froghawk on 7/1/2017 at 16:19

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So I thought the original game was very easy no matter what your approach was, even on the hardest setting... the DLC slightly harder... is it just me, or is this SIGNIFICANTLY harder than the original? Maybe I'm just sucking, but I've died a million times... it's taken me 10hrs to get to chapter 4 lmao

froghawk on 7/1/2017 at 18:16

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Good times. For some reason I'm also finding it a lot harder to resist the urge to go lethal this time - looking forward to that 2nd playthrough.

Playing as Corvo, I love how Thiefy the little mission intro videos are with SR's voice.

Aside from the voice acting, performance issues, and difficulty, it almost feels a little awkward how hard they were trying to keep this like the first one. Same structure of a hub with a boat that takes you to the city (only with far fewer characters in the hub so far), same mission structure of having city bits before each mission instead of a central DX style hub... with the addition of black markets, of course... This all only feels strange because both of the assassinations so far have just popped up out of nowhere when you see the target instead of following the first game's model of going in with a clear target, so it seems like they were trying to map the whole model of the first game onto a plot that doesnt support it.

heywood on 7/1/2017 at 19:09

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Well, in my case, with two young kids, a moderately demanding job, a house, and some other hobbies to cater to as well, there's a good chance I'll not find the time for a second playthrough before another must-play game comes around. That's what happened with Mankind Divided. I wanted to play it again but didn't get to it before Dishonored came out. So there days, I've been trying to do as much as possible the first time.

froghawk on 10/1/2017 at 18:28

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About to traipse into the Grand Palace. A few more thoughts:

-Surprised everyone is complaining about the writing. No, it isn't good in the slightest, but it's no worse than the first one in that regard and we had no reason to believe it would be better. I find it less frustrating than the new DX games in that regard, because those games have some good ideas and the potential to be interesting and then fall flat on their face every time, whereas the plots in Dishonored are just filler to keep things moving forwards. Not as much obvious lost potential here.

-While the voiced protagonists don't add much, I don't mind them. The overseers/witches = hammers/pagans already gave this a super thiefy vibe, and now having Stephen Russell do the Garrett voice with little mission intro vids adds to that. No, his lines aren't clever like in Thief, which is a shame, but it's a nice extra level of homage.

-The devs said they wanted to make the game harder, and as I said, they certainly succeeded with that early on. Now I've settled in and it feels equally easy as part 1, but I have a feeling a ghost playthrough will be an absolute bitch. Going for the nonlethal assault approach this time, which means way too much jumping on people and knocking them out.

-They also said they would make it longer, which they didn't succeed at. At first glance, it seems to mirror the exact structure of the first game - 9 missions with home base, boat ride and city hub sequences between. Except that two of the numbered missions are just the city sequences arbitrarily given a number. Granted, one of those (Dust District) does involve an assassination and thus can maybe be considered a level proper, but what we're really left with is 7 levels, the first of which is microscopic and the last of which I hear is recycled from the first game. So really, 5 proper new levels. Those levels are overall a little bigger than those of the first game, as are the city sequences, but not so substantially as to really make this a longer game. Plus there's less to do in home base - buying upgrades has been moved to black market shops. The Wale is nowhere near as populated as the Royalists hideout (there's been a maximum of 3 people on board so far, with very little dialogue), and they give you a repair quest early on and then seem to give up on making it more than a space for briefings after that (unless I missed something).

-I am enjoying this A LOT, but it just doesn't feel very fresh. Yes, some of the levels are AMAZINGLY designed, and it's a very well made game on the whole (plot aside)... but if there's a Dishonored 3, I hope it's more than an expansion pack for the previous game with better graphics, otherwise I'm not sure I even want a Dishonored 3. Paying tribute to LGS/Ion Storm is awesome, and I'm glad there's so much of that happening right now, but at this point I'm really ready for something that pushes the medium forwards in a way that EM and Arkane haven't really been doing. They scratched my nostalgic itch in an amazing way with Dishonored & Human Revolution, but just rehashing what they did in their original entries with better graphics & level design doesn't feel like enough at this point, and while I thoroughly enjoyed this game & DXMD, I can't imagine they'll leave a lasting impression on me the way their predecessors did.

-On that note, I'm not even sure how interested I'll be in DLC for this if it involved more level recycling like Knife of Dunwall/Brigmore Witches.

Renault on 10/1/2017 at 21:01

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My guess would be that for DLC, they'll somehow try to incorporate the time jumping mechanic from Stilton Manor again.