets involved in an accident early on...and loses a year of his life.
And that's about the only mention it gets, he doesn't even ask why he was unconcious for a year !

I think he was hardly injured after his fall in the prologue. So, the whole year he recieved a medical treatment somewhere out of the City...
I don't think he was in assylum...

[Sir Realist]

Hello all,

I agree with Fortysixter that the plot was a bit awkward. Also, I am quite puzzled by the injection-theory stated in some of the posts. This becomes clear when loking at the background of the last chapter. The old cathedral was the locus operandi of Garrett in Thief 1 and he was there to steal a mystical object called "the Eye" of the Hammerites. In that same game, Garrett's one eye get's pulled out by Victoria and the Trickster, and his gap is filled with the Eye, giving Garrett the possibility to zoom in and out. Therefore I assumed that the Eye was another - early - possessor of the Primal energy. And I assumed that the Baron saw the Eye in Garrett's eye and recognized him only then as the other person who was with Erin on the night of the collapse. Further it's the easiest to assume - and I follow Ockham's rule here - that Garrett lay under the collapsed remains of the place where workers - there to clean up the mess - found him and brought him to the City.

Alas, these are all assumptions. I had loved to get a bit more clarity at the end. And a bit more of the presence of Erin, because I found it a great extension of the good ol' Thief series that Garrett now had a kind of side-kick. Nice possibilities to do challenges with and so on.

Greets,

Johan.