The game doesn't really force players to choose a side. Rather it encourages to experiment and actually play it your way. You can ghost through some sections, assassinate some people here and there and when things go wrong, instead of reloading a save just use all of your arsenal to murder the opposition. If you don't feel like even trying to sneak past certain parts you can just wreak havoc on everything that moves and it works wonderfully. This causes a balance shift one way or another, most notable in the speed the rat plague spreads. When it comes to neutralizing your primary targets, you have a couple of options at your disposal. You can simply shoot or stab them to death or you can strangle them unconscious (the true pacifist way). Alternatively you can lure them out and have them caught in a fatal accident caused by you. The most interesting way though is the non lethal plots that let you have them face a fate even worse than death. The player has to ask oneself: which one of these would the target deserve? These too can go wrong and you may have to adjust your plan, for example I couldn't predict Lady Boyle's movements so I got caught in an intense chase that ended in my blade in her throat. But I had already neutralized most of her henchmen so there was no help coming for her. It is highly recommended not to play these games on anytging lower than the hard difficulties as only then you get to really appreciate the systems. Easy and normal are for people who just want to shoot, hack and slash their way through the adventure.
A continuation to my previous post: The story in these games is extremely well handled, you get bits and pieces of lore from the environment, and actually listening to people. The main plot points paint a vague image of the general stuff that is happening, however the real plot is more hidden. The letters give you background to situations at hand. I encountered an instance where I'd just killed a guard and found a letter in his drawer. It was for his wife and kid, telling them he was going home on his holiday. It implied his family already missed him and he didn't even want to be at that place but was forced there. I instantly felt bad about killing him, even though the game didn't actually punish me for doing so. The books in the game give background to the town and its folks and are very interesting to read. I also like the fact that Dishonored and Dishonored 2 focus on Corvo and Emily, and both games' dlc focus on Daud and Billie. That decision ensures that you don't miss anything if you just play the main games but if you do play the dlc you get a much deeper story. I also like the fact that in the same way 1 and 2 are related, so are both games' dlc campaigns. Although Death of the Outsider wasn't really dlc, that's what it should've been. It was about the same size of D1's Knife of Dunwall and Brigmore Witches combined so I see no point in releasing it as standalone instead of dlc. I don't think anyone who hasn't played the main games (or at least Dishonored 2) even thinks about buying it so there isn't any point in having it be a standalone "full" release. They would've propably made more money if it was just dlc as that would've done away with a lot of the costs that come from physical copies.
Hitting the nail on the head for me, here. The game picks a setting perspective (political unrest and more plage is more unstable) but that is very different from actual moral judgement. Even when the game celebrates the maintenance of a system in the franchise (low chaos ending in the first game) 2 is quick to indict it with how Sokolov and Billie call out emily on her neglect. The game really seems concerned with asking the player what lines they're willing to cross, neglect and respect to get what they want done accomplished, and in that way, it leaves the freedom for the player to really check their own actions if they are slowing down enough and present enough in the world to appreciate that, piece by piece. It's true that the endings are less chaotic, and that could be seen as a net positive, but *very* few lines imply straight "good or bad" ending, and using the second game's peripheral characters to essentially indict the comfort of the first's possible endings, whether they are high or low chaos, I think shows that the narrative team on the franchise were thinking harder about this world than throwing it in a moral binary of black n white.
I finally completed Dishonored 2 after putting it off for a year, and was so amazed by the morality choice in the Aramis Stilton's mansion mission. Of course initially being introduced to the time traveling mechanic is amazing. It gives the level incredible amount of depth, as you travel back and forth through time to navigate run down parts of the mansion in the present by using cleared pathways in the past. You can even interact with certain objects in the past which opens new paths in the present. Like how I had been handling the other missions, I was going for a no kill run, and had pretty much knocked everyone out in the level, and then I got to Aramis Stilton in the past. I got the code for his study and was about to head to the study, until I realised something. What if I knocked Aramis out too, knowing now that his state in the past is completely different in the future? So I did, and thus went back into the mansion. I switched to the present and was instantly confused. The mansion was intact, and there were servants, workers and new items in place. I couldn't believe the amount that changed with one single action. I didn't think that the level had much more in store until it happened. If anyone knows if there are any other changes that can happen depending on your actions in this mission, like if you kill Aramis instead or something let me know!
He should probably address this with a comment. To be fair, i thought you had to have that upgrade too, but after reading the description of it and looking around the room for a second, I realized you could just make it there.
Not sure if it's been patched in later on after this video's been recorded, but Delilah's nonlethal takedown does not require that you have a runecrafting powerup. You just need to pick up the 3 ingredients that are lying around right there in that very same room (the chapel) and put them all on a table, and that's how you get the corrupted rune that you need for the takedown. Also, another thing about the chaos system that Dishonored 2 seems to improve on (not sure if it's just a rumour, but I've seen it mentioned multiple times) is that you can use the heart on the guards to check out their secrets, and if they turn out to be scumbags, killing them awards less chaos towards the overall counter. Good video, I came fully prepared to have my view on those games challenged from the sarcastic intro (since I am one of those people who hold Dishonored 1 as one of their all-time favourites), but I actually agree with you on the majority of things you have to say. Guess the aesthetic, the movement mechanics and the level design alone were enough to push the entire game over from "good" to "great" for me.
Both of the things you mentioned I could be wrong about. I don't recall ever seeing a guards heartbeat but I could have just not been paying attention and while I think I tried everything to get Delilah's takedown it's definitely possible that I missed that. These two mentions would absolutely help to address some of the issues with the game, but overall my biggest problem is still with the chaos system and the lackluster stealth mechanics. I appreciate that you watched the whole video and thought about it critically. I don't want anybody to take me at my word, but think about what I have to say and maybe change what you think about the game in question, or just realize that I'm full of shit. If you have a good reason for it, I want to hear it. Still trying to get better.
@@EldritchAugur I actually didn't exactly watch the *whole* video, since I've only now finished Dishonoured 2 and had not had a chance to play Death of the Outsider yet, so I'm saving that section for later. To check out the guards' (or citizens, or whatever) assholeness level, you need to equip the Heart and use it on them so Jessamine will tell you their secrets. Sometimes it says that the guy is a murderer who tortures dogs for fun, sometimes that he's donated both of his kidneys and a part of his brain to a random street urchin, and there is a surprisingly large amount of quotes it has to offer, and the chaos level changes accordingly to what it says (killing good guys = more chaos, killing bad guys = less chaos, killing without even checking whether or not they were a good guy or a bad guy = medium chaos). Also, apparently killing witches and bandits (hatters and howlers) inherently awards less chaos than killing guards or (obviously) citizens even without using the heart on them first. I understand that this does not fix this rigid binary system, but I think it's a neat little feature. This is a well-constructed video, and I'm definitely glad that I watched it. Thank you for your work!
Now I feel stupid cause that is a really interesting mechanic. Surprised no one else has pointed that out to me yet. No problem, I'm glad you enjoyed it even with errors and things I missed intact.
@@EldritchAugur This has been a mechanic since Dishonored 1. Whether it works the same in awarding certain amount of chaos for each kill I am uncertain of but it's not new to D2
I have to *kind* of disagree on the "morality" choices. It's not about good and evil, it's about the world reflecting your actions, if you play the game like a ghost there are no extra guards because they don't even know about you, no rats because you didn't kill anyone, and no more 'zombies' because no one gets infected, it's not about good and evil but about the consequences of your actions, if you go guns and blazing OBVIOUSLY security is going to get tighter and rats will increase because of dead bodies. Now, about the making lethal options more fun, I do have to agree, finding ways to KILL multiple guards in the most out of the way and stylish fashion is the strong point of the game, what the game would need is a balance between non and lethal options, or like Death of the Outsider, have the moral choice option completely removed. I have played Dishonored last year and I have to say, your insight intrigues me into looking more into the games and its DLC's, which oddly seem to be BETTER than the base game? Anyways, even with all the spoilers, it just makes me more excited to experience this all on my own, I look forward to having a blast with 2 and its DLC
@@Supersayan21 Not really. The mire you kill, the more chaotic the world around you becomes, hence the name. Action given consequence, seems to work pretty well to me.
If you like to play lethal, a higher level of chaos will spawn more enemies, I don't see how that could be a bad thing. I don't recall the game calling anything bad nor good.
The Outsider is meant to sound emotionless, or "bland", if you will. That was kind of his main shtick in the first game, the fact that he is an inhuman being, with inhuman perception.
Have to disagree with the game punishing you for killing people. Just finished a high chaos run of the first game and to be honest I thought the high chaos ending was better. I totally understand how corvo mercilessly kills those who took everything from him and his daughter. I understand how Emily becomes a messed up dictator after what she's been through. The entire game takes place in the plague-ridden dystopia that is Dunwall and it just doesn't feel as right with the low chaos ending after everything. So considering all this I think it's weird to say that the game "yells" at you for killing people. I dunno, usually I don't have the attention span to write these longer comments but I think you are misunderstanding the way the game works. My 2 cents
For Dishonored 2: You left out the non lethal elimination for Mortimer Ramsay, who is locked in the safe room in the first mission. He is later seen turned to stone if you enter the safe room via Jessamine’s secret room. The rune crafting point about Delilah is just factually wrong. All you have to do is place the human bone (skull), algae, and pigment on the counter and it forms a rune. I never invested any points into Bonecharm or Rune crafting in my first play through and was able to do it. No bonecharm in the game is impossible to get.
While this is a year old I disagree. The morality system made your restraint to kill everyone a worthwhile endeavor as it got the best ending. Taking that away makes nonlethal basically let's people kill with no restrain lol.
You can Non-Lethally take down Delilah, and you don't need rune crafting to do it. When you get to the chapel, you pick up a note, and that lists off the ingredients(which are in the room)and in what order they should be placed. Then after that step, you go about the mission normally, and get to the throne room...but before you go to the void to fight Delilah, you put the runes on her throne. Well, once you knock out the real Delilah...you take her back in put her in the chair to keep her mind in lost in void forever or something. Then you beat the game Non-Lethally.
I don’t know dude, I disagree with you on the voice acting. I mean on a scale of Final Fantasy X to Uncharted, I’d say it’s better than all of the Elder Scrolls games. And as far as the game taking the controversial position that Murder Is Bad, it may be shitty that you don’t get the happy ending if you kill too many dudes, but if you’re going full murder ninja then the beefed up guard and plague zombie placement makes sense. The game would be too easy otherwise. I also think continuously comparing it to Thief is unfair. Thief can’t even make a better game than the first two Thief games. I think the voice acting sounds weird because everyone in monologging to a silent Corvo. Which, as you pointed out, was kinda dumb.
Well I don't consider Elder Srolls a high bar for voice acting so I think it's pretty bland. I wouldn't mind so much if they would just cut most of the dialogue out. It's pretty obvious they didn't care about it. In the video I said that I do think that the game should provide consequences for the player's actions I think that's a good thing, but it makes me never want to kill anything ever, just in case that breaches the magic 75% number and I get the bad ending. But yes I agree that it works as intended if you are going for a full murder playthrough. The problem is that there is no middle ground, you can't kill some people and spare most reliably without accidentally slipping into the arbitrarily assigned "evil playstyle." I don't think comparing it to Thief is unfair because it very obviously bills itself as a spiritual successor to games like Thief and Deus Ex with the 0451 connection. I don't expect the game to be as good as Thief but they messed up so many obvious things that it's inspiration did better.
Eldritch Augur I should have started off by saying I liked your video, it is good. I liked the chaos system in all things other than it affecting the ending. Maybe if they had done an MGS style thing where that gave you one of two toys to play with on new game+ and the one you got was based on your chaos rating on completion. I’m actually against arbitrary good/bad endings in non rpg’s anyway. I don’t ever expect much from video game voice acting, I hate silent protagonists in all games except Zelda, and I almost always go no alarm no kill play throughs on stealth games since the original splinter cell. I recognize that my play preferences have me tend to give passes to games that deserve more scrutiny. I just came back to thank you for replying, and let you know that I liked your video overall. And my point about Thief... no one has made a better first person stealth game than Thief II. That includes Deadly Shadows and Thief 2014.
I would assuming slaughtering people within a plague riddle city would lead to it spreading, and it makes sense that corvo a man wishing to regain his honor to be punished for not acting honorably. ie, killing/spreading the virus
I'm not saying it doesn't make sense logically. I'm saying that killing is obviously the playstyle that's actually interesting and developed, unlike the nerfed stealth which is legitimately no better than the obligatory one-level stealth sequences in Call of Duty or Battlefield games. Don't stand directly in front of enemies vision =/= stealth. It's boring, it's over simplistic, and it's tired. And yet you get the greatest rewards for playing the game in a boring way. That's my problem with Dishonored.
@@EldritchAugur I gotcha man, but I feel like the world building and exploration overshadows much of these issues. Although I do hate the acid things which spray at you in the flooded district.
Another problem I had was while it was cool for you to have so many options, some were objectively not as fun as others. For example, in the Pendleton mission I can skip most of it by doing the nonlethal, and the nonlethal happens offscreen. Similarly in Kaldwin Bridge, there were new encounters on the early stages and I was preparing for one intense and fun climax of stealth. Instead I went on the rooftops and found a chain that let me skip Sokolov's entire house and get right to his top floor. Getting to do everything isnt fun.
Weird. Everything you say about the voice acting, I feel the complete opposite about. But that might be because I played the first Dishonored in german only, and german dubbing/voice acting is generally not the worst. I feel like they did a great choice on choosing the voice actors as well as the voice acting and recording itself. But indeed, this may differ a lot from the original recordings in english.
I never understood why people complain about Dishonored shaming you if you kill too much. Lİke, isn't that the point? You're in a plague filled world and you find the audacity to kill a person and spreading the plague even further so that the later levels become more filled with guards and zombies. If you want to kill your way through the game it's not like it directly stops you and say "Corvo wouldn't have done this" . Through the game you are very aware of the powers you hold and you know you can kill all of these guys and take your revenge or feel like a god or whatever but if you restrain yourself and keep being patient you, your daughter and the city survives through the plague in the best possible way. That's the whole narrative of the game. And this way both of the polarizing sides have real meaning to them. The pacifst side really is an honorable guy who kept his patience and didn't let himself break morally while the murderous side really is a monster who was deluded by power or chose the easy way out. I think Dishonored is one of the best examples of Ludonarrative Harmony because of this.
I absolutely want games to try and do both,e ven if they do it sub-par. I cannot for the life of me stand stealth-based games where you fail the moment you're detected, but Dishonored lets me say "fuck it, you found me. time to get stabby!" and recover from a botched stealth attempt without being an unrealistic "you failed, time to restart!" I do wish there were more non-leathal weapons
Dishonored, without a doubt, is my favorite game series ever. There are so many things that I liked across all three games and DLCs; I’ve played and replayed it several times and I’m probably going to replay it again. However, I can see what you’re talking about. The bipolar morality system can be a bit of a problem (I ended up either killing some guards or all, never none). I loved how dark and depressing the more of the game was and how the plot came to be (especially dishonored 2 and death of the outsider). Still, the games have problems and I look forward to hearing more from you. Subscribed.
Bro I don't think you get it. You're all worked up about the game mechanics encouraging only one play style, but that's only one way of looking at it. It might also be said that more aggressive play styles are REWARDED with more guards and thus, more opportunities to kill in exciting ways. Reward isn't always making the game easier, sometimes it's giving the player a greater challenge to overcome. You can also breeze through the game on a lethal run, so this helps pad it out
I was actually arguing the opposite. The lethal mechanics are satisfying and varied. But the narrative attributes negative outcomes to playing that way: I.E. more rats, more plauge, bad ending. While the stealth mechanics are overly simplistic and boring but are rewarded positively by the narrative.
I have to disagree with you on this one. Alot of the things you talked about are true to some lesser extent but in my opinion the good aspects of the game make more than up for it. Especially after watching your bioshock 1 video i feel that your bioshock is my dishonored 2. While you praised Bioshock despite the many flaws (you talked about them too but alot less than here) this time it seems like its the other way around. I also like Bioshock alot but since its such a story driven game with comparativly weak gameplay it doesnt have a lot of replayability once you know the story. Funnily Dishonored is the other way around. All in all I think your video has all the right points but it stresses the negative ones too much while only touching on the positives slightly. Of course your opinion is equally as valid as mine so please dont feel attacked over this. I like your critiques and retrospectives and I wonder why you get as many views as for example Luke Stephens. From my point of view both your content are on a similar level of quality. Maybe its your upload schedule.
Very fair criticism. Bioshock 1 does share a lot of the same problems but for me it's the depth of the world, the characters and the story that transcend it's relatively weak gameplay. I never cared about Dishonored's world in the same way, and I demonstrably don't care about it's characters or story nearly as much either and that's why I don't like it that much personally.
@@EldritchAugur I guess we have different priorities. Funny story: I planned on playing Bioshock Infinite for a very long time. But after waiting very long and still not having the opportunity to play it i got impatient and watched Lets Plays about it. They were actually great because the story of infinte was great but it spoiled the entire experience for me. I bought the game last month and started playing it to experience it for myself but since i basically knew the whole story my motivation fainted and the very bad combat (imo its the worst in the entire series. dunno why) did the rest. I probably will never play this game and now I wish i hadnt watched the Lets Play. Thats the disadvantage of story driven games i suppose. Also i liked rapture infinitely more than columbia....
@Harry Styles It depends on the game. There's plenty of games that I love for the story or the world even if the gameplay isn't great, Soma, Silent Hill 2, Spec Ops, and there's plenty of games that I love for that gameplay even if the story is bad, Dying Light, basically any Far Cry game. It's a very common opinion to dislike Bioshock Infinite's gameplay buy it's actually my favorite of the 3. Currently working on a video where I can go much more in depth on that.
Not finished the video, but while I quite like DH1, you've a lot of solid critiques and I have to agree despite a lot of them not personally bothering me. Very good so far.
i found that a non-lethal playthrough allowed me to really take the world in, whether it be dialogue or environmental storytelling or diary entries. the slow-paced gameplay was rewarding to me because i wanted to understand the lore and the world better. that being said my high chaos playthroughs were definitely very satisfying in a gameplay sense, but less so for story, because i hated to stop the fast paced gameplay to take in exposition
I'm always so confused as to why people dislike the game's response to going lethal. Sure, the ending and world changes are dark, but they're not some sort of punishment. It's just the telling of the story. I find both non-lethal and lethal to be super fun, and don't find one to be more "punishing" than the other, just different tones. I also think the lack of non-lethal options is a decision made in the name of trying to tempt the player to kill. Carving your way through an entire squad would be the easy route, but do you have the patience and restraint to simply avoid/spare them?
I think the thing that makes Dishonored so special is the combat with no power and no double jump, so all you have is jump, slide, your sword and guns. There is endless depth and possibility by having to face the gaurds directly. This already enforces alot more risk when dealing with guards in which it only gets better when learning enemy behavior, you cause enemies to shoot each other, falter each other, dodge incoming sword attacks with slide crouch or rotation, you can also dodge kicks by quickly rotating to the right which can also lead them into kicking another gaurd
It's cool to see someone else who shares this opinion of Dishonored. My first playthrough was pretty much neutral when it came to the binary pacifist/murderer system. I killed some people, and spared others. Overall, I did have fun playing that playthrough. however, it was my second playthrough, a no-kill ghost playthrough, that I saw just how flawed the game was. It was BORING how little variety there was to the game. It was such a shallow experience. And yeah, I agree with how some of the non lethal eliminations were awfully evil. Making Lady Boyle a sex slave (I assume that's pretty much what happened) was one of the most disgusting things I've ever done in a video game, and yet I was treated as a hero. On an unrelated note, I really hope your channel becomes way more popular. These videos are ridiculously high quality when it comes to the writing, the points being made, etc, and I can't wait to see more from you.
Very much appreciated. That was one of the reasons I wanted to make this video. And yes more content coming soon. I'm currently working on a Dark Souls video (Something that I hope will be different than the usual Dark Souls stuff) and after that I'm thinking about doing a Hitman or Silent Hill series analysis similar to this one.
So you chose to play in a hyper restrictive manner and found it shallow...I wonder why? The point about the non lethal eliminations is quite telling about how much thinking you do (not a lot!) They’re supposed to be worse than death. It’s supposed to challenge yr morality outside of the game. You’re basically admitting you don’t have the capacity to understand its themes presented in this game! 🤦🏻♂️
"you can't have both stealth and action in a game that are both good" See: Metal Gear Solid V The Phantom Pain. Outside of the awful story, the gameplay is perfect. You can stealth or action and both are equally fun
Very very few times have I seen games that are far ahead of its time that influences the genre/gaming industry as a whole. Every mechanic well thought out, plot intriguingly mysterious, characters masterfully crafted, with deep gameplay while treating players respectfully. Thief 1 and 2 are near flawless pieces of art doing just that with great panache. Any time a game tries to go toe-to-toe with the classic Thief 1 and 2 in some capacity, they are bound to fail one way or another. I like Dishonored 1+2 as they are competent stealth games to ghost, and I like their mostly non-linear level designs especially a couple levels on Dishonored 2. I've to say that you do bring up a lot of valid points. Note that we don't get any stealth games outside of the seminal HITMAN series and maybe Styx, so we, as stealth gamers don't have a lot of options in modern gaming. The mainstream populace seem to be excited about insta-fail stealth sections and trailing missions from their favorite annual franchise. At least these games scratch a particular itch, and give us a good time providing at least a couple approaches to deal with objectives, unlike the other mind-numbing games providing one option with waypoints with a ton of hand-holding plus filler content.
A good critique of the Dishonored franchise. As a note, as of 2020, there is no runecraft perk needed for the non-lethal takedown of Delilah. This makes sense, rune crafting engraves on whalebone, while the ones she made inscribed on human skulls. They are somewhat the same, but altogether I think it's different. I might end up playing Death of the Outsider, I haven't because it's a rather weak ending. The Outsider bled to death and was made a god, so he's already dead, what resides in the void is at best his soul. Or perhaps a shadow of his soul. It undermines the power that the Void carries, and the mystery surrounding him. Yes, they try to answer that, but hardly did it properly. Firstly they try to explain that the Outsider in that he was once human, and was sacrificed to a ritual. The questions then become why did they want to sacrifice him? Who or what did they want to sacrifice him to? What did they want? So I feel, personally, that the best thing to have done was to leave the Outsider as a god and call it a day. It might frustrate fans to not know, but it's also frustrating with a half-baked reason like this. It all sort of comes back to, is it really that easy? To undo death? To unmake a god?
The consequences for being lethal actually make sense, if a lot of people are dying during a rat plague, ofc there’s gonna be more rats there, more sick people, and ofc there’s going to be more guards if you’re killing everyone. Idk if you just don’t think about this or you just want something to complain about.
My line of thinking is that regardless of it making logistical sense in the world, and I think it could be argued that it could, it encourages a less developed and ultimately less fun style of play. The stealth is just oversimplistic and boring, and the game rewarding the player for participating in it while punishing the the player for engaging in the more fun playstyle is the fatal flaw of the game for me. Either the stealth should have been more developed or the game shouldn't morally grandstand on the player for using the obviously more fun and engaging combat mechanics. I understand the argument that it makes sense given the world but I disagree with it for gameplay purposes.
options are good when it's about getting past obstacles in different ways using different tools/abilites. Options suck when it's about choosing between lethal/nonlethal, stealth/assault, etc.
15:26 I unfortunately cannot take garret seriously since I never played thief until over a decade after it came out so now all hear is a man trying to buy my sister...
Rune crafting? Uhm... sorry mate I’m afraid u missed something there. You can craft the „rune“ by collecting the materials in the room and just putting them on a table. No skills needed:/
I find the gameplay was colorful enough, and you dont even have to use qny powers to play through the whole game unnoticed. The voice acting was on point, maybe it wasnt full of flair but thats the point, since the enviroment is a city full of infectious rats, i believe it was more an atmosphere painting choice than laziness. Waiting from the Outsider emotionful speeches is dumb, since he is not really a person, more like a force, without any emotions, connections to the mortal world.
There's a difference between a deliberately low key and subtle performance and just reading the lines as workmanlike and utilitarian as possible. Dishonored falls into the latter category in my opinion.
@@EldritchAugurso let me get this straight… because you have the option of death where the devs made you guilty for doing so you made an entire video? Bitch the whole story is about a guard being framed as an assassin. Ofc death should have consequences. Why even play dishonoured if you clearly want to be a death Maschine… And even if you want to be one why care about the story. Yes I am mad if you haven’t guessed and I like to be seen as a fool. Since I don’t have a valid reason besides hating the fact that you hate that. Hatesception. And for some reason I still have it liked.. Edit: the video. I liked the video.
Jindosh's mansion and the Time Mansion level are the two best levels in Dishonored 2 because they're focused. When you give the player optional game mechanics, like being able to play the game without powers, all you're doing is creating a more shallow game. How can the game designers make an interesting level when they cannot assume what powers the player has. Ask yourself this: If the portal gun was optional in Portal 2, and every level had to be redesigned to allow the player to beat them without it. Do you think the puzzles would have gotten deeper or more shallow?
I will agree that dishonored should’ve had better light mechanics for stealth. There are times where corvo is completely shrouded in darkness and in reality would not be seen.
Dishonored has to be my favourite game for the decade. It's beautiful, the lvl design is amazing, I dig the setting, and what's most important, it's pleasant to play. It's a power fantasy. That doesn't mean it's not full of stupid shit that ranges from "meh" to laughable. Also, the "play it your way" turns a bit sour when the creators go and say "um, actually *this* is canon" and invalidate all your player choices.
Loved the video. And while I enjoyed Dishonored a lot, I do agree with your points mostly, even though in my first playthrough I didn't really notice the game preaching at me for killing, except during key moments, like when the daughter draws Corvo. Or during the last mission, when the boat dude gets disgusted.
It's mostly Samuel and the ending but I could have done a better job explaining that. I prefer the way Deus Ex handles a very similar system by having certain characters approve of killing and certain characters dissaprove and vice versa for a pacifist playstyle. It doesn't make you feel like an asshole for engaging in basic gameplay systems but instead makes you feel like the word reacted to your choices realistically and thoroughly.
@@EldritchAugur You did do a good job already bro so it's alright. And yeah, I also prefer it the deus ex way, it gives off a true sense of freedom that way.
It’s been awhile since I’ve played dishonored but I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or not about the Alien’s plot twist. I was assuming you were calling them Aliens because of the voice acting and writing but now I can’t tell...
This is the first video I've watched of yours... and I can already tell that I want you to come back. where the videos bro?!!! I'm joking of course life can get busy but I'd like to see more.
I just downloaded Dishonored on PC a week or so ago. About to (within the next month) play it for the first time since I bought it for the 360 7 years ago. I hated it then. I played the first level a couple days ago to see how I landed with it... I didn't hate it right off the bat, but I don't remember hating it at first last go around either. I just hope something clicks and I fall in love with it like seemingly everyone else in the universe.
I have now played D2 after buying it used for 8€ and I almost feel bad because I actually enjoyed it quite a bit, significantly more than I did the first game. To the point where I might buy DotO at whatever price it's sold instead of waiting for a sale. In any case, I once again agree with you, a lot of what was annoying in the first game is still there (I did find the quick KO bonecharm you missed, it was very nice ! ... for the one and a half level I got to appreciate it, GREAT, THANKS...) but but what I wanted to like in the first game is here too so that definitely tipped the balance in favor of D2. While it still pushes you onto a non-lethal playstyle narratively, that playstyle now doesn't feel like you're cutting yourself from 75% of the gameplay, which helps a lot, same with the emphasis on exploration through more detailed (and less truncated) levels which was significantly more rewarding than the first's. Finally, the game as a whole does have some charm, it's not just a pretty artstyle masking the trite and thoughtless nature of everything. One of the nice touches that shows more thought went into creating D2 (and perhaps the D1 DLC I'd say, altho I've not played it myself) than the first is how your target's themes were reflected directly in their habitat, whereas the first game had logical but often completely impersonal target locations. Jindosh's mansion is meticulously crafted to be a large size lab-rat, the crown killer lives in a broken down infested hospital that sees more death than recovery, Abele's mansion is a testament to his superficiality and hubris... Hell, even Emily fleeing Dunwall echoes her irresponsible behavior as an empress. Even if most of these characters still are nowhere near compelling on their own due to boring dialog (even if more energetic than that of D1), the environment does a pretty neat good job of underlining who you targets are and why they ought to be dealt with. So yeah. It was a good time for me. There's still room for improvement and it seems that this sequel is less than stellar when it comes to recreating the sort of badass aggressive playthrough we've seen of the first game so it's too bad the serie is apparently shelved for now, but I'm glad I finally got to enjoy Dishonored instead of being thoroughly underwhelmed by it.
Interestingly, my opinions on Dishonored 1 vs 2's story are inverted to yours. IMO Dishonored 2's story is much weaker because it lacks the betrayal. In D2, you need to stop Delilah and her allies, and you just... _Do that,_ with no obstacles or discoveries of any real importance. I don't think stories need plot twists, but I think usually they need at least plot *turns* where new information is introduced that influences the ongoing direction of the story in some way. Everything that you discover in Dishonored 2 does not seriously influence what happens five minutes later. You could delete the Billie reveal, or Delilah's backstory, or etc with no consequence. That's why I think Dishonored 1, for all its faults, has a stronger plot, because it's actually a plot instead of just a straight line
I would argue that your point about the Outsider's voice actor in the first game is missing the point of him as a character. In your own words, he's a mysterious, otherworldly figure with vast unknowable power, and he chooses to grant some of that power to people who intrigue him, he has no agenda or motivations, -barring the second game, which we don't talk about- he gives these people his powers just because he's curious, and it's in line with that purpose in the world for him to behave and sound as neutral as possible. Though Robin Lord Taylor is an excellent voice actor, I can't help but prefer the original voice actor's delivery of the Outsider's lines, because they sound less sinister.
I think ur being a little tough on the first game, it has its flaws but everything fits together damn near perfectly and it makes for such an engaging and fun experience.. dishonored 2, while making a lot of improvements in the gameplay, doesn’t work as well as rhe first game and it’s daud expansions, but it’s still fun as hell to play
I totally agree about "play it your way" being stupid in a lot of games, but it worked perfectly in Deus Ex. That game is an RPG, and its strength comes from how it balances RPG breadth of options and depth of mechanics. The shooting and the stealth are both solid. Not the best around or anything, but when you compare DX's action mechanics to other ARPGs like Elder Scrolls, they come out looking pretty good. Deus Ex has more in depth stealth than Dishonored because of the lighting alone. You can actually hide in the dark with confidence and move at a fast pace as opposed to Dishonored's endless slow crouch walking. You can hear enemy footsteps in DX and so can evade enemies without x ray vision. Plus, if you do get caught, you can shoot back without worrying about the game spitting in your eye with a bad boy rating.
I think I definitely feel the core issue that this argument is based on but for me it is not enough to derail the whole game. I do play sometimes and 'see' the missed potential for more punishing non-lethal choices - not more punishing in the sense of hard to execute, but in terms of narrative consequence and possibly gameplay consequence. The 'right' thing to do shouldn't be hard just by virtue of mechanical tedium but rather by the stripping away the concept of good and bad choice. The games half foot in the water this concept with the grueling nature of some of the non-lethal approaches but as you call out the game is still for all intents and purposes treating it as the 'good' option. Even something as subtle as characters being like woah that Jintosh thing was kinda fucked up Emily would've gone a long way in making each choice feel like a proper choice rather than 'do you want the consequence option or the not consequence option'. That being said, once I trained my mind to not see chaos as 'bad' and to embrace a soft stealth/hybrid playthrough my enjoyment of the game skyrocketed. It's not to say that the above suggestion or some of your suggestions wouldn't be pretty much straight improvements on the game's formula but I found it sufficient to change MY mindset in lieu of any direct influence on the game itself. Once I made the mental 'switch' I was able to appreciate the moment to moment gameplay and the balance of the systems the game has to offer. I think no one will argue combat is definitely the most fleshed out aspect of the series but while mechanically stealth itself is very limited(no crazy sound or shadow mechanics as you call out) it is complemented very well by the level design and the heavy emphasis on architecture makes for an experience that 'feels' engaging even if mechanically shallow. Punctuate that experience with moments of intense and violent combat and the result is a gameplay rhythm which feels very good and imo results in something greater than the sum of its borrowed parts. Interesting video, it's always hard to watch a well argued video against something you personally enjoy but I can't sit here and lie and say you missed the point or are set out on hating the franchise(though you are a little aggressive at points, I suspect it's mainly showmanship) Good stuff overall.
lol treating killing as inherently bad as a misstep, gurl the game tells you the more dead bodies the more rat plague and the more your child views you as a bad person. both are logical next steps in a thought process. you can kill a couple people but the point is that lives matter. if you’re here for a point and shoot maybe you should be playing something else??
My general point in the video is that if you are truly going to punish lethality than maybe don't make the combat so rich and interesting and the stealth the most barebones low effort system in existence.
Honestly, i tried to play Dishonored 2. The game likes you to _not_ kill people ... yet it doesn't really give you as many tools to do so ... then it gives you tools to kill them. This frustrated me greatly, as it was hard to figure out where to go and what to do to pass a area unseen. What would have been allot better would be if you choose a playstyle at the Shadowy Outsider. Either directly let me choose the Combat way or the Stealth. Another thing nice would be t o give the player choices when getting skills and upgrades. Always provide a choice between a Combat/Kill choice and a Pacifist/nonlethal upgrade. I not really care for a more sophisticated stealth system with light and sound influencing stealth ... but give me cool and fun ways to deal with each situation in a nonlethal way.
This is interesting. I've never seen someone who has the exact opposite top three list. By which I mean whereas most people think Dishonored is the best and DoTO being the worst, it's the other way around here. I think everyone can agree that Dishonored two was in the middle, but probably for different reasons.
I wasted so much fun doing a non lethal playthrough, then didn’t even get the achievement in the end because I killed the assassins in the intro. Wish they would’ve mentioned you were supposed to just block their attacks until the mandatory combat scene ends. So stupid
If you're talking about Dishonored 1, i don't think that's why you lost the achievement, the achievement description states everything after the prologue affects it, the assassins' you killed were apart of that prologue, so you wouldn't have missed out on that achievement for killing them. This game however does have certain glitches that would get you accidental kills, like in the prison level if you choke out the guards at the end of the level and put their bodies in a certain place, their heads can glitch through certain things and they can take damage and die. If you ever wanted to do a ghost run again, I'd suggest you use the mod that puts statistics in the game for you to look at so you always know when you did something to mess up your run. if your comment wasn't about DH 1 disregard my comment. www.nexusmods.com/dishonored/mods/17 (you don't need the DLC for the mod to work)
This video's really good! It really brings to light some of the issues with the Games I've never thought about; like, I've never really put much thought into how one dimensional the first Games characters were, I feel like I noticed it subconsciously but was too engrossed in the universe and lore to realise.
It looks more like a spiritual successor to Dark Souls given that it's the same developer but I can definitely see some stealth influence in the footage shown. Possibly, I'm gonna play it and if I think I have something interesting to say about it than I'll definitely do it. It's one of those games this year I'm gonna play regardless if I do a video on it or not.
@@EldritchAugur Ok thanks, looking forward to it. I think it's much more dishonored than souls as the player always have a sword (katana) on one hand and cycle between items on the other. The spells also have more utility than souls (blind, stun, stagger for critical hit...). The player also have one movement ability that let him zip straight to a position like blink and far reach. Melee combat revolve around timed block although you can do without it. Other than that the melee borrow a lot from other brawler game like dmc/darksider/bayonetta for sure as I can see aerial combo and launcher. Ranged attack doesnt need to be reloaded right away and/or slow down your movement on recovery so it can be followed up with melee repeatedly (dishonored have that, but that could be chalked up to it following first person shooter convention) The upgrade system doesnt exclude you from certain options like RPG attributes but that's omnipresent in most games. The level design allow for more freedom of movement and the stealth like you said. Only the save system and the 3rd person perspective is somewhat closer to souls than anything in dishonored.
Very enjoyable critique! I really hope you come back some day with more content. It was nice to finally see some respect for Death of the Outsider. I always thought that Corvo's fairly basic/predictable revenge story in Dishonored 1 was perfect for introducing the audience to the world and giving that center stage. However the real narrative experience and interesting characters were in Daud's story in the DLC. In my opinion, Dishonored 2 should have continued Billie and/or Daud's story. Or Dishonored 2 should have been Death of the Outsider, but longer and given more focus. Corvo, Emily, and Delilah's stories were completed in Dishonored 1 and did not need to be rehashed. If the devs still wanted to include Corvo or Emily, it would have been much more interesting if they appeared as side characters who had to work together with B&D to achieve a goal or stop a common threat all these years later.
I found dishonoured incredibly underwhelming and couldn't place my finger on it but you've really opened it up here. Which stealth games do you think are dishonoured 'done right' so to speak?
Difficult to say because the only series I can think of that shares a similar design is Deus Ex which unfortunately also shares a lot of the same problems. I would still take Deus Ex over Dishonored though. I made a lot of comparisons to Thief in this video because I do truly think it still remains the most advanced stealth game ever made, but it's not really anything like Dishonored in design. This might be cheating a little bit but I really do think that Death of the Outsider solved most of my problems with the series. Take out the moral judgement, flesh out the characters and story more and boom! You've got a much more competent game, even if, at it's core the mechanics are still kinda underwhelming you are at least free to experiment without worrying about which ending the game will assign you.
@@EldritchAugur I can get behind that, theres yet to be a modern killer first person stealth game done right in my opinion! Also thanks for interacting with your audience you're awesome keep it up!
@@averageperson4373 No problem. One of the perks of having a small audience is that I have the time to interact with people in the comments. So far, almost everyone has been lovely people. So I'm happy to do it.
Look I hate to be one of those people who says shit like 'you don't get it' because that's never useful, but there's so much about this analysis that is either wrong or misunderstood that it would take me an hour to go through it all and I just don't have time. So... you don't get it.
I don't think that's always true. My central point in this video is entirely subjective and I understand that. If I had to boil down why I don't really like Dishonored into one sentence it would be this: Dishonored's moral choice system encourages a non-lethal playstyle but it doesn't make any effort to make that non-lethal moment to moment gameplay engaging or fun. If the game had a more advanced stealth system or at the very least more tools for playing nonlethally than that would solve so many of my issues with the first two games. If you enjoy not standing directly in front of enemies for 8 hours or if you don't mind being labeled a monster by the ending for engaging in the more fun playstyle than I can absolutely understand why you would enjoy Dishonored. Level design, art style, tools for the lethal playstyle anyways, it's all great.
Haven't finshed dishonored 2 so I ignored that bit of the vid but an odd detail about the system in the game was shown on the good doctor level with Doctor Hydepatia. Cause of how nervous she was I pegged her as the crown killer but I hadn't yet found the guy who told u that in the other room (why doesnt he shout she's the murderer get her when he hears me talking to her) anyway I ended up rdming poor Hypatia and the game comes up Crown Killer rekt even tho I had no proof of her guilt
listen guy, you dont make him "dumb" you scramble his whole brain how is this NOT "ethically murky" most people would choose death over this in them shoes
Not gonna lie I basically stopped watching at about 5 minutes. To say stealth is just crouching and staying out of line of sight with no non lethal or deception tools is factually incorrect. You can possess enemies to move past guard checkpoints, you can possess bloodflies to fly through areas, possess rats to move through vents and avoid patrols entirely, you can time stop to move through areas, You can use mesmerize to distract enemies, bottles to distract enemies, blink and far reach to move past enemies or get vertical. So yeah, completely disingenuous statement.
I don't really consider those stealth tools. Those are more for map exploration and for using alternate paths. What I meant is that detection is strictly based on line of sight or if you step on very obviously placed broken glass. There isn't any light or sound elements to detection beyond that, and that's what I think makes the stealth very one-dimensional and boring. Compared to Thief with it's dynamic sound and light mechanics or Hitman's escalating disguise system, Dishonored is basically just "don't stand directly in front of someone" but with some alternate paths and movement options. I like the level design and traversing the map with blink is fun. But once you are on the ground and have to stay out of sight it gets pretty dull in my opinion. Especially if you are playing non-lethal and can't use half of the powers.
@@EldritchAugur Not trying to make this contentious as I do appreciate someone who will clarify in the comments, so thanks. With that said you pointed out a lack of deception and non lethal tools, and all of those fit the bill. If you're looking for thief perhaps you'll be disappointed. If you're looking for a game that takes it's own approach to stealth that's where Dishonored comes in. Nobody would claim it's the deepest stealth system especially if you're not taking powers into account. The powers are what makes the game and the variety of ways in which you can use them is basically limited only by your imagination. So I also disagree with your take that Bioshock has more interesting powers but that's opinion based. Watch guys like Fighter Tree and Stealth Gamer BR play this game and you'll see the insane creativity available to you with these powers from an offensive standpoint. Butt there are creative ways to use almost everything but the rat swarm for non lethal runs. I already went over possession and time stop, wind can be used to launch non lethal mines into groups of enemies from across the map etc. Again, the only limit is your imagination in these games. I think you make some fair points, btw. The morality system being one of them. But it just struck me as somebody who neglected their powers and then complained at the lack of depth. Maybe I'm wrong. Anyways, I like most of your vids so keep at it!
@@EldritchAugur but why have dark and light mechanic in dishonored lol? in this game you can literally teleport multiple times in a row, stop time, turn into a goddamn rat at almost any given moment, so i don't see why dishonored should have this, it would feel useless most of the time, especially if you consider how vertical the level design is, which basically is in a way your replacement for hiding shadows mechanic. DIshonored is just way more fast paced than thief so this mechanic would be useful only sometimes and also you're talking about those mechanics in a vacuum without mentioning the level design, becuase yeah, dishonored's stealth is pretty basic on its own, but its levels are more complex and have more ways to go through them than almost any stealth game, so the depth comes from that. If you dont like the stealth so much, just go with combat, you know? or combine the two. And why do you not consider the tools previous guy mentioned for stealth? Every tool in dishonored has multiple uses, they were designed like that, so the players could use them in any way they see fit. Even the bottles can be used in combat.
@@ehrtdaz7186 "but why have dark and light mechanic in dishonored lol" So its actually good stealth and just crouching everywhere? Play original thief and maybe you'll understand.
ive never gotten they hype for dishnonered, its fun but thats about it. i really wonder how many people who love it have played the original thief or deus ex
They aren't, he was joking. He either didn't want to spoil the actual twist downright or it's his way of saying that they're just bad characters/don't act like humans. Maybe both but he wasn't serious.
Yo you are talented at portraying perspectives. you should continue youtube and pursue Journalism. Surely an associated press would publicize your works.
Complaining about rune crafting for delilah when theres literally ingredients right in front of u to make one through the mission and not the skill tree
ya, i thought the story and script absolutely sucked for the series. Because of that I never felt guilt for giving in to instinct and killing everyone including friendlies. I couldn't even talk to the characters because it would be so bland, so I would either just murder them at first sight or ignore them completely(friendlies). If it had the charisma of Mass Effect characters, things would be much different/
I think I can agree with a lot of what your saying stil i enjoyed d1 quite a bit. I love the daud dlc. I also like the sequel, haven’t touched death of the outsider yet. Good video
Hope you’ve been doin ok brother!! Taking a break from editing my BioShock retrospective and rewatching all of your old videos again. I find it funny that BioShock Infinite came out a few months after this game and also gets the same overbearing, hyperbolic, and undeserved praise. It’s cringe inducing reading the positive reviews for both of these games lol.
I think you missed the point. Dishonored is an immersive sim. It is supposed to be more than the sum of its parts. Your ideas of game design are a bit outdated. Much like Deus Ex, Dishonored stealth system is not as good as thief, its action is not as good as half-life 2, and its role-playing is not as good as Baldur's gate, but the point is that an immersive sim is more than the sum of its parts. It sounds like you just don't like the whole genre of immersive sims. Dishonored is a classic imo.
Don't have much to say, just that I think you made a lot of good points and I think the perspective you give on the game here is very worthwhile, considering the vast majority of critiques of Dishonored only heap praise on it. You're being critical of a game with a cult following, so it's to be expected you'll get a lot of negative comments and dislikes, so I just wanted to throw my positive comment into the mix in case you were worrying your views weren't appreciated. Edit: Also lol at the number of people genuinely confused by your aliens joke.
@@kevingarcia6746 different people have different interests, dude. Personally, electrocuting someone is more fun than a wind blast. You get to see the shock, pulsing through their body, them, screaming for help, the shock slowly infiltrating every inch of their body. It's a long, torturous process. Unlike windblast which is over in a few seconds before the enemies can even realise what's happening to them and who's doing it. And it's pretty mature calling me retarded. And what does the year when the game came out have anything to do with it being interesting? Thief 2 is more interesting than ride to hell retribution. Just because ride came later doesn't immediately mean it's more interesting.
@@James.Stark.Ben.Edition Dishonored abilities especially the movement abilities (not present in Bioshock), the more developed melee combat and most importantly, the level and AI design allow for much more interesting play than Bioshock ua-cam.com/video/vKyT19o-Nl8/v-deo.html ua-cam.com/video/PSD8w28Z6GE/v-deo.html
I like both Dishonored and Bioshock but there is no right to call Bioshock an immersive sim like Deus Ex,Thief or System Shock.They even try to sell it as System Shock's spiritual successor but what Bioshock really is a shooter with some powers.
having played prey 2017 it feels like arkane is better at world building then the main narrative. alot of the interesting stuff in that game is in the back ground stuff while the actual main story is very bland.
As soon as he said the outsider's voice acting in dishonored 1 is bad I went straight to the comments
The game doesn't really force players to choose a side. Rather it encourages to experiment and actually play it your way. You can ghost through some sections, assassinate some people here and there and when things go wrong, instead of reloading a save just use all of your arsenal to murder the opposition. If you don't feel like even trying to sneak past certain parts you can just wreak havoc on everything that moves and it works wonderfully. This causes a balance shift one way or another, most notable in the speed the rat plague spreads. When it comes to neutralizing your primary targets, you have a couple of options at your disposal. You can simply shoot or stab them to death or you can strangle them unconscious (the true pacifist way). Alternatively you can lure them out and have them caught in a fatal accident caused by you. The most interesting way though is the non lethal plots that let you have them face a fate even worse than death. The player has to ask oneself: which one of these would the target deserve? These too can go wrong and you may have to adjust your plan, for example I couldn't predict Lady Boyle's movements so I got caught in an intense chase that ended in my blade in her throat. But I had already neutralized most of her henchmen so there was no help coming for her. It is highly recommended not to play these games on anytging lower than the hard difficulties as only then you get to really appreciate the systems. Easy and normal are for people who just want to shoot, hack and slash their way through the adventure.
A continuation to my previous post:
The story in these games is extremely well handled, you get bits and pieces of lore from the environment, and actually listening to people. The main plot points paint a vague image of the general stuff that is happening, however the real plot is more hidden. The letters give you background to situations at hand. I encountered an instance where I'd just killed a guard and found a letter in his drawer. It was for his wife and kid, telling them he was going home on his holiday. It implied his family already missed him and he didn't even want to be at that place but was forced there. I instantly felt bad about killing him, even though the game didn't actually punish me for doing so. The books in the game give background to the town and its folks and are very interesting to read. I also like the fact that Dishonored and Dishonored 2 focus on Corvo and Emily, and both games' dlc focus on Daud and Billie. That decision ensures that you don't miss anything if you just play the main games but if you do play the dlc you get a much deeper story. I also like the fact that in the same way 1 and 2 are related, so are both games' dlc campaigns. Although Death of the Outsider wasn't really dlc, that's what it should've been. It was about the same size of D1's Knife of Dunwall and Brigmore Witches combined so I see no point in releasing it as standalone instead of dlc. I don't think anyone who hasn't played the main games (or at least Dishonored 2) even thinks about buying it so there isn't any point in having it be a standalone "full" release. They would've propably made more money if it was just dlc as that would've done away with a lot of the costs that come from physical copies.
Hitting the nail on the head for me, here. The game picks a setting perspective (political unrest and more plage is more unstable) but that is very different from actual moral judgement. Even when the game celebrates the maintenance of a system in the franchise (low chaos ending in the first game) 2 is quick to indict it with how Sokolov and Billie call out emily on her neglect.
The game really seems concerned with asking the player what lines they're willing to cross, neglect and respect to get what they want done accomplished, and in that way, it leaves the freedom for the player to really check their own actions if they are slowing down enough and present enough in the world to appreciate that, piece by piece. It's true that the endings are less chaotic, and that could be seen as a net positive, but *very* few lines imply straight "good or bad" ending, and using the second game's peripheral characters to essentially indict the comfort of the first's possible endings, whether they are high or low chaos, I think shows that the narrative team on the franchise were thinking harder about this world than throwing it in a moral binary of black n white.
I finally completed Dishonored 2 after putting it off for a year, and was so amazed by the morality choice in the Aramis Stilton's mansion mission.
Of course initially being introduced to the time traveling mechanic is amazing. It gives the level incredible amount of depth, as you travel back and forth through time to navigate run down parts of the mansion in the present by using cleared pathways in the past. You can even interact with certain objects in the past which opens new paths in the present.
Like how I had been handling the other missions, I was going for a no kill run, and had pretty much knocked everyone out in the level, and then I got to Aramis Stilton in the past.
I got the code for his study and was about to head to the study, until I realised something. What if I knocked Aramis out too, knowing now that his state in the past is completely different in the future? So I did, and thus went back into the mansion. I switched to the present and was instantly confused. The mansion was intact, and there were servants, workers and new items in place. I couldn't believe the amount that changed with one single action. I didn't think that the level had much more in store until it happened.
If anyone knows if there are any other changes that can happen depending on your actions in this mission, like if you kill Aramis instead or something let me know!
You have never had to have the rune crafting upgrade to do the nonlethal for delilah
It took me a minute to understand that all the ingredients to make it are in the chapel, but I don't know what the other non-lethal method is
He should probably address this with a comment. To be fair, i thought you had to have that upgrade too, but after reading the description of it and looking around the room for a second, I realized you could just make it there.
Not sure if it's been patched in later on after this video's been recorded, but Delilah's nonlethal takedown does not require that you have a runecrafting powerup. You just need to pick up the 3 ingredients that are lying around right there in that very same room (the chapel) and put them all on a table, and that's how you get the corrupted rune that you need for the takedown.
Also, another thing about the chaos system that Dishonored 2 seems to improve on (not sure if it's just a rumour, but I've seen it mentioned multiple times) is that you can use the heart on the guards to check out their secrets, and if they turn out to be scumbags, killing them awards less chaos towards the overall counter.
Good video, I came fully prepared to have my view on those games challenged from the sarcastic intro (since I am one of those people who hold Dishonored 1 as one of their all-time favourites), but I actually agree with you on the majority of things you have to say. Guess the aesthetic, the movement mechanics and the level design alone were enough to push the entire game over from "good" to "great" for me.
Both of the things you mentioned I could be wrong about. I don't recall ever seeing a guards heartbeat but I could have just not been paying attention and while I think I tried everything to get Delilah's takedown it's definitely possible that I missed that.
These two mentions would absolutely help to address some of the issues with the game, but overall my biggest problem is still with the chaos system and the lackluster stealth mechanics.
I appreciate that you watched the whole video and thought about it critically. I don't want anybody to take me at my word, but think about what I have to say and maybe change what you think about the game in question, or just realize that I'm full of shit. If you have a good reason for it, I want to hear it. Still trying to get better.
@@EldritchAugur I actually didn't exactly watch the *whole* video, since I've only now finished Dishonoured 2 and had not had a chance to play Death of the Outsider yet, so I'm saving that section for later.
To check out the guards' (or citizens, or whatever) assholeness level, you need to equip the Heart and use it on them so Jessamine will tell you their secrets. Sometimes it says that the guy is a murderer who tortures dogs for fun, sometimes that he's donated both of his kidneys and a part of his brain to a random street urchin, and there is a surprisingly large amount of quotes it has to offer, and the chaos level changes accordingly to what it says (killing good guys = more chaos, killing bad guys = less chaos, killing without even checking whether or not they were a good guy or a bad guy = medium chaos). Also, apparently killing witches and bandits (hatters and howlers) inherently awards less chaos than killing guards or (obviously) citizens even without using the heart on them first. I understand that this does not fix this rigid binary system, but I think it's a neat little feature.
This is a well-constructed video, and I'm definitely glad that I watched it. Thank you for your work!
Now I feel stupid cause that is a really interesting mechanic. Surprised no one else has pointed that out to me yet.
No problem, I'm glad you enjoyed it even with errors and things I missed intact.
@@EldritchAugur This has been a mechanic since Dishonored 1. Whether it works the same in awarding certain amount of chaos for each kill I am uncertain of but it's not new to D2
Non-Lethal method for Jindosh is literally a lobotomy
Eldritch Augur: *Yea, this is fine*
I have to *kind* of disagree on the "morality" choices.
It's not about good and evil, it's about the world reflecting your actions, if you play the game like a ghost there are no extra guards because they don't even know about you, no rats because you didn't kill anyone, and no more 'zombies' because no one gets infected, it's not about good and evil but about the consequences of your actions, if you go guns and blazing OBVIOUSLY security is going to get tighter and rats will increase because of dead bodies.
Now, about the making lethal options more fun, I do have to agree, finding ways to KILL multiple guards in the most out of the way and stylish fashion is the strong point of the game, what the game would need is a balance between non and lethal options, or like Death of the Outsider, have the moral choice option completely removed.
I have played Dishonored last year and I have to say, your insight intrigues me into looking more into the games and its DLC's, which oddly seem to be BETTER than the base game?
Anyways, even with all the spoilers, it just makes me more excited to experience this all on my own, I look forward to having a blast with 2 and its DLC
A poor attempt at justifying a derivative karma system.
@@Supersayan21 and why it's poor?
Death of the outsider might be the worst DLC ever made. So disappointing
@@Supersayan21 Not really. The mire you kill, the more chaotic the world around you becomes, hence the name. Action given consequence, seems to work pretty well to me.
“I want to be a bloodthirsty killer and the good guy and this game keeps calling me a bloodthirsty killer”
If you like to play lethal, a higher level of chaos will spawn more enemies, I don't see how that could be a bad thing.
I don't recall the game calling anything bad nor good.
"Dishonored 1&2 + DLC" Leaves out Dunwall City Trials
Sorry I'm late, so Regent and all his followers are aliens? Is that why they have those funny made heads?
No but honestly who the fuck cares?
The Outsider is meant to sound emotionless, or "bland", if you will. That was kind of his main shtick in the first game, the fact that he is an inhuman being, with inhuman perception.
Have to disagree with the game punishing you for killing people. Just finished a high chaos run of the first game and to be honest I thought the high chaos ending was better.
I totally understand how corvo mercilessly kills those who took everything from him and his daughter. I understand how Emily becomes a messed up dictator after what she's been through. The entire game takes place in the plague-ridden dystopia that is Dunwall and it just doesn't feel as right with the low chaos ending after everything.
So considering all this I think it's weird to say that the game "yells" at you for killing people. I dunno, usually I don't have the attention span to write these longer comments but I think you are misunderstanding the way the game works. My 2 cents
For Dishonored 2:
You left out the non lethal elimination for Mortimer Ramsay, who is locked in the safe room in the first mission. He is later seen turned to stone if you enter the safe room via Jessamine’s secret room.
The rune crafting point about Delilah is just factually wrong. All you have to do is place the human bone (skull), algae, and pigment on the counter and it forms a rune. I never invested any points into Bonecharm or Rune crafting in my first play through and was able to do it.
No bonecharm in the game is impossible to get.
Yeah I'm confused at which one. I remember looking for 15 minutes for that rune in the drain behind the wood but no bone charm
Before you say it. Yes! I'm stupid. Thief 2 came out in 2000, not 2001. My bad.
While this is a year old I disagree. The morality system made your restraint to kill everyone a worthwhile endeavor as it got the best ending. Taking that away makes nonlethal basically let's people kill with no restrain lol.
You can Non-Lethally take down Delilah, and you don't need rune crafting to do it. When you get to the chapel, you pick up a note, and that lists off the ingredients(which are in the room)and in what order they should be placed. Then after that step, you go about the mission normally, and get to the throne room...but before you go to the void to fight Delilah, you put the runes on her throne. Well, once you knock out the real Delilah...you take her back in put her in the chair to keep her mind in lost in void forever or something. Then you beat the game Non-Lethally.
I don’t know dude, I disagree with you on the voice acting. I mean on a scale of Final Fantasy X to Uncharted, I’d say it’s better than all of the Elder Scrolls games.
And as far as the game taking the controversial position that Murder Is Bad, it may be shitty that you don’t get the happy ending if you kill too many dudes, but if you’re going full murder ninja then the beefed up guard and plague zombie placement makes sense. The game would be too easy otherwise.
I also think continuously comparing it to Thief is unfair. Thief can’t even make a better game than the first two Thief games.
I think the voice acting sounds weird because everyone in monologging to a silent Corvo. Which, as you pointed out, was kinda dumb.
Well I don't consider Elder Srolls a high bar for voice acting so I think it's pretty bland. I wouldn't mind so much if they would just cut most of the dialogue out. It's pretty obvious they didn't care about it.
In the video I said that I do think that the game should provide consequences for the player's actions I think that's a good thing, but it makes me never want to kill anything ever, just in case that breaches the magic 75% number and I get the bad ending. But yes I agree that it works as intended if you are going for a full murder playthrough. The problem is that there is no middle ground, you can't kill some people and spare most reliably without accidentally slipping into the arbitrarily assigned "evil playstyle."
I don't think comparing it to Thief is unfair because it very obviously bills itself as a spiritual successor to games like Thief and Deus Ex with the 0451 connection. I don't expect the game to be as good as Thief but they messed up so many obvious things that it's inspiration did better.
Eldritch Augur I should have started off by saying I liked your video, it is good.
I liked the chaos system in all things other than it affecting the ending. Maybe if they had done an MGS style thing where that gave you one of two toys to play with on new game+ and the one you got was based on your chaos rating on completion. I’m actually against arbitrary good/bad endings in non rpg’s anyway.
I don’t ever expect much from video game voice acting, I hate silent protagonists in all games except Zelda, and I almost always go no alarm no kill play throughs on stealth games since the original splinter cell. I recognize that my play preferences have me tend to give passes to games that deserve more scrutiny.
I just came back to thank you for replying, and let you know that I liked your video overall.
And my point about Thief... no one has made a better first person stealth game than Thief II. That includes Deadly Shadows and Thief 2014.
I would assuming slaughtering people within a plague riddle city would lead to it spreading, and it makes sense that corvo a man wishing to regain his honor to be punished for not acting honorably. ie, killing/spreading the virus
I'm not saying it doesn't make sense logically. I'm saying that killing is obviously the playstyle that's actually interesting and developed, unlike the nerfed stealth which is legitimately no better than the obligatory one-level stealth sequences in Call of Duty or Battlefield games.
Don't stand directly in front of enemies vision =/= stealth. It's boring, it's over simplistic, and it's tired. And yet you get the greatest rewards for playing the game in a boring way. That's my problem with Dishonored.
@@EldritchAugur I gotcha man, but I feel like the world building and exploration overshadows much of these issues. Although I do hate the acid things which spray at you in the flooded district.
Another problem I had was while it was cool for you to have so many options, some were objectively not as fun as others. For example, in the Pendleton mission I can skip most of it by doing the nonlethal, and the nonlethal happens offscreen. Similarly in Kaldwin Bridge, there were new encounters on the early stages and I was preparing for one intense and fun climax of stealth. Instead I went on the rooftops and found a chain that let me skip Sokolov's entire house and get right to his top floor. Getting to do everything isnt fun.
Weird. Everything you say about the voice acting, I feel the complete opposite about. But that might be because I played the first Dishonored in german only, and german dubbing/voice acting is generally not the worst.
I feel like they did a great choice on choosing the voice actors as well as the voice acting and recording itself. But indeed, this may differ a lot from the original recordings in english.
I never understood why people complain about Dishonored shaming you if you kill too much. Lİke, isn't that the point? You're in a plague filled world and you find the audacity to kill a person and spreading the plague even further so that the later levels become more filled with guards and zombies. If you want to kill your way through the game it's not like it directly stops you and say "Corvo wouldn't have done this" . Through the game you are very aware of the powers you hold and you know you can kill all of these guys and take your revenge or feel like a god or whatever but if you restrain yourself and keep being patient you, your daughter and the city survives through the plague in the best possible way. That's the whole narrative of the game. And this way both of the polarizing sides have real meaning to them. The pacifst side really is an honorable guy who kept his patience and didn't let himself break morally while the murderous side really is a monster who was deluded by power or chose the easy way out. I think Dishonored is one of the best examples of Ludonarrative Harmony because of this.
I absolutely want games to try and do both,e ven if they do it sub-par.
I cannot for the life of me stand stealth-based games where you fail the moment you're detected, but Dishonored lets me say "fuck it, you found me. time to get stabby!" and recover from a botched stealth attempt without being an unrealistic "you failed, time to restart!"
I do wish there were more non-leathal weapons
Dishonored, without a doubt, is my favorite game series ever. There are so many things that I liked across all three games and DLCs; I’ve played and replayed it several times and I’m probably going to replay it again. However, I can see what you’re talking about. The bipolar morality system can be a bit of a problem (I ended up either killing some guards or all, never none). I loved how dark and depressing the more of the game was and how the plot came to be (especially dishonored 2 and death of the outsider). Still, the games have problems and I look forward to hearing more from you. Subscribed.
Blink added a created twist to traversal and level design.
What a total gem of a channel. I really like your work man.
Bro I don't think you get it. You're all worked up about the game mechanics encouraging only one play style, but that's only one way of looking at it. It might also be said that more aggressive play styles are REWARDED with more guards and thus, more opportunities to kill in exciting ways. Reward isn't always making the game easier, sometimes it's giving the player a greater challenge to overcome. You can also breeze through the game on a lethal run, so this helps pad it out
I was actually arguing the opposite. The lethal mechanics are satisfying and varied. But the narrative attributes negative outcomes to playing that way: I.E. more rats, more plauge, bad ending. While the stealth mechanics are overly simplistic and boring but are rewarded positively by the narrative.
@@EldritchAugur oh shit my bad lol
@@EldritchAugur "bad ending" doesn't automatically mean... well that it's a bad ending, just a darker one.
I have to disagree with you on this one. Alot of the things you talked about are true to some lesser extent but in my opinion the good aspects of the game make more than up for it.
Especially after watching your bioshock 1 video i feel that your bioshock is my dishonored 2. While you praised Bioshock despite the many flaws (you talked about them too but alot less than here) this time it seems like its the other way around. I also like Bioshock alot but since its such a story driven game with comparativly weak gameplay it doesnt have a lot of replayability once you know the story. Funnily Dishonored is the other way around. All in all I think your video has all the right points but it stresses the negative ones too much while only touching on the positives slightly.
Of course your opinion is equally as valid as mine so please dont feel attacked over this. I like your critiques and retrospectives and I wonder why you get as many views as for example Luke Stephens. From my point of view both your content are on a similar level of quality. Maybe its your upload schedule.
Very fair criticism. Bioshock 1 does share a lot of the same problems but for me it's the depth of the world, the characters and the story that transcend it's relatively weak gameplay. I never cared about Dishonored's world in the same way, and I demonstrably don't care about it's characters or story nearly as much either and that's why I don't like it that much personally.
@@EldritchAugur I guess we have different priorities. Funny story: I planned on playing Bioshock Infinite for a very long time. But after waiting very long and still not having the opportunity to play it i got impatient and watched Lets Plays about it. They were actually great because the story of infinte was great but it spoiled the entire experience for me. I bought the game last month and started playing it to experience it for myself but since i basically knew the whole story my motivation fainted and the very bad combat (imo its the worst in the entire series. dunno why) did the rest. I probably will never play this game and now I wish i hadnt watched the Lets Play. Thats the disadvantage of story driven games i suppose.
Also i liked rapture infinitely more than columbia....
@Harry Styles It depends on the game. There's plenty of games that I love for the story or the world even if the gameplay isn't great, Soma, Silent Hill 2, Spec Ops, and there's plenty of games that I love for that gameplay even if the story is bad, Dying Light, basically any Far Cry game.
It's a very common opinion to dislike Bioshock Infinite's gameplay buy it's actually my favorite of the 3. Currently working on a video where I can go much more in depth on that.
Not finished the video, but while I quite like DH1, you've a lot of solid critiques and I have to agree despite a lot of them not personally bothering me. Very good so far.
@StealthGamerBR : hold my mana
i found that a non-lethal playthrough allowed me to really take the world in, whether it be dialogue or environmental storytelling or diary entries. the slow-paced gameplay was rewarding to me because i wanted to understand the lore and the world better. that being said my high chaos playthroughs were definitely very satisfying in a gameplay sense, but less so for story, because i hated to stop the fast paced gameplay to take in exposition
I'm always so confused as to why people dislike the game's response to going lethal. Sure, the ending and world changes are dark, but they're not some sort of punishment. It's just the telling of the story. I find both non-lethal and lethal to be super fun, and don't find one to be more "punishing" than the other, just different tones.
I also think the lack of non-lethal options is a decision made in the name of trying to tempt the player to kill. Carving your way through an entire squad would be the easy route, but do you have the patience and restraint to simply avoid/spare them?
I think the thing that makes Dishonored so special is the combat with no power and no double jump, so all you have is jump, slide, your sword and guns. There is endless depth and possibility by having to face the gaurds directly. This already enforces alot more risk when dealing with guards in which it only gets better when learning enemy behavior, you cause enemies to shoot each other, falter each other, dodge incoming sword attacks with slide crouch or rotation, you can also dodge kicks by quickly rotating to the right which can also lead them into kicking another gaurd
It's cool to see someone else who shares this opinion of Dishonored. My first playthrough was pretty much neutral when it came to the binary pacifist/murderer system. I killed some people, and spared others. Overall, I did have fun playing that playthrough. however, it was my second playthrough, a no-kill ghost playthrough, that I saw just how flawed the game was. It was BORING how little variety there was to the game. It was such a shallow experience. And yeah, I agree with how some of the non lethal eliminations were awfully evil. Making Lady Boyle a sex slave (I assume that's pretty much what happened) was one of the most disgusting things I've ever done in a video game, and yet I was treated as a hero.
On an unrelated note, I really hope your channel becomes way more popular. These videos are ridiculously high quality when it comes to the writing, the points being made, etc, and I can't wait to see more from you.
Very much appreciated. That was one of the reasons I wanted to make this video. And yes more content coming soon. I'm currently working on a Dark Souls video (Something that I hope will be different than the usual Dark Souls stuff) and after that I'm thinking about doing a Hitman or Silent Hill series analysis similar to this one.
So you chose to play in a hyper restrictive manner and found it shallow...I wonder why?
The point about the non lethal eliminations is quite telling about how much thinking you do (not a lot!)
They’re supposed to be worse than death. It’s supposed to challenge yr morality outside of the game.
You’re basically admitting you don’t have the capacity to understand its themes presented in this game! 🤦🏻♂️
The legal term you were looking for to describe corvo was actually "Mute of Malice"
"you can't have both stealth and action in a game that are both good" See: Metal Gear Solid V The Phantom Pain. Outside of the awful story, the gameplay is perfect. You can stealth or action and both are equally fun
Or mankind divided
U agree dailty
Very very few times have I seen games that are far ahead of its time that influences the genre/gaming industry as a whole. Every mechanic well thought out, plot intriguingly mysterious, characters masterfully crafted, with deep gameplay while treating players respectfully. Thief 1 and 2 are near flawless pieces of art doing just that with great panache. Any time a game tries to go toe-to-toe with the classic Thief 1 and 2 in some capacity, they are bound to fail one way or another.
I like Dishonored 1+2 as they are competent stealth games to ghost, and I like their mostly non-linear level designs especially a couple levels on Dishonored 2. I've to say that you do bring up a lot of valid points. Note that we don't get any stealth games outside of the seminal HITMAN series and maybe Styx, so we, as stealth gamers don't have a lot of options in modern gaming. The mainstream populace seem to be excited about insta-fail stealth sections and trailing missions from their favorite annual franchise. At least these games scratch a particular itch, and give us a good time providing at least a couple approaches to deal with objectives, unlike the other mind-numbing games providing one option with waypoints with a ton of hand-holding plus filler content.
A good critique of the Dishonored franchise. As a note, as of 2020, there is no runecraft perk needed for the non-lethal takedown of Delilah. This makes sense, rune crafting engraves on whalebone, while the ones she made inscribed on human skulls. They are somewhat the same, but altogether I think it's different.
I might end up playing Death of the Outsider, I haven't because it's a rather weak ending. The Outsider bled to death and was made a god, so he's already dead, what resides in the void is at best his soul. Or perhaps a shadow of his soul.
It undermines the power that the Void carries, and the mystery surrounding him. Yes, they try to answer that, but hardly did it properly. Firstly they try to explain that the Outsider in that he was once human, and was sacrificed to a ritual. The questions then become why did they want to sacrifice him? Who or what did they want to sacrifice him to? What did they want? So I feel, personally, that the best thing to have done was to leave the Outsider as a god and call it a day. It might frustrate fans to not know, but it's also frustrating with a half-baked reason like this. It all sort of comes back to, is it really that easy? To undo death? To unmake a god?
The voice acting is great and immersive in all the games. Their voices almost perfectly fit the world.
What a dumb thing to say.
The consequences for being lethal actually make sense, if a lot of people are dying during a rat plague, ofc there’s gonna be more rats there, more sick people, and ofc there’s going to be more guards if you’re killing everyone. Idk if you just don’t think about this or you just want something to complain about.
My line of thinking is that regardless of it making logistical sense in the world, and I think it could be argued that it could, it encourages a less developed and ultimately less fun style of play. The stealth is just oversimplistic and boring, and the game rewarding the player for participating in it while punishing the the player for engaging in the more fun playstyle is the fatal flaw of the game for me.
Either the stealth should have been more developed or the game shouldn't morally grandstand on the player for using the obviously more fun and engaging combat mechanics. I understand the argument that it makes sense given the world but I disagree with it for gameplay purposes.
This game was made with so much skill that gamers have taught the developers a few tips and tricks.
options are good when it's about getting past obstacles in different ways using different tools/abilites. Options suck when it's about choosing between lethal/nonlethal, stealth/assault, etc.
15:26 I unfortunately cannot take garret seriously since I never played thief until over a decade after it came out so now all hear is a man trying to buy my sister...
Rune crafting? Uhm... sorry mate I’m afraid u missed something there. You can craft the „rune“ by collecting the materials in the room and just putting them on a table. No skills needed:/
I find the gameplay was colorful enough, and you dont even have to use qny powers to play through the whole game unnoticed. The voice acting was on point, maybe it wasnt full of flair but thats the point, since the enviroment is a city full of infectious rats, i believe it was more an atmosphere painting choice than laziness. Waiting from the Outsider emotionful speeches is dumb, since he is not really a person, more like a force, without any emotions, connections to the mortal world.
There's a difference between a deliberately low key and subtle performance and just reading the lines as workmanlike and utilitarian as possible. Dishonored falls into the latter category in my opinion.
I have not heard anyone mention the way the games arbitrarily guilt trip you into always taking the none lethal approach. Great job on the video!
Thank you. It's one of the main reasons I wanted to make this video.
Yeah it's ridiculous how Arkane took the controversial approach that murder is bad......
@@EldritchAugurso let me get this straight… because you have the option of death where the devs made you guilty for doing so you made an entire video?
Bitch the whole story is about a guard being framed as an assassin. Ofc death should have consequences. Why even play dishonoured if you clearly want to be a death Maschine…
And even if you want to be one why care about the story.
Yes I am mad if you haven’t guessed and I like to be seen as a fool. Since I don’t have a valid reason besides hating the fact that you hate that.
Hatesception. And for some reason I still have it liked..
Edit: the video. I liked the video.
Jindosh's mansion and the Time Mansion level are the two best levels in Dishonored 2 because they're focused.
When you give the player optional game mechanics, like being able to play the game without powers, all you're doing is creating a more shallow game.
How can the game designers make an interesting level when they cannot assume what powers the player has.
Ask yourself this: If the portal gun was optional in Portal 2, and every level had to be redesigned to allow the player to beat them without it.
Do you think the puzzles would have gotten deeper or more shallow?
My dude. The voice acting is fine. What are you even talking about
This is an amazing video, I really hope you find the time to return to making content one day but I can completely understand why you had to stop.
I will agree that dishonored should’ve had better light mechanics for stealth. There are times where corvo is completely shrouded in darkness and in reality would not be seen.
Maybe unfairly compared to other games? I loved both play throughs passive and chaos in both DH1 and 2 plus all dlc.
Daud sucks too.
It's crazy how i didn't agree with like 80% of this video but i enjoyed it either way.
i liked death of the outsider most
and a big part why is that it doesnt have the chaos system
Dishonored has to be my favourite game for the decade. It's beautiful, the lvl design is amazing, I dig the setting, and what's most important, it's pleasant to play. It's a power fantasy. That doesn't mean it's not full of stupid shit that ranges from "meh" to laughable.
Also, the "play it your way" turns a bit sour when the creators go and say "um, actually *this* is canon" and invalidate all your player choices.
Loved the video. And while I enjoyed Dishonored a lot, I do agree with your points mostly, even though in my first playthrough I didn't really notice the game preaching at me for killing, except during key moments, like when the daughter draws Corvo. Or during the last mission, when the boat dude gets disgusted.
It's mostly Samuel and the ending but I could have done a better job explaining that. I prefer the way Deus Ex handles a very similar system by having certain characters approve of killing and certain characters dissaprove and vice versa for a pacifist playstyle. It doesn't make you feel like an asshole for engaging in basic gameplay systems but instead makes you feel like the word reacted to your choices realistically and thoroughly.
@@EldritchAugur You did do a good job already bro so it's alright. And yeah, I also prefer it the deus ex way, it gives off a true sense of freedom that way.
It’s been awhile since I’ve played dishonored but I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or not about the Alien’s plot twist. I was assuming you were calling them Aliens because of the voice acting and writing but now I can’t tell...
InTheMindOfDavid i was thinking the same i don’t remember aliens
This is the first video I've watched of yours... and I can already tell that I want you to come back. where the videos bro?!!! I'm joking of course life can get busy but I'd like to see more.
I just downloaded Dishonored on PC a week or so ago. About to (within the next month) play it for the first time since I bought it for the 360 7 years ago. I hated it then. I played the first level a couple days ago to see how I landed with it... I didn't hate it right off the bat, but I don't remember hating it at first last go around either.
I just hope something clicks and I fall in love with it like seemingly everyone else in the universe.
I have now played D2 after buying it used for 8€ and I almost feel bad because I actually enjoyed it quite a bit, significantly more than I did the first game. To the point where I might buy DotO at whatever price it's sold instead of waiting for a sale.
In any case, I once again agree with you, a lot of what was annoying in the first game is still there (I did find the quick KO bonecharm you missed, it was very nice ! ... for the one and a half level I got to appreciate it, GREAT, THANKS...) but but what I wanted to like in the first game is here too so that definitely tipped the balance in favor of D2. While it still pushes you onto a non-lethal playstyle narratively, that playstyle now doesn't feel like you're cutting yourself from 75% of the gameplay, which helps a lot, same with the emphasis on exploration through more detailed (and less truncated) levels which was significantly more rewarding than the first's. Finally, the game as a whole does have some charm, it's not just a pretty artstyle masking the trite and thoughtless nature of everything.
One of the nice touches that shows more thought went into creating D2 (and perhaps the D1 DLC I'd say, altho I've not played it myself) than the first is how your target's themes were reflected directly in their habitat, whereas the first game had logical but often completely impersonal target locations. Jindosh's mansion is meticulously crafted to be a large size lab-rat, the crown killer lives in a broken down infested hospital that sees more death than recovery, Abele's mansion is a testament to his superficiality and hubris... Hell, even Emily fleeing Dunwall echoes her irresponsible behavior as an empress. Even if most of these characters still are nowhere near compelling on their own due to boring dialog (even if more energetic than that of D1), the environment does a pretty neat good job of underlining who you targets are and why they ought to be dealt with.
So yeah. It was a good time for me. There's still room for improvement and it seems that this sequel is less than stellar when it comes to recreating the sort of badass aggressive playthrough we've seen of the first game so it's too bad the serie is apparently shelved for now, but I'm glad I finally got to enjoy Dishonored instead of being thoroughly underwhelmed by it.
Interestingly, my opinions on Dishonored 1 vs 2's story are inverted to yours. IMO Dishonored 2's story is much weaker because it lacks the betrayal. In D2, you need to stop Delilah and her allies, and you just... _Do that,_ with no obstacles or discoveries of any real importance.
I don't think stories need plot twists, but I think usually they need at least plot *turns* where new information is introduced that influences the ongoing direction of the story in some way. Everything that you discover in Dishonored 2 does not seriously influence what happens five minutes later. You could delete the Billie reveal, or Delilah's backstory, or etc with no consequence. That's why I think Dishonored 1, for all its faults, has a stronger plot, because it's actually a plot instead of just a straight line
I would argue that your point about the Outsider's voice actor in the first game is missing the point of him as a character. In your own words, he's a mysterious, otherworldly figure with vast unknowable power, and he chooses to grant some of that power to people who intrigue him, he has no agenda or motivations, -barring the second game, which we don't talk about- he gives these people his powers just because he's curious, and it's in line with that purpose in the world for him to behave and sound as neutral as possible. Though Robin Lord Taylor is an excellent voice actor, I can't help but prefer the original voice actor's delivery of the Outsider's lines, because they sound less sinister.
I think ur being a little tough on the first game, it has its flaws but everything fits together damn near perfectly and it makes for such an engaging and fun experience.. dishonored 2, while making a lot of improvements in the gameplay, doesn’t work as well as rhe first game and it’s daud expansions, but it’s still fun as hell to play
I totally agree about "play it your way" being stupid in a lot of games, but it worked perfectly in Deus Ex. That game is an RPG, and its strength comes from how it balances RPG breadth of options and depth of mechanics. The shooting and the stealth are both solid. Not the best around or anything, but when you compare DX's action mechanics to other ARPGs like Elder Scrolls, they come out looking pretty good.
Deus Ex has more in depth stealth than Dishonored because of the lighting alone. You can actually hide in the dark with confidence and move at a fast pace as opposed to Dishonored's endless slow crouch walking. You can hear enemy footsteps in DX and so can evade enemies without x ray vision. Plus, if you do get caught, you can shoot back without worrying about the game spitting in your eye with a bad boy rating.
The first game does prioritize low chaos. But I do do low chaos on every mission but the golden cat and the last.
I think I definitely feel the core issue that this argument is based on but for me it is not enough to derail the whole game. I do play sometimes and 'see' the missed potential for more punishing non-lethal choices - not more punishing in the sense of hard to execute, but in terms of narrative consequence and possibly gameplay consequence. The 'right' thing to do shouldn't be hard just by virtue of mechanical tedium but rather by the stripping away the concept of good and bad choice. The games half foot in the water this concept with the grueling nature of some of the non-lethal approaches but as you call out the game is still for all intents and purposes treating it as the 'good' option. Even something as subtle as characters being like woah that Jintosh thing was kinda fucked up Emily would've gone a long way in making each choice feel like a proper choice rather than 'do you want the consequence option or the not consequence option'.
That being said, once I trained my mind to not see chaos as 'bad' and to embrace a soft stealth/hybrid playthrough my enjoyment of the game skyrocketed. It's not to say that the above suggestion or some of your suggestions wouldn't be pretty much straight improvements on the game's formula but I found it sufficient to change MY mindset in lieu of any direct influence on the game itself. Once I made the mental 'switch' I was able to appreciate the moment to moment gameplay and the balance of the systems the game has to offer. I think no one will argue combat is definitely the most fleshed out aspect of the series but while mechanically stealth itself is very limited(no crazy sound or shadow mechanics as you call out) it is complemented very well by the level design and the heavy emphasis on architecture makes for an experience that 'feels' engaging even if mechanically shallow. Punctuate that experience with moments of intense and violent combat and the result is a gameplay rhythm which feels very good and imo results in something greater than the sum of its borrowed parts.
Interesting video, it's always hard to watch a well argued video against something you personally enjoy but I can't sit here and lie and say you missed the point or are set out on hating the franchise(though you are a little aggressive at points, I suspect it's mainly showmanship) Good stuff overall.
Wait is the loyalist alien thing a figure of speech? It is right ? I just got very lost what did you mean ?
Yes that was a joke, they are not actually aliens.
@@EldritchAugur You made the game a lot more interesting. Here's a sub.
@@pyramidhead3109 Thanks Pyramid Head. I'm sure I'll end up talking about you at some point.
@@EldritchAugur
An amazing video man!
lol treating killing as inherently bad as a misstep, gurl the game tells you the more dead bodies the more rat plague and the more your child views you as a bad person. both are logical next steps in a thought process. you can kill a couple people but the point is that lives matter. if you’re here for a point and shoot maybe you should be playing something else??
My general point in the video is that if you are truly going to punish lethality than maybe don't make the combat so rich and interesting and the stealth the most barebones low effort system in existence.
Just curious.. are you judging this game with 2018 eyes or 2012 eyes?
2012. I played it when it released originally. My thoughts haven't changed much
@@EldritchAugur i see, thank you for your reply
if your trying to see the dishonored 2 part here you go 43:41
Honestly, i tried to play Dishonored 2. The game likes you to _not_ kill people ... yet it doesn't really give you as many tools to do so ... then it gives you tools to kill them. This frustrated me greatly, as it was hard to figure out where to go and what to do to pass a area unseen.
What would have been allot better would be if you choose a playstyle at the Shadowy Outsider. Either directly let me choose the Combat way or the Stealth.
Another thing nice would be t o give the player choices when getting skills and upgrades. Always provide a choice between a Combat/Kill choice and a Pacifist/nonlethal upgrade. I not really care for a more sophisticated stealth system with light and sound influencing stealth ... but give me cool and fun ways to deal with each situation in a nonlethal way.
This is interesting. I've never seen someone who has the exact opposite top three list. By which I mean whereas most people think Dishonored is the best and DoTO being the worst, it's the other way around here. I think everyone can agree that Dishonored two was in the middle, but probably for different reasons.
I wasted so much fun doing a non lethal playthrough, then didn’t even get the achievement in the end because I killed the assassins in the intro. Wish they would’ve mentioned you were supposed to just block their attacks until the mandatory combat scene ends. So stupid
If you're talking about Dishonored 1, i don't think that's why you lost the achievement, the achievement description states everything after the prologue affects it, the assassins' you killed were apart of that prologue, so you wouldn't have missed out on that achievement for killing them. This game however does have certain glitches that would get you accidental kills, like in the prison level if you choke out the guards at the end of the level and put their bodies in a certain place, their heads can glitch through certain things and they can take damage and die. If you ever wanted to do a ghost run again, I'd suggest you use the mod that puts statistics in the game for you to look at so you always know when you did something to mess up your run. if your comment wasn't about DH 1 disregard my comment. www.nexusmods.com/dishonored/mods/17 (you don't need the DLC for the mod to work)
This video's really good! It really brings to light some of the issues with the Games I've never thought about; like, I've never really put much thought into how one dimensional the first Games characters were, I feel like I noticed it subconsciously but was too engrossed in the universe and lore to realise.
you're complaining about murder being inherently bad?
inherently bad in terms of gameplay
Sekiro looks to be a combat focused 3rd person dishonored. You gonna give your thoughts on it soon?
It looks more like a spiritual successor to Dark Souls given that it's the same developer but I can definitely see some stealth influence in the footage shown.
Possibly, I'm gonna play it and if I think I have something interesting to say about it than I'll definitely do it. It's one of those games this year I'm gonna play regardless if I do a video on it or not.
@@EldritchAugur Ok thanks, looking forward to it.
I think it's much more dishonored than souls as the player always have a sword (katana) on one hand and cycle between items on the other. The spells also have more utility than souls (blind, stun, stagger for critical hit...). The player also have one movement ability that let him zip straight to a position like blink and far reach. Melee combat revolve around timed block although you can do without it. Other than that the melee borrow a lot from other brawler game like dmc/darksider/bayonetta for sure as I can see aerial combo and launcher. Ranged attack doesnt need to be reloaded right away and/or slow down your movement on recovery so it can be followed up with melee repeatedly (dishonored have that, but that could be chalked up to it following first person shooter convention) The upgrade system doesnt exclude you from certain options like RPG attributes but that's omnipresent in most games. The level design allow for more freedom of movement and the stealth like you said. Only the save system and the 3rd person perspective is somewhat closer to souls than anything in dishonored.
@@mdd4296 You're probably right. My knowledge of the game so far only concerns the development team and a few minutes of gameplay so I don't disagree.
Very enjoyable critique! I really hope you come back some day with more content.
It was nice to finally see some respect for Death of the Outsider. I always thought that Corvo's fairly basic/predictable revenge story in Dishonored 1 was perfect for introducing the audience to the world and giving that center stage. However the real narrative experience and interesting characters were in Daud's story in the DLC. In my opinion, Dishonored 2 should have continued Billie and/or Daud's story. Or Dishonored 2 should have been Death of the Outsider, but longer and given more focus. Corvo, Emily, and Delilah's stories were completed in Dishonored 1 and did not need to be rehashed. If the devs still wanted to include Corvo or Emily, it would have been much more interesting if they appeared as side characters who had to work together with B&D to achieve a goal or stop a common threat all these years later.
I found dishonoured incredibly underwhelming and couldn't place my finger on it but you've really opened it up here. Which stealth games do you think are dishonoured 'done right' so to speak?
Difficult to say because the only series I can think of that shares a similar design is Deus Ex which unfortunately also shares a lot of the same problems. I would still take Deus Ex over Dishonored though.
I made a lot of comparisons to Thief in this video because I do truly think it still remains the most advanced stealth game ever made, but it's not really anything like Dishonored in design.
This might be cheating a little bit but I really do think that Death of the Outsider solved most of my problems with the series. Take out the moral judgement, flesh out the characters and story more and boom! You've got a much more competent game, even if, at it's core the mechanics are still kinda underwhelming you are at least free to experiment without worrying about which ending the game will assign you.
@@EldritchAugur I can get behind that, theres yet to be a modern killer first person stealth game done right in my opinion! Also thanks for interacting with your audience you're awesome keep it up!
@@averageperson4373 No problem. One of the perks of having a small audience is that I have the time to interact with people in the comments. So far, almost everyone has been lovely people. So I'm happy to do it.
@@EldritchAugur keep going I love your content and channel as a whole!
Look I hate to be one of those people who says shit like 'you don't get it' because that's never useful, but there's so much about this analysis that is either wrong or misunderstood that it would take me an hour to go through it all and I just don't have time. So... you don't get it.
I don't think that's always true. My central point in this video is entirely subjective and I understand that. If I had to boil down why I don't really like Dishonored into one sentence it would be this: Dishonored's moral choice system encourages a non-lethal playstyle but it doesn't make any effort to make that non-lethal moment to moment gameplay engaging or fun.
If the game had a more advanced stealth system or at the very least more tools for playing nonlethally than that would solve so many of my issues with the first two games.
If you enjoy not standing directly in front of enemies for 8 hours or if you don't mind being labeled a monster by the ending for engaging in the more fun playstyle than I can absolutely understand why you would enjoy Dishonored. Level design, art style, tools for the lethal playstyle anyways, it's all great.
Every time I go back to play these games I just can’t because of the frames and fov it drives me insane. Still love these games though.
I wonder what you think on Deathloop
I don't remember any alien's in dishonored
Haven't finshed dishonored 2 so I ignored that bit of the vid but an odd detail about the system in the game was shown on the good doctor level with Doctor Hydepatia. Cause of how nervous she was I pegged her as the crown killer but I hadn't yet found the guy who told u that in the other room (why doesnt he shout she's the murderer get her when he hears me talking to her) anyway I ended up rdming poor Hypatia and the game comes up Crown Killer rekt even tho I had no proof of her guilt
You keep saying that the game yells at you for killing. I truly don't believe you've even played Dishonored if you think that's true,
listen guy, you dont make him "dumb" you scramble his whole brain how is this NOT "ethically murky" most people would choose death over this in them shoes
Arbitrary Dictated Silence, now that's a good phrase
How do you make a quirky inventor voiced by BRAD DOURIF boring?
Not gonna lie I basically stopped watching at about 5 minutes. To say stealth is just crouching and staying out of line of sight with no non lethal or deception tools is factually incorrect. You can possess enemies to move past guard checkpoints, you can possess bloodflies to fly through areas, possess rats to move through vents and avoid patrols entirely, you can time stop to move through areas, You can use mesmerize to distract enemies, bottles to distract enemies, blink and far reach to move past enemies or get vertical.
So yeah, completely disingenuous statement.
I don't really consider those stealth tools. Those are more for map exploration and for using alternate paths. What I meant is that detection is strictly based on line of sight or if you step on very obviously placed broken glass.
There isn't any light or sound elements to detection beyond that, and that's what I think makes the stealth very one-dimensional and boring.
Compared to Thief with it's dynamic sound and light mechanics or Hitman's escalating disguise system, Dishonored is basically just "don't stand directly in front of someone" but with some alternate paths and movement options.
I like the level design and traversing the map with blink is fun. But once you are on the ground and have to stay out of sight it gets pretty dull in my opinion. Especially if you are playing non-lethal and can't use half of the powers.
@@EldritchAugur Not trying to make this contentious as I do appreciate someone who will clarify in the comments, so thanks.
With that said you pointed out a lack of deception and non lethal tools, and all of those fit the bill. If you're looking for thief perhaps you'll be disappointed. If you're looking for a game that takes it's own approach to stealth that's where Dishonored comes in. Nobody would claim it's the deepest stealth system especially if you're not taking powers into account.
The powers are what makes the game and the variety of ways in which you can use them is basically limited only by your imagination. So I also disagree with your take that Bioshock has more interesting powers but that's opinion based. Watch guys like Fighter Tree and Stealth Gamer BR play this game and you'll see the insane creativity available to you with these powers from an offensive standpoint. Butt there are creative ways to use almost everything but the rat swarm for non lethal runs. I already went over possession and time stop, wind can be used to launch non lethal mines into groups of enemies from across the map etc. Again, the only limit is your imagination in these games.
I think you make some fair points, btw. The morality system being one of them. But it just struck me as somebody who neglected their powers and then complained at the lack of depth. Maybe I'm wrong.
Anyways, I like most of your vids so keep at it!
@@EldritchAugur but why have dark and light mechanic in dishonored lol? in this game you can literally teleport multiple times in a row, stop time, turn into a goddamn rat at almost any given moment, so i don't see why dishonored should have this, it would feel useless most of the time, especially if you consider how vertical the level design is, which basically is in a way your replacement for hiding shadows mechanic. DIshonored is just way more fast paced than thief so this mechanic would be useful only sometimes and also you're talking about those mechanics in a vacuum without mentioning the level design, becuase yeah, dishonored's stealth is pretty basic on its own, but its levels are more complex and have more ways to go through them than almost any stealth game, so the depth comes from that. If you dont like the stealth so much, just go with combat, you know? or combine the two.
And why do you not consider the tools previous guy mentioned for stealth? Every tool in dishonored has multiple uses, they were designed like that, so the players could use them in any way they see fit. Even the bottles can be used in combat.
@@ehrtdaz7186 "but why have dark and light mechanic in dishonored lol" So its actually good stealth and just crouching everywhere? Play original thief and maybe you'll understand.
ive never gotten they hype for dishnonered, its fun but thats about it. i really wonder how many people who love it have played the original thief or deus ex
They haven't played them. If they did, they wouldn't be praising Dishonored for doing what its inspirations have already done better.
I payed so little attention to the story of the first game I didn't know the bad guys were aliens.
They aren't, he was joking. He either didn't want to spoil the actual twist downright or it's his way of saying that they're just bad characters/don't act like humans. Maybe both but he wasn't serious.
rotz or at least we can hope he wasn’t being serious
rotz ok it was a joke
Easily one of the best franchises, period. Hopefully it'll get the love and care that it deserves given it's now under Microsoft. I want Dishonored 3!
There were aliens in Dishonered 1?
Yo you are talented at portraying perspectives. you should continue youtube and pursue Journalism. Surely an associated press would publicize your works.
Complaining about rune crafting for delilah when theres literally ingredients right in front of u to make one through the mission and not the skill tree
ya, i thought the story and script absolutely sucked for the series. Because of that I never felt guilt for giving in to instinct and killing everyone including friendlies. I couldn't even talk to the characters because it would be so bland, so I would either just murder them at first sight or ignore them completely(friendlies). If it had the charisma of Mass Effect characters, things would be much different/
I think I can agree with a lot of what your saying stil i enjoyed d1 quite a bit. I love the daud dlc. I also like the sequel, haven’t touched death of the outsider yet. Good video
Hope you’ve been doin ok brother!! Taking a break from editing my BioShock retrospective and rewatching all of your old videos again. I find it funny that BioShock Infinite came out a few months after this game and also gets the same overbearing, hyperbolic, and undeserved praise. It’s cringe inducing reading the positive reviews for both of these games lol.
I think you missed the point. Dishonored is an immersive sim. It is supposed to be more than the sum of its parts. Your ideas of game design are a bit outdated. Much like Deus Ex, Dishonored stealth system is not as good as thief, its action is not as good as half-life 2, and its role-playing is not as good as Baldur's gate, but the point is that an immersive sim is more than the sum of its parts. It sounds like you just don't like the whole genre of immersive sims. Dishonored is a classic imo.
Don't have much to say, just that I think you made a lot of good points and I think the perspective you give on the game here is very worthwhile, considering the vast majority of critiques of Dishonored only heap praise on it. You're being critical of a game with a cult following, so it's to be expected you'll get a lot of negative comments and dislikes, so I just wanted to throw my positive comment into the mix in case you were worrying your views weren't appreciated.
Edit: Also lol at the number of people genuinely confused by your aliens joke.
I think the best way to Play dishonored is to turn on the hardest mode, not use loading saves unless dead, try to Play Pacifist
few different cutscenes and more weepers on a few levels = punishing for going lethal
i am sorry, what?
« Bioshock has more interesting pwer than dishonored » lol, you ve made my day. Have you played bioshock ?
You clearly haven't lmao
@@kevingarcia6746 different people have different interests, dude. Personally, electrocuting someone is more fun than a wind blast. You get to see the shock, pulsing through their body, them, screaming for help, the shock slowly infiltrating every inch of their body. It's a long, torturous process. Unlike windblast which is over in a few seconds before the enemies can even realise what's happening to them and who's doing it. And it's pretty mature calling me retarded. And what does the year when the game came out have anything to do with it being interesting? Thief 2 is more interesting than ride to hell retribution. Just because ride came later doesn't immediately mean it's more interesting.
@@James.Stark.Ben.Edition Dishonored abilities especially the movement abilities (not present in Bioshock), the more developed melee combat and most importantly, the level and AI design allow for much more interesting play than Bioshock ua-cam.com/video/vKyT19o-Nl8/v-deo.html ua-cam.com/video/PSD8w28Z6GE/v-deo.html
I like both Dishonored and Bioshock but there is no right to call Bioshock an immersive sim like Deus Ex,Thief or System Shock.They even try to sell it as System Shock's spiritual successor but what Bioshock really is a shooter with some powers.
cant critique perfect games
having played prey 2017 it feels like arkane is better at world building then the main narrative. alot of the interesting stuff in that game is in the back ground stuff while the actual main story is very bland.