Why is this game extremely underrated and underappreciated?

[Chill Okami]

Why isn't this game getting more love? Why are people saying it's trash when it's clearly not? Is it because of nostalgia?

I've never played the older Thief games, I've watched their reviews and looked at the game play and for that time, they do look and feel like masterpieces, pushing the stealth genre forward, pretty much like Half life, Doom, Quake pushed the FPS genre forward. And that was back in 1998, a very long time has passed when it comes to technology. To me, now, the older games feel very dated and from what I saw, I would not enjoy them much. I will play Thief 3 because it's the most advanced of those old ones but the first 2 just look very clunky to me when it comes to their game play. In Thief 1 for example, while watching the game play, it made my eyes sore because of the character models, they just look like ugly block people or monsters and are poorly animated.

Fast forward to Thief 4, the game was different but in a really good way. It felt more like Dishonored, which I really really liked. And the Stealth system is amazing, it has a really nice flow when you're dashing from shadow to shadow, sneaking around, using the tools you have to create an advantage and an opportunity. The City is massive albeit convoluted (until you get the hang of it), the dark Gothic aesthetic is really appealing to me. The story and the horror aspects of it, I personally found to be very intriguing and it kept me wondering "What's next?" in this Fantasy Steampunk Gothic universe. The voice of Garret also, I found to be great in both the reboot and the older games, it sounds very similar but I liked the new voice actor more. But maybe that's my cup of tea?

I see people call Thief 4 "utter garbage" or "abomination", etc. And compare it to the older games, saying how the older games are better in every way, shape or form. And I highly disagree with that. I think that people need to take their nostalgia goggles off and give this game a try, it's a very good game with a really good story. It's not perfect, I've encountered flaws (audio tends to be weird at times) and some performance hick ups but everything else is great. Loading screen weren't an issue at all because I have an SSD and I actually like that stealing in the game is animated, it's done in a really good way. I'd give it a 9/10.

[Laicus]

Darkgamester301 の投稿を引用：

So you admit that there's a difference between settings that are automatically applied to a certain difficulty level (implemented by the developers) versus the options available in a "Custom" difficulty level (which are accessible/controllable by the player).

The player himself changes all the available settings and thereby limits or does not limit himself, increasing the difficulty in the previous parts is the same self-limitation as increasing the difficulty in Thief 2014 (including disabling HUD elements), the only difference is the flexibility of adjusting the difficulty. In Thief 2014, the game settings, including difficulty settings, are implemented at a more advanced level, and the range of difficulty is much wider, the game is suitable for a wider contingent of players, from completely inept to very skilled, and the previous parts are suitable only for inept or lazy players who love very easy gameplay. Thief 1-3 is worth playing if these are your first stealth games, but even in this case, there is a chance that already in the process of playing, the game will become too easy and boring, then it's worth moving on to Thief 2014, which is a difficult and exciting challenge even for very skilled players.

[Chill Okami]

AlexEnchantedCastle の投稿を引用：

It is EXTREMELY underrated.
I played all Thief games, with mods, etc, and yes, they're great and Thief 4 doesn't do anything better, but it's still great.
Nowadays, not only you shouldn't trust "gaming journalists" anymore, I think you shouldn't trust "user reviews" either, which are mostly bull****.

1) Some people write reviews after playing it 10 minutes
2) Some just love to repeat what everybody else is saying cos they enjoy being part of the herd
3) Some are way overly nostalgic (I'm one of them but I can be objective sometimes)
4) Some are just... incredibly dumb and have no idea what they're talking about.

Only 5% of reviews are worth something, and that goes for ALL games on Steam.

If I had to rate them on 100...
Thief 1: 70-75% (slightly overrated, not as great as what people make it out to be.)
Thief 2: 95-100% (it's really perfect for what it does)
Thief 3: 80% (that one too was underrated. But the hub system was annoying.)
Thief 4: 85% (vastly underrated considering how badly it bombed.)

This is a really good comment! You should think and decide for yourself if something is good for you or not.

For example, my favourite film of all time is Stay (from 2005). It got review bombed on rotten tomatoes real bad when it came out and therefore, left forgotten. I watched it regardless, enjoyed it a LOT. It was a perfect film for my taste. But the critics in 2005 thought that the movie was trying to be too sophisticated and really out there and too complex and what not, which is not a good point to make. Some might find that to be a great thing.

I think that a similar thing could be said about this game, it got review bombed because a lot of people are often repulsed by changes and want the same thing over and over again. They don't consider thwt change can be a really great thing.

[Bankai9212]

^sounds like you just want to ignore any form of criticism that’s said about the game. Even if it wasn’t associated with the thief it wouldn’t change the issues. Also reviews don’t matter much sales do. Since the game wasn’t appealing to thief fans they needed to make new once. This game failed to accomplish that.

[ElfPrince1937]

Bankai9212 の投稿を引用：

Also reviews don’t matter much sales do. Since the game wasn’t appealing to thief fans they needed to make new once. This game failed to accomplish that.

At the end of the day, it all comes down to personal opinion, tbh/tbf.

For my part, I enjoyed this game just as much as I did the classics.

[Bankai9212]

Darkgamester301 の投稿を引用：

Bankai9212 の投稿を引用：

Also reviews don’t matter much sales do. Since the game wasn’t appealing to thief fans they needed to make new once. This game failed to accomplish that.

At the end of the day, it all comes down to personal opinion, tbh/tbf.

For my part, I enjoyed this game just as much as I did the classics.

Okay, not arguing that point. But using personal opinion yet belittling anyone else’s review which is also an opinion rings hollow doesn’t it. Are you in the 5% that’s worth something?

[ElfPrince1937]

Bankai9212 の投稿を引用：

But using personal opinion yet belittling anyone else’s review which is also an opinion rings hollow doesn’t it. Are you in the 5% that’s worth something?

That sounds pretty belittling to me.

[Bankai9212]

Darkgamester301 の投稿を引用：

Bankai9212 の投稿を引用：

But using personal opinion yet belittling anyone else’s review which is also an opinion rings hollow doesn’t it. Are you in the 5% that’s worth something?

That sounds pretty belittling to me.

Based on your words not mine. I don't view my opinion or others better then anyone else.

[ElfPrince1937]

Bankai9212 の投稿を引用：

I don't view my opinion or others better then anyone else.

Darkgamester301 の投稿を引用：

At the end of the day, it all comes down to personal opinion, tbh/tbf.

For my part, I enjoyed this game just as much as I did the classics.

You have to be seriously insecure to get personally offended by something like this, or interpret it as if it's attacking you personally.

[Bankai9212]

Wait, my bad I confused you with the guy the other person quoted.

[ElfPrince1937]

All good, glad we could clear that up.

[stompario]

Even if I will try to tolerate linear and non-physical-free gameplay (for example in first two original games you actually can climb on every surface that looks like possible to do that) I drop this game 2 times because of the sound:
There is actual sound propagation and positioning downgrade from the first 3 games. And this is important regarding voice. Voice is always centered and hearable and this is awful.

[ElfPrince1937]

Yeah, I'll agree that background music and voice-acting is probably the weakest part of the game.

The main characters (so Garrett, Erin, Basso, Queen of Beggars, Thief-Taker, and Baron) all sound fine enough, but it's like the fact that Garrett doesn't really interact much with anyone else means less effort was devoted to VA on that front.

I still genuinely enjoy the exploration aspects of this game a lot, though--I will still argue that I do think a big part that got improved was the verticality aspect: Garrett is allowed to do a lot more rooftop running and being more aerially-dynamic in this game than in any of the previous titles, which just feels right for a master thief like him.

[Bankai9212]

You did that in other games, but it depended on the level itself. Even with the roofs it feels more linear since you can only climb certain things compared to past games

[MaikElPipas]

IDK I'm playing it for the third time after beating it on xbox360, then ps4 and then finally pc, and I'm having a great time playing it on hardest mode without hud.

Never understood the criticism. Traversing thru city can be a chore sometimes, but thats the worse part of the game and it's not even that bad if you like exploring.

So, yeah all in all, this game was extremely underrated , worse problem this game had was square enix, which ruins everything they touch.

They even managed to screw the avengers game when ip was at it's popularity peak.

[Nocturn]

Eh... I'll repeat what I said on The Metal Age's discussion (with additional thoughts in "[]") :

>Can't jump on your own - you need a contextual wall to climb or a barrier to jump over [older Thief games gave you lot more freedom in regards to your movement]
>Can't whack people with a blackjack on your own - you need to initiate an extremely repetetive QTE [again, old games gave more freedom]
>shi*ty story about Garret In Name Only not being able to get over the death of his f*ck-girl/ex/friend/protege/all of the former, complete with a unmemorable, non-threating villains and a shi*ty voice cast that makes the protagonist sound like a humorless bi*ch who likes to smoke 2 packs of cigarrets a day [maybe Russell is irreplaceable, but Squeenix didn't even try to get someone talented + he's so talkative he puts SOTTR Lara to shame]
>GINO walks slower than old Garrett moves when crouching [also, the movement overall feels stiff... Old Garrett might be clunky to control, but with faster speed you get a hold of it at some point - not so much with this god*amn snail of a person]
>f*cking Gollum hands taking about 1/3 of the screen
>periphal vision of Stevie Wonder
>generic soundtrack [just try to hum anything from this game, and then replay Overlooked Mansion or Pagan Sanctuary. Those melodies are still stuck in my mind]
>SO. MANY. CUTSCENES. INITIATED. BY. BUTTON. PROMPTS. (want to go through the window? Cutscene! Want to enter the vent? Two button prompts! F*ck me...) [Need to knock out a guard? It's, you guessed it, Frank Stall-I mean, my favorite, your favorite, F*CKING QUICK TIME EVENT MOMENT! I wanna die...]
>No flashbombs
>SWOOP... SWOOP... SWOOP... [The only viable of option of escape from a tough situation - 'cause flashbombs are gone - is of course the most overpowered one]
>There's no nuance to visibility level - you're either completely hidden, or you're lightened up like a Christmas tree [It's Splinter Cell Blacklist all over again]
>NO. FOOTSTEPS. THE BIGGEST CONTRIBUTION OF THIEF SERIES TO THE STEALTH GENRE. Gone. [The sound design in overall is pretty underwhelming]
>All the fun factions of original games - Keepers, Pagans, Mechanists, Hammerites - are GONE. So is Thief's overall personality
And ones I forgot:
>The hardcoded loading zones makes the maps feel small, yet empty - even Deadly Shadows, so criticized for small maps and loading zones feels bigger and more packed with stuff (especially with Sneaky Upgrade)
>This game's edginess puts Zack Snyder and Christopher Nolan to shame
>No longer you look out just for valuable objects as a bonus, like a MASTER THIEF would - you steal crap like forks and hairbrushes, 'cause reasons
>Skill tree. Can we just nuke them out of NOT-RPG games completely? Please?

TEEF '14 is a Pagan abomination, created the Trickster himself. There is nothing to "Underrate" or "Underappreciate".