Recent reviews by Imanity

edit: the disclaimer regarding performance issues has been removed, as it seems the issues have been resolved

The reason I loved the original Dishonored was because I love games that give you choices, to "play your way," and they combined it with a well told story, beautiful art style, and engaging gameplay. You will find all of these things in Dishonored 2. I never felt as if they sacrificed something for something else. Bethesda stated themselves that it is not an open world game, but they wanted it to feel like one. And it does, to an extent. The level design is fantastic in a way that they managed to create huge levels without any of it feeling pointless. It doesn't exactly feel like open world but your first few playthroughs will result in hours being spent on just one mission if you want to see it all. If you really want to see it all, you'll need to play it multiple times on both playable characters. Replay value feels slightly higher than the last game.

The magic abilities in this game have their own sort of mini upgrade trees and some of them get really interesting. Corvo retains his old powers from the previous game and Emily has her own set of unique abilities. Even though Corvo doesn't have any brand new powers, it was still a refreshing playthrough. Both Emily and Corvo seem to have picked up a small amount of Daud's powers from the original game's DLC, Corvo gaining a "stop time" while aiming blink, and Emily gaining a pull-items-and-bodies-to-me with her Far Reach. The most notable changes are to Dark Vision as it is very different than the original game. It's less OP and, if you're used to the original, it's a bit annoying to use at first. I adjusted rather quickly and after adjusting it actually makes more sense to work this way.

The passive abilities received some minor changes and a few were added, but I found myself not using any of them besides agility pretty much at all. They're by no means useless but perhaps unnecessary. How good bone charm crafting is completely depends on what you find. If you only find charms you won't use, you won't need to combine any. My first playthrough saw heavy use of the crafting system, but my second playthrough barely even touched it.

The final upgrade of Shadow Kill is amazing for high chaos runs. :)

Enemy AI has seen a large improvement. Guards are smarter when they search for you and have smoother animations. They also act a lot more realistic when they're confused, such as when you inevitably fall on their face because you miss an assassination cue and promptly blink away. Their guard-to-guard banter is just as entertaining as well.

Well, that's about it. The rest you should find out for yourself. It's a worthy successor.

To anyone that is feeling a little down, depressed, or low on positivity, this game provides any and all positivies to fill that void. Particula truly captures artistic style and gameplay without diminishing the overall value. As far as game mechanics, there is an incredible level of strategy in this game. Of the three different tower types, the variation is unmatched. It provides a mental...no, even physical challenge. You can really see the developers put an astronomical level of thought into their product. Just when you thought it was all over you realize you can defend your mind with up to THREE PLAYERS! From my 25 minutes of online 2-player co-op with a complete stranger (who is now my best friend!), I can only imagine how euphoric the three player experience is. The motion picture background is beautiful in the way that it tells a deep and compelling story about the presumed young boy it's based on. I'll stop there to prevent potential spoilers. My only complaint is that I cannot rate this an 11/10. Truly the best tower defense/adventure/action/story experience 5 dollars can buy.

This is a very fantastic game. Every aspect is very immersive, from gameplay to storyline, all of it fits perfectly with the beautiful art style of the graphics. Though a bit slow paced until late game, it's made up for with the mass amounts of styles of play you can adopt from the literally thousands of end game items, each specializing in destroying the hundreds of enemy types. All content is possible to get playing completely free. Spending money provides no advantages, but a bit of a time saver for those not-so-hardcore gamers. In other words, a hard working player has no trouble at all keeping up, and often times is even better off.