Yehh, it's cool. Takes me back to Thief 14 years ago i guess. Been so long. Adds a few cool elements such as leveling upgrades and climbing. That lil fella can jump and swing!! The graphics are smooth & enjoyable. The amber tree alone is worth the viewing time.
Don't let the bad reviews affect your decision to buy it at $2 !!!
I've had more regrets with some $2 beers ;(

Has the classic vibe of a stealth game, massive maps, and an alright story behind it all.

Pros:


Lots of potential with maps.

I've a mere 4 hours and I have only completed the first mission on "Goblin" difficulty (which is the hardest of the difficulties. The maps are incredibly large. full of many possibilities of your sucess or demise; be it the convinient tunnel, heavy objecting hanging above a guard, malfunctioning machines, gob in a box, the common ledge, the miscalculation of one's eyes, and much more.

A game for nitpicking.

There's quite a handful of enemies on each map, you can keep to the shadows and aim directly to the objective, or you could just run aimlessly assassinating every living thing you can find. While I could have skipped a good 90% of enemies without killing them, I simply could not pass on finding and assassinating EVERYTHING. l got a lot more of this game trying to clear an entire map over simply running towards the next loading screen.

Smooth Graphics.

Cyanide certainly knows how to make a good optimized game with some nice graphics. It's no next gen, but I'm sure many of us care for gameplay over graphics these days. I'd say I ran at a smooth 60 FPS at the highest settings, with very little tearing. I'm using GeForce GTX 560 Ti, non overclocked with 12 RAM.

Good Handling.

Controlling Styx is quite seamless with a gaming mouse. The amount of his abilities make a gaming mouse quite useful, but for those that don't own such luxuries can change any keybind through the options. I attempted playing it with a 360 controller, and I would say I much prefer Mouse+Keyboard combo due to easy access of key binds. Let's just say Styx isn't the best at grabbing ledges sometimes...

It's better than Thief.

That poor poor franchise.

CONS:

The AI

This is a stealth game, so I constantly had many "Really?" moments. The enemy AI is no different from any other stealth game and pretty much comes in two ways: the first being "Guard notices you, you run to hide, guard can't find you despite being a few inches away with a very obvious glowing orange tattoo" or the second which is "Guard notices you, you engage, dodge, parry, counter, dead guard, move on". I noticed I went through a lot of the second way through my first playthrough on Hard. To combat the non-stealth feeling and linear gameplay, I simply switched the difficulty to the highest which is "Goblin". I would not recommend any other difficulty if you truly want the feel of a "stealth game". Getting one shot can be quite annoying, but hey, what kind of "Master of Shadows" would get caught in the act of murder?

Bugs like a Bethesda Game.

I have only experienced a few bugs, but none that made me reload. Any bugs that I did encounter were in a "Bethesda" way. Floating bodies, launching dead bodies after a kill, stretching rag dolls, teleportation when assassinating, and minor clipping. None were game breaking, and is clearly something all games these days face. I'm sure patches are to come.

A "Bioshock Infinite" feeling.

Those familiar with Bioshock Infinite might get a retaste with Styx's abilities. While Styx has several abilities, you might find yourself only using a few of them in most situations that aren't forcing you to use them.



Overall opinion:

It's definately worth the $30, but I HIGHLY recommend you play on the highest difficulty to get the real stealth feeling. You can easily make the game last a few hours if you simply run through the enemy and go for the objective; make the most of it by slaughtering everyone in the area and collecting relics/coins. Abuse the amber! Amber powers can easily be forgotten if you don't use them often, they can be quite helpful on many maps! Exploration is important. There will always be more than one way to kill an enemy. Sometimes there's ways of clearing an entire map by the push of buttons...Keep your amber vision lit... Oh and, I hope your virgin ears are ready for the constant f#cks and sh#ts both Styx and NPCs spray out like a rainy day.

I give Styx: Master of Shadows an 8/10.

Styx has a strong core to its gameplay that, for all its flaws, at least manages to hold to a consistent vision. Its a constant annoyance whenever a game bills itself as stealth but undermines it by making combat an equally viable (and often more fun) approach. But not here. In Styx, stealth is the one and only focus and any attempts to try something else will quickly end in failure.

The actual mechanics behind the stealth work quite well. You mainly want to stick to blind spots caused by objects or shadows and either slip past enemies or, where needed, kill them without being detected. The enemies have believable ranges to their sight and hearing and I rarely felt like I was unfairly detected. While Styx has a handful of abilities and items that can open up some possibilities, its nowhere near the level of something like Dishonored where the abilities can completely change how you approach the game. From start to finish, stealth is the sole focus of the entire gameplay and it works out reasonably well.

Where Styx falters is with its levels and pacing. The levels themselves are designed well. Each one is large and complex enough that they offer plenty of options for your approach and the layout of enemies and other obstacles mean there isn't some easy way out where you can just circumvent the gameplay. The problem comes with making full use of these levels.

First, the levels are large enough that you'll miss a lot of stuff by only going for the main objective and the game tries to compensate by scattering collectibles and side objectives around. These don't work well as an incentive. The collectibles don't actually do anything besides create a sense of accomplishment, but they're also far too plentiful to make completionism a real option (unless you want to either consult a guide or spend a massive amount of time scouring each map) while the side objectives only provide bonus XP which can be put towards unlocking additional abilities (which aren't very impactful).

And second, each level is used twice meaning half of the game is spent trekking through levels that you've already completed. While there are changes between each visit (more enemies and different placements, changed start and end points, and various other adjustments) it really isn't enough to justify a complete repeat and hurts the latter half of the game when you realize that there's barely any new content. I can get some of the intention here given the budgetary constraints of a AA studio and that the player can put their knowledge and mastery of the maps to new use by changing the context. But these just didn't seem worth it to me and I think the game would have been better off cutting its length instead of repeating so much content.

Styx is far from the best stealth game I've played, but at least it is a stealth game which is a lot more than I can say for a lot of other titles that claim the label. It has a strong enough core that I don't regret playing it, though I don't think I was actually enjoying it past the 2/3 mark or so. But even if much of the content surrounding that core is flawed, there's still enough that the game is worth giving a shot.

What the tLoTR: Gollum game failed to live up to.

If you like stealth-games, then this is definitely one of the better titles around. Particularly if you like adding some fantasy-elements to it all.

You have your missions, connected to an overarching story, and there are multiple ways to go about accomplishing them. You can sneak through them, fight your way through them, or backstab your way through them. If you are the overarchieving type, there are also plenty of secondary quest objectives to pursue. In what other game will you get the objective to steal a guard's pet kitten?
Styx himself also gets upgraded throughout the game, which you get to choose depending on your play-style. It is great fun launching a goblin from the tope of a ledge only to have him land silently by "landing" his knife in a guard below.

The game has its glitches, such as guards getting stuck walking into each other or bodies bouncing away as they land. Most annoyingly is that there are places you cannot access until you return to the same map in a later mission... but the game does not tell you that. Instead, you are stuck wondering how to get in there.
However, all in all Styx: Master of Shadows is a very solid effort.

Styx: Master of Shadows is an amazing stealth game with an awesome story. (Even the ending is satisfying) I can’t go too far into the story without spoiling it, but basically you play as a goblin assassin/rogue that has forgotten why he is on a mission to steal the heart of the amber tree. You follow him through his journey learning his past and his true self. The stealth gameplay is amazingly polished and any true stealth fan will love it, but the combat for when you get caught is very clunky. (You will want to be playing stealth throughout the whole game) The first 15 or so minutes (the tutorial portion) is very unforgiving and turned me off of the game, but I powered through and it got 100 times better once the tutorial is over. Most of the in game levels/areas have tons of different ways to traverse the map and you can replay all of the missions. Another really cool thing in Styx: Master of Shadows is the skill system. You can basically level what skills you use the most and these dramatically changes the way you play the game.

• Amazing story and lore
  
• Great stealth elements
  
• Great level design
  
• Nice Parkour/climbing
  
• Great voice over
  
• Awesome ending
  
• Cutscene art style is awesome
  
  

• Clunky combat
  
• A few issues with gameplay (nothing game breaking or too annoying)
  
• The beginning is really unforgiving
  
• A few clipping issues
  
  

Styx: Master of Shadows is a great stealth game with tons of different features that make this game worth playing. Unfortunately, the combat when you get caught is very clunky, but this doesn’t ruin the game. It actually make the player fight the stealthiest way around. I highly recommend Styx: Master of Shadows to anyone who loves stealth games or just wants an awesome story with a challenge.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPi4gHdYmmQ


-HiPFiRED


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Well, long story short, this is a hardcore stealth game. Would seriously only recommend to those who like the old school stealth games, or are used to bumping up the difficulty settings in the newer ones. It's not a bad game...no, not at all. Just that anyone who's going to be playing this for anything other than stealth will have to endure a mightily frustrating time! I consider myself a semi-hardcore (if there's such a thing even) stealth gamer and I found it just a tad frustrating on Hard difficulty. No complaints though...I'm gonna man up!

Anyways, the biggest pro is that the levels are huge (like really huge...it took me just under 2.5 hours to complete the intro alone!). Lots of routes to take, and there's lots of verticality to it. There are ample number of collectibles to find, and potions to collect and conjure more magic tricks. And you are encouraged to not kill anyone, or not be detected, or steal all loot by unlocking rewards at the end of levels. AI seems to be decent too, if not unforgiving!

The stealth elements are standard from what you'd get in Thief for example. Guards can see you when you are in light and in their line of sight. They can hear you (even tripping over pails and broomsticks). And you can hide in the shadows, where a tattoo on your body will glow orange. However, you cannot abuse the shadows as much as Thief. Even when you think you are in a dark area, if a guard comes too close, he will smell you out.

Story is so-so for me. Too early to read too much into it. Visuals are just OK as well. Some textures look like they're brought right in from 1998 though. But on the plus side, I get to max out this game on my meager GTX 750 and get 60fps most of the time at 1080p. So yeah, it's not at all graphically demanding. Voice acting is mediocre as well. Nothing bad, but nothing memorable either. The same goes for the soundtrack/sound effects.

The controls are a little finicky and you will need to spend time in the early game to get used to them. Certain jumping actions are not properly explained in the tutorial. But aside from the jumping controls, the movement controls of Styx otherwise are solid.

In closing, the game feels like the most brutal stealth game I've played, and I can assure you I've played just about all of them released in the past 5 years. Still it should be a good challenge, and I assume as I progress and get used to the gameplay more, the experience will only get better.

After 72 hours I can still say this game is AMAZING if you love hardcore stealth. While some people gripe about the combat system in place I find it a refreshing pace when I rarely DO mess up and have to defend myself. I do the little parry dance/kill minigame or dodge/roll thrown knife and/or escape and see if I can successfully hide away then I load a prior save and do it again the right way... without being detected... EVER. I personally enjoy finding how to kill EVERY SINGLE enemy on a map without ever being detected. As such, it has kept me playing this game for a long time. You have to use some pretty clever tactics when you start coming across multiple knight patrols (immune to takedowns) and more sinister things I won't spoil for you. While a mission will take me 4-6 hours to beat in this manner of killing every single enemy without being detected, as well as finding all the loot, it is a very enjoyable time. Then after I beat it like that I redo it in the handy 'mission replay' feature as a speed + mercy + shadow run. So I guess I can vouch for all styles of play, both the fast paced and the ridiculously slow, super careful, pace. This game is well polished all around and worth the price tag even at full value though it tends to go on sale often. The freedom of movement is something to be really thankful for after seeing recent quote unquote stealth games have a push button to win method of movement. If you like to engage your enemies head on, this is NOT the game for you. This is a stealth title as they were designed decades ago, don't get caught or you lose and hit your quickload key. Story is top notch, voice acting is superb as well (and only 5 people did all the voices). Game runs extremely well and looks/sounds/feels fantastic. I use a keyboard and mouse to play and it feels very natural and fluid. Having full control over what happens in your movement is very important here. There is no "I win" button for ledge traversing and there are no defined paths... if you miss a jump, it is your own fault. Make use of your shift (slow walk) and drop/lift/jump keys to do all you need exactly how you need to do it. This is something many early reviewers did not take time to realize and as a result many people think the controls are bad when in fact they are very intuitive and responsive. You just need to be smart enough to utilize them properly. If you lack patience, you likely won't enjoy this. The original Thief games (not the remake from a few years ago) are something to compare this game's approach to. If you enjoyed those you are likely the target audience for this game. On that note, Age 30-45 gamers who grew up playing unforgiving titles that challenged you and didn't hold your hand should find this a nice nostalgic feel compared to the current trends. Well I sure dragged on and on... but:

TL;DR This game is amazing! WELL worth the price tag and then some. If it goes on sale, grab it. AAA title at a B price. You can't go wrong with that, unless of course you don't like this type of game. To each their own though!

I know Styx for $2 is a killer deal, but until the end of March, Fanatical has a bundle for $2 that includes Styx along with 11 other games. It is the Allstars 13 Bundle! I recommend buying it off of there.

Styx is pretty fun though, I played it on console years ago. Nothing revolutionary but satisfies if you have an itch for a stealth game!

EDIT: The bundle has been extended till April 15th!

This is the best Goblin simulator ever made. It's also a damn fine pure stealth game. If you lose stealth you can recover by parrying and trying to hide again, but we all know if you get seen you are supposed to reload your last save. That's how you play a stealth game.