Maybe I'm being a little harsh on this game by only giving it three stars, so I'll start with my positives. First of all, and most importantly, the animation. Even though this is my first game of theirs, I always knew that Klei had impressive animators just from seeing clips of their works like Invisible Inc. and Don't Starve. But THIS is so much more impressive than I was expecting. The character appeal especially is outstanding, as are the cutscenes. If animation of this style and quality were made into an entire animated series, that would be something to behold.
Gameplay wise, it's pretty interesting mechanically. I like its way of incorporating light and sound into stealth, and especially how it very clearly communicates these elements to the player. There was never a single instance where I was confused about how a mechanic worked or frustrated at not having enough information to plan my attack. The only irritating things are 1) sometimes the AI will act funky after you've distracted an enemy, and 2) with levels this big I sometimes wish I could move the camera even more than it allows me to, particularly in cramped areas.
I really like all the upgrades. Ordinarily I hate when platformers give you extra objectives for collectibles as a way of padding out game time (like Yoshi games do), but I actually really liked trying to complete them all here. All the attack items are super cool; it's usually easiest to stealth kill most enemies, so when you're put into a situation where you can't do that efficiently, using items for a more unorthodox attack is always satisfying.
And last, but not least, the ending. No spoilers, but it is by far one of the most interesting, if not THE most interesting, binary choices at the end of a game I've ever seen. It's ruined a little bit by the fact that you can make your choice, watch the credits, and then immediately go right back and choose the other option, but I am genuinely amazed at how the game recontextualized my entire understanding of what was happening in the very last level, leading to a choice that was both interesting and one that I sat and had to think about before making. All the more impressive considering how invested I got into when I absolutely did not care about the story up until this point.
And that's where I begin to talk about my negatives, the story being one of the biggest. Until the end, there's almost nothing to it. I feel like I had no context for anything that was going on, so I both felt disoriented in the plot and was not invested in any moral questions the game asked of me. It doesn't help that there are only really six characters total, and you will kill at least 3 of them (don't worry, that's not really a spoiler).
Gameplay wise, despite how objectively well designed it is and how much fun I had with it, I could never escape the thought that it feels like a flash game, like something I could play on coolmathgames. Not that there's necessarily anything wrong with that, I had a lot of fun playing coolmathgames as a kid, but that feeling pervades every level.
This is also a stealth game through and through. I say this not as a complaint because I am totally down for that kind of gameplay, but I do bring it up to say that there is one way to play this. If stealth is not your thing, this isn't the game for you. Getting caught is detrimental to your progress, and there is no penalty for immediately restarting from the last checkpoint if you make the slightest mistake.
There also isn't much diversity in your approach to stealth. Almost every enemy in the game can be killed with a stealth kill, so most encounters will consist of you removing any light sources, creating a noise distraction, and when enemies aren't looking at each other, wipe them out one by one. I was fine with this, but there is almost no creativity or puzzle solving or opportunities to take out groups of enemies in different/interesting ways, and I think the game would be much better if that were present.
To make this clear, I don't think there's anything wrong with this game, and nothing that I didn't enjoy (except the story), but there's also nothing about it that's particularly standout either (except the animation). It was fine, but I will probably forget about it within the next few days.
Also, idk what's really "remastered" about it nowadays aside from packaging in all the DLC, which I didn't play anyways.
Gameplay wise, it's pretty interesting mechanically. I like its way of incorporating light and sound into stealth, and especially how it very clearly communicates these elements to the player. There was never a single instance where I was confused about how a mechanic worked or frustrated at not having enough information to plan my attack. The only irritating things are 1) sometimes the AI will act funky after you've distracted an enemy, and 2) with levels this big I sometimes wish I could move the camera even more than it allows me to, particularly in cramped areas.
I really like all the upgrades. Ordinarily I hate when platformers give you extra objectives for collectibles as a way of padding out game time (like Yoshi games do), but I actually really liked trying to complete them all here. All the attack items are super cool; it's usually easiest to stealth kill most enemies, so when you're put into a situation where you can't do that efficiently, using items for a more unorthodox attack is always satisfying.
And last, but not least, the ending. No spoilers, but it is by far one of the most interesting, if not THE most interesting, binary choices at the end of a game I've ever seen. It's ruined a little bit by the fact that you can make your choice, watch the credits, and then immediately go right back and choose the other option, but I am genuinely amazed at how the game recontextualized my entire understanding of what was happening in the very last level, leading to a choice that was both interesting and one that I sat and had to think about before making. All the more impressive considering how invested I got into when I absolutely did not care about the story up until this point.
And that's where I begin to talk about my negatives, the story being one of the biggest. Until the end, there's almost nothing to it. I feel like I had no context for anything that was going on, so I both felt disoriented in the plot and was not invested in any moral questions the game asked of me. It doesn't help that there are only really six characters total, and you will kill at least 3 of them (don't worry, that's not really a spoiler).
Gameplay wise, despite how objectively well designed it is and how much fun I had with it, I could never escape the thought that it feels like a flash game, like something I could play on coolmathgames. Not that there's necessarily anything wrong with that, I had a lot of fun playing coolmathgames as a kid, but that feeling pervades every level.
This is also a stealth game through and through. I say this not as a complaint because I am totally down for that kind of gameplay, but I do bring it up to say that there is one way to play this. If stealth is not your thing, this isn't the game for you. Getting caught is detrimental to your progress, and there is no penalty for immediately restarting from the last checkpoint if you make the slightest mistake.
There also isn't much diversity in your approach to stealth. Almost every enemy in the game can be killed with a stealth kill, so most encounters will consist of you removing any light sources, creating a noise distraction, and when enemies aren't looking at each other, wipe them out one by one. I was fine with this, but there is almost no creativity or puzzle solving or opportunities to take out groups of enemies in different/interesting ways, and I think the game would be much better if that were present.
To make this clear, I don't think there's anything wrong with this game, and nothing that I didn't enjoy (except the story), but there's also nothing about it that's particularly standout either (except the animation). It was fine, but I will probably forget about it within the next few days.
Also, idk what's really "remastered" about it nowadays aside from packaging in all the DLC, which I didn't play anyways.