I recently won at roulette, so I had a reason to replay the game, which I had good memories of as a good stealth game. Passed on maximum difficulty on a pacifist, without alarms raised and bone amulets and abilities other than “transfer” activated. Although the game is very good, I’ll start with the cons. Firstly, there are no achievements to complete on different difficulties. Although I played at a high level for the sake of the process itself, an extra achievement never hurts. Then the enemies don’t care. Take the example of the very first meeting with the guards, in the next room from Corvo's cell. There are three enemies: one has his back turned, the second goes into another room, and the third sometimes turns around. The room with the guards is separated from the first by a barrier with a huge gap at waist level (i.e. Corvo, in a half-crouch, can see what is going on in the next room). And it’s okay that the guards don’t notice the pair of eyes that are staring at them, so it doesn’t bother them that the last time they walked around the premises there were more guards. They just say, “Hmm, for some reason he’s not at his post,” and that’s it. It would be nice to look a little for the sake of decency (And find the stunned man behind the next door), but they simply continue their route.
Well, now about the positive aspects. I like that each level is a huge location with additional missions and sudden activities that can be easily missed if you take a different path. I also like the variability that allows you to complete missions in different ways (For example, I remember that during the first playthrough I guessed who was hiding behind the masks and they gave me a prize, but on the second playthrough I didn’t find anyone to tell about my discovery) and influencing the attitude of everyone around you (A with pacifism, pleasant gifts appear at the bedside). After playing as a pacifist with a low level of chaos, I decided to play at a high level to look at the plot and collect achievements. It was almost physically painful for me to kill the guards who, in conversations with each other, were thinking about family; they could not decide to kill the infected guard who was begging for it, since they were friends, so for this walkthrough I chose low difficulty and ran through the game in a couple of approaches. The ending was very creepy and the one that evil Corvo deserves.
Rating 9.5, deducted half a point for laziness of the guards