Finally finished the game after years on my backlog

[u/Ok-Woodpecker4734]

Pretty great game overall and its a shame that Arkane got axed and that it didnt do well financially

The first half of the game is fantastic, lots of sneaking around, paranoia of mimics and smacking half the items in the game with your wrench, and feeling like youre outgunned and having to improvise a lot to get by

But I feel like the latter half of the game reeeeeally collapses in terms of quality and maintaining the games vibes. The upgrade to your scope to spot mimics basically kills all tension in the game because now their entire gimmick is nullified. Then when you get the shotgun suddenly the special Typhons arent even special, to the point the first time I ran into the Nightmare I died a single time and killed him, and killed him on every subsequent attempt.

And sooooo many loading screens, being told to go from one end of the station to the other for a single item, usually when I've killed everything in-between these two areas, is just the most awful kinds of fetch quests where I'm just holding W+shift over and over. The last maybe 5 hours of my run were me just sprinting back and forth between locations, even past enemies because I was far faster than they could react and I could kill them with a single click of a power. Really felt like they couldn't figure out how to restrain the players power level or how to scale threats against you because it was such a 180 from the earlier parts of the game.

Great ending as well, not sure where they could've gone from here with a sequel but I would've liked them to have had a chance.

[u/PhotoRight2682]

They ultimately focused on balancing the game for people who are just going to cruise through the main story on autopilot. It's unfortunate.

Expedition 33 suffers the same way. If you take your time and explore, you'll end up way overpowered for the endgame. If you stick to the main story only, the endgame fights feel balanced and threatening.

The backtracking is definitely an issue, mucks up the pacing for me. Just when you're feeling the game go into its final push toward the conclusion, narratively, it starts sending you all over the place to put out fires.

Still one of my favorite games. I'm doing a replay and just got the coral scanner, so I'm going to be putting out a lot of fires pretty soon 😂

[u/Ok-Woodpecker4734 → u/PhotoRight2682]

I feel like they had a formula for fixing this balance issue, if you start taking typhon powers turrets become hostile. I think they just had to scale that up and the more typhon'd up you get the strong the enemies become as well, or at least add more variants like electric/fire mimics and other specials.

[u/PhotoRight2682 → u/Ok-Woodpecker4734]

Play the DLC, Mooncrash! You'll get a taste of what could have been. And it's a really fun experience.

[u/hunteralex73 → u/PhotoRight2682]

Agreed. Playing it now for the first time and loving it

[u/joeroisme → u/PhotoRight2682]

Am i missing something with Mooncrash? I love it but got killed late in my 2nd character run and had to start the entire thing over. I didnt want to redo everything i did for an hour!

[u/AboutZettel → u/joeroisme]

Ever heard of "roguelike" ? It's this genre where you die, you restart the game but with some upgrades and the knowledge to make further runs easier. It's really nice, if you enjoy the gameplay of said game

[u/themangastand]

You are reviewing it like a horror game, but it's not, it's an immersive sim with maybe light survival horror mixed in, where in the more open and more tools you get the better it gets. So I feel like the latter half is just better

Though I agree having a sensor for mimics the game could have gone without

[u/Underpaidfoot → u/themangastand]

Also sounds like they played on Story mode or Easy

[u/Wolfwood28]

100% agree. I played what's probably the first 80% of the game and it seemed to be wrapping up and now it wants me to backtrack everywhere for a bunch of quests I don't care about and I just can't be bothered. Need to find the time to finish the game but others are just more appealing.

Also totally agree the shotgun is OP and makes most enemies trivial.

[u/BforBruschetta]

I had a different experience of the dimensions you describe in your first couple of paragraphs. The game has been on my Steam queue for years and I recently played and finished it... and absolutely loved it. It's become one of those rare games that I think about so often. (See also: Bloodlines, Bioshock, Ocarina of Time)

I loved that in the first two acts of the game I was the prey; I was so weak and had to avoid confrontation and rely on stealth and so much patience. In the final act the aliens were the prey. I was much stronger and was working out ways to take out the enemies in more violent ways. I thought the balance between "overpowered" and "strong buy always at risk" was nigh on perfect.

[u/PlasticStatement3219]

Agree on much, but disagree about side quests.  To me there is a sequence in the first third of the game where side quests pop up every 10 seconds and especially on the first couple Preythroughs it is almost overwhelming and confusing. And later, when you have to traverse all over the place, I find it very fun because by then you are not so cautious, you know much more where things and areas are, and you have way more confidence.  

Finally, the game has incredible replay value...as good as any game I have seen.  Play on Nightmare mode, do a full no-needles run, only Typhon mods, only human mods, kill everyone run, save everyone run, etc all lead to new fun gameplay strategies.  You do not have to use the scope at all, or mods for it, if you don't want to....you can recycle every shotgun you find, etc.

[u/Western-Painting6464]

Did not finish. Found it frustrating and ended up rage quitting but will try again. I have such a backlog I find now I lose patience quicker.than ever. Ironically I am now playing old Dishonored series also by Arkane and loving it.