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thesffcorner · 7 years ago

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Dishonored Retrospective Part 7: Sequel Changes and Strengths

Part 6 was the end of our look at the first game, finishing with the second of the the two expansions, the Brigmore Witches. In this part we will look at the changes the sequel brought to the world-building, characters, game-play and overall story.

Dishonored 2 came out fall 2017 and it’s hands down the most beautiful game I’ve played. While I go back and forth of whether I like Death of the Outsider more, this is still a fantastic sequel that improves on nearly everything (except maybe the frame rate) of its predecessor and it feels like the developers finally hit their stride both in terms of story and mechanics.

When the game came out a lot of the popular jokes and comments online were that it’s just a gender swapped repeat of the first game. While I do find the joke funny and can see where people get this idea from, the only real repeated element from the first game is Emily losing the throne and fighting to get it back. Story-wise, the game has a lot more in common with the DLC, than anything that happened in the first game.

For starters, the main villain is Delilah, the villain from the DLC and her role and character get greatly expanded upon. Second, while Daud isn’t present in the game, the fallout of his actions influence the proceedings here much more than anything Corvo does in the first game.

And finally the story itself is again, more of a mystery than a revenge plot. Yes Emily does want to rescue Corvo and defeat Delilah, but the bulk of the game focuses on uncovering who and what Delilah is and how she got in a position to take over Dunwall.

Story and Gameplay Changes:

Dishonored 2 is again, a first person action-stealth game and this time you have the choice between playing as Corvo or Emily. Based on who you chose to play as, you get a different move-set and some different dialogue and cut-scenes. I played as Emily twice and will be subscribing to the developers’ statements that they intended for the story to be from Emily’s POV.

It’s been 15 years since Jessamine’s assassination and in her honor, Emily is launching a new ship. At the ceremony, Duke Luka Abelle of Serkonos arrives with an army of Clockwork soldiers and a gift; Delilah herself. She easily dispatches of the guards and Corvo himself and declares herself Empress as the second daughter to the old Kaldwin Emperor. Emily is trapped in her study by one of Delilah’s helpers, Ramsey and the game starts.

The first thing to note is that unlike the first game, there is no tutorial level like Coldrige. Once the game starts, it starts for real, and everything you do, affects your chaos level and the rest of the plot. This really threw me for a loop, especially since at this point, Emily doesn’t have her powers yet. Because of this, the first level A Long Day In Dunwall is probably one of the most difficult ones in the whole game.

Another change that definitely informs the way you play is that in this game you can refuse the Outsider’s gifts, which is essentially an expansion on a challenge run you could do in the original game, where Corvo only used the Blink and Void Gaze abilities.

From a gameplay standpoint I really like this change; it’s quite the challenge to beat the game without powers and the fact that now the developers have to account for people choosing to play this way, meaning the developers made a conscious choice to make the levels traversable for non-powered players, and to compensate for this the core gameplay is much more difficult.

From a story standpoint, this decision makes no sense though, especially if you play as Emily. At least Corvo knows who the Outsider is and what those powers mean, but Emily has no idea. Why would she refuse something that would make it easier for her to beat Delilah?

On a side note I feel like both Corvo and Emily’s reaction upon meeting the Outsider is a bit too mellow. Personally if a demigod yanked me into the abyss and showed me a very staged rendition of all the horrible events of my life that lead me to this point and then told me I was special I would smack him. Bless Billie for at least reacting appropriately.

In the first game, avoiding guards was a joke. You could easily escape if they were alerted, you could slam things, open doors, or break windows, and they wouldn’t react. Here if you open a door or if you take out a guard who was talking to someone, the others will notice and will investigate. What’s more is they will investigate the most obvious hiding place which is a real trip if you are used to the first game’s gameplay where the guard could be looking right at you and not notice you were there.

Likewise, their patrolling routes are better designed, and there are more groups where it’s not so easy to split them apart or take them out one by one without the others noticing.

Another thing that makes the game more difficult and immensely more entertaining is the number of civilians. Dunwall in the first game and DLC felt like a real city but because of the plague and curfew (and let’s be real the technical limitations of the engine Arkane used) there are near to no people on the streets that aren’t hostiles. The only level in the base game that has them at all is Lady Boyle’s Last Party, save for a small group in the Golden Cat and the Flooded District Sewers.

Here, Karnaca is brimming with life. There are civilians everywhere; you can interact with them, hit them, rob them, or simply observe them. They will panic and alert guards if you are hostile to them or someone else in front of them or if you trespass into their apartments and shops..

Even the two levels in Dunwall feel so much better when you can find people on the streets who comment on the proceedings or just simply exist without you. I genuinely can’t describe to you how much I love this change, and it’s something I sorely missed even in the DLC.

Worldbuilding:

Dishonored 2 is set both in Dunwall and a completely new location: Karnaca, the capital of the southern Isle of Serkonos. It’s a city inspired by Havana and the Spanish coast, with lots of plants, flat roofs and sunlight. Where Dunwall was dower and mostly explored at night, you get to see Karnaca during the day or at golden hour, a change I welcome wholeheartedly. You also get to explore a lot more of Karnaca; there are no repeat levels in the city and the only repetition is actually the first and final level in Dunwall.

Karnaca is a beautiful city. A lot of things that felt underdeveloped or missing in Dunwall are present here; other than civilians on the streets there are shops and apartments which have owners and residents and actual lootable objects. The posters, advertisements, labels and newspapers are also better; with the newspaper it actually replaces the loudspeaker system from the first game and it will report on your previous missions. I absolutely love the Serkonian traveling band and their music, the audio-graphs that play music or announcements, the conversations on the street you can overhear and the sound of the sea.

I loved Dunwall but the only time I ever felt truly connected and invested in saving the city was in the DLC and the Flooded District level. The color pallet alone does wonders to make me more invested, because the grays and browns are changed for bright oranges, yellows and pinks and the amount of interaction you get with the city while still not playing an open world game is genuinely impressive.

A lot of this is due to the technical and graphic improvements of the game. Character animations are greatly improved; people make faces when they talk, they move their arms and head, and NPCs have a lot more idle animations like smoking, drinking, gambling, etc.

The changes to the dialogue system also allow for a lot of improvement: Dishonored doesn’t have cut-scenes, but it does have scripted dialogue moments. In the first game, this was done via letterbox effect with the character stopping in the middle of the screen, looking at the player completely straight on and delivering the lines.

In the sequel characters move around the room, lean in or just move their heads and arms. This is the most noticeable with the Outsider: in the original, he would talk to you straight on, with his hands crossed Angela Merkel style; here, he walks around, kneels, squats, leans into the frame, touches Emily way more often, and just generally acts like the chaotic man-child that he is.

Character models are also greatly improved. I love the design and stylized look of the first game, but it pales in comparison to the sequel. In the original and the DLC, characters are blocky and square, and there are only like 3 different models for the City Watch and Officers and 2 for random NPCs. Everyone looks the same, especially male characters and characters that are supposed to be young were indistinguishable from older characters.

Dishonored 2 is still stylized but I like the stylization way better and there is an actual variety of bodies and faces. Like the DLC, Dishonored 2 has female enemies, and they have a lot more personality, with tattoos, scars, and generally look like they mean business.

Enemies and Combat:

Like I said, there have been great improvements in the enemies, not just in how they look and act, but also their variety and abilities. While in Dunwall you fight more or less what you fought in the first game and DLC: Hatters, Witches, City Watch and Overseers. Since Granny Rags (with your help) decimated the Bottlestreet Gang, the Hatters and Witches have replaced them as the supreme street level enemies and once again, I love the addition of female Hatters.

In Karnaca we have City Watch, Officers, Witches and Overseers but we also have a few new enemy types. The guards in Karnaca are a lot more brutal than the ones in Dishonored, but they are also way more interesting. Some of their lines just sound a lot better and the first few times they really hit me. I distinctly remember going out of my way to keep this one guard alive just because he talked about being distracted by a kiss, and choosing not to kill another sleeping guard because he talked about missing his kids in his sleep.

The new additions include Duke Abelle’s elite guards, and the Howler gang ran by Paolo and Mindy Blanchard; and Kirin Jindosh’s crazy invention, the Clockwork soldiers.

The Howlers are a good enemy that I liked fighting. They usually set up traps that are sometimes pretty easy to stumble into, and communicate via howling like wolves. Paolo is amazing in his own right, but we’ll talk about him when we do the level breakdowns.

As for the Clockwork Soldiers, I hated them. They are a really hard enemy, this game’s version of tallboys, but infinitely more frustrating to fight. To start, you don’t fight them in large open areas, but often in small, isolated corridors and rooms. They are huge, can see from the front and the back, and pretty much kill you in one shot. Destroying them is an ordeal on par with pulling teeth; the most effective way I found is throwing a sticky grenade at one, that damages it enough so that it goes haywire and destroys it’s pal. I genuinely hated fighting these enemies and I will own up that it’s entirely because I’m bad at it and not because they are badly designed.

For another thing I hate, let’s talk about this game’s version of the Wheepers. Karnaca is both a port and a mining town; Serkonos is home to the silver mines which is how Abelle is both so rich and powerful. Because of the mines the town and a lot of the people are afflicted with blood fever, a disease transmitted by the bite of a bloodfly.

Bloodflies are creepy on their own; they attack in swarms, have really disgusting red nests that make noises when you destroy them and lay eggs in dead bodies. But the best part? Nest Keepers.

Nest Keepers are people afflicted with blood fever who have gone mad. Like Wheepers they are near decomposing and completely mindless, but unlike Wheepers they get aggressive when they notice you and scream loudly which alerts the entire swarm and they attack you. The worst part is that Nest Keepers are always in the worst places and surprise you, and I remember a particularly horrifying moment where I passed by a window and a Nestkeeper saw me and screamed and banged on it, scaring the shit out of me.

Gameplay:

The gameplay in Dishonored 2 is similar to the first game. If you play as Corvo you get all the same powers you did in the first game, but if you play as Emily you get similar abilities and a couple of unique ones. We have Far Reach which functions similarly to Blink but works by pulling Emily to objects, meaning you can also use it to pull objects and enemies to you. There is also Dark Vision which allows you to see enemies and security systems, Shadow Walk which turns you into a shadowy monster that’s less visible and can sneak around enemies and Domino which allows you to link the consciousness of different targets and knock them out all at once.

She also gets a few added abilities like Doppelganger which allows you to create a copy of yourself that can be used as a distraction and to even the odds; Mesmerize which can summon a Void spirit to enthrall humans and hounds; Blood thirst which fills up a frenzy type meter while fighting; and Shadow Kill which turns unaware enemies into ash when they are killed.

As for the weapons we get a much greater variety this time. We have the standard sword, crossbow and sleep dart, but we also get a fire bolt, explosive bolt, howler bolt and stinging bolt. We also get sticky grenades, stun mines, regular grenades and rewire tools. Unlike Corvo who had Piero as his regular salesman, Emily has to use a new mechanic which are the Black Markets.

Black Markets are a feature I really like and are basically an expansion of the favors from the DLC. There is a Black Market in almost every level you play, and you can always rob it. These places are also good for getting information, upgrading gear and weapons and they also serve as part of the story.

Lets go over the characters real quick. We have the returning cast of Corvo, Emily, Delilah, the Outsider, Billie Lurk, and Sokolov, and then a host of new characters. We have: Luka Abelle, Briana Ashwood, Kirin Jindosh, Aramis Stilton, Dr Hypatia, Paolo, Mindy Blanchard, High Overseer Burn and Luca Pastor.

So now that we’ve covered the basic overall changes, it’s time to talk about how they actually affect the game. Join me in part 8 where we will look at the first 4 levels and talk about them in more detail.

part 6 < > part 8

#dishonored #dishonored retrospective #dishonored 2 #moni talks

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