I came back to this game after a long hiatus and finally managed to finish it.
I played as Corvo (for Stephen Russel's voice), without using any powers, going for a ghost non-lethal playthrough and on custom difficulty (mainly increasing detection rate and vision ranges for the enemies).
Well - this playstyle is clearly an addition to the assassin approach and there are some moments where it doesn't work that well. But nevertheless it's viable.
There are many frustrating moments where you simply can't knock someone out with the Tyvian chokehold, as the person is leaning on some obstacle, and the choking relies on contextual button prompt. In Thief you could just apply your blackjack to the targets head and be done with it, but here you have to somehow trigger them to stop leaning, without alerting other guards (or spam lean and peak buttons) and hope that the chokehold prompt will show up.
Some loot is also not attainable without powers (one black bonecharm in the Addermire Institute, and one regular in the Death of the Empress - but you can spam jumping to glitch into the latter if you're patient or feeling lucky).
There are also some frustrating jumps that can end in multiple deaths until you can work them out. But those are optional.
But apart from my gripes with Arkane not creating my desired Thief successor the game itself delivers.
The level design is superb. There are many different routes, and the verticality of the available spaces is really impressive. Most, if not all, of those high places are also accessible for a non powers playthrough. The levels are also huge and include some decent environmental storytelling.
The High/Low chaos difference with streets looking more desperate and characters behaving differently is a nice cherry on top.
I also have to give them credit for the visuals - while this is a game developed also for the consoles, the textures are nice, the whole artstyle is very coherent and evokes a nice victorian era colonialist mood. There are cracks on the corners of some geometry, where the void is slipping through, though. It also performs decently on my, rather old, rig. The accompanying soundtrack also deserves praise, with distinct themes for various levels.
The main plot is totally forgettable, but they could make a better work with it, even if it only serves as a vehicle to move the players between different environments. I've read here that the side conversations and written lore features better writing, but that's a mixed bag and rarely reaches the standard of analogical findings in Thief games, for example. But there are crumbs of good things hidden every now and then, so that's not that big of a letdown.
It's also quite long, if you go for the no-powers apporach. It took me around 40 hours to finish it, but I tried to explore every nook and cranny and get all the paintings, upgrades, and whatnot.
I started a second playthrough, as Emily, this time not restricting myself, going for High Chaos, killing everyone and not reloading when I fuck something up, and it plays 3-4x times faster.
I'm playing on the hardest difficulty level and I must say, that the combat seems kinda wrong. It's really high pace with low time to kill, but to let the player control it somehow, there are some slow-time moments.
With the characters (both the player and the enemies) executing almost immediate jumps and powerful swings the sword-fighting feels lacklustre. It's far better to remove the the enemies group beforehand with some aoe item, or retreat and do the same when they are bunched up, than try to fight with them. Fortunately the arsenal is really versatile and quite diverse.
I didn't like the powers in D1, and while D2 is selling me on the concept of using them for fun, I still think that they trivialize the game too much. With all those traversal and stealth killing abilities you're just playing the power fantasy of a superhuman being mowing down doezns of mooks.
Anyway, a pity that the franchise is "on hold" apparently. Dishonored 2 has some problems (as its predecessor did), but it is a solid game, especially if you like to explore nicely crafted levels.
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