I was really impressed with the large and nonlinear level design, not to mention the variety in environments, and kept wondering what the catch was (this was made by Eurotrash after all). I received my answer halfway through when they ran out of budget and had me backtrack through all those levels. Guess I could have spoiled that for myself had I paid more attention to this thread.
I liked the string quartet soundtrack. This kind of music should be used more often (see also Arcanum). I also liked how they used paintings with voice-over since they didn't have the budget for fully-animated cutscenes. That should be done more often as well.
Everyone wasn't kidding when they talked about the clunky combat. Good thing they only force it on you thrice, but that's three times too many.
The dialogue was lousy and I wasn't fond of how they intentionally made the in media res beginning confusing for the sake of their plot twist. I was pretty surprised when I found out that not only is the lead writer a
conformist (there aren't even any women in this game [I'm sure she'd justify it by citing budget] and none of the men have anything approaching what one would call a progressive attitude), Arkane was so impressed with her work on this title that they decided they also wanted her on board to sabotage Dishonored 2 alongside Ellison.
I'm being harsh, but this was an impressive first attempt at a stealth game from a European developer known for shoveling ware. Worth the time and discounted price.
special flower deleted my post here. So I will go again:
