Not even when that dialogue is goofily good-natured, showcasing clammy vampires, open-carry swordsmen, and overexcited scientists stuck in quicksand. But there's simply no way to recommend an experience that might include falling through the floor, or getting stuck on a broken dialogue screen that forces you to replay an entire day of hub conversations and inventory management. Over time, I learned to circumvent not just butlers and cameras but Abermore's many flaws, and found myself half-enjoying the game it could have been. Suits of armour spring to life, gas rises, and the objective becomes secondary to finding an exit fast. That said, things fall apart fast when complacency leads to discovery.
But it's undermined by AI that's unresponsive and shortsighted-a little too forgiving to make you feel truly vulnerable. There's a pure, early YouTube pleasure to watching the house's master slip and knock himself unconscious after responding to a service bell rung by yours truly.
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It's rare an object is just one thing a banana provides health, but a banana skin is a trap. More than once I fashioned a solution to a problem I would otherwise have given up on, preventing me from heading home sullen and empty handed. The latter challenge is enhanced by a crafting system that allows you improvise lockpicks, sleep darts and explosives on the fly so long as you have the recipe, and can source the materials among your mark's belongings. In this way you gradually map the building, casing for gems and rare whiskey and thinking up creative ways to bypass busy corridors. It's a matter of secreting yourself into crawlspaces, under tables, and onto rafters-essentially becoming insulation yourself to avoid being seen by staff or security cameras. Sneaking around these splintered spaces is, at least, a fundamentally sound experience. At worst, gaping holes in the architecture leave buildings open to the elements-a far bigger security issue than me and my lockpicks, and an insulation nightmare to boot. It's very common to scale a staircase and notice an airy gap between two floors, making the positions of guards and butlers visible from above. Some rooms have invisible walls, blocking movement unexpectedly others are missing floors, leaving guards and consumables stranded in midair. It's as if every house were a Clockwork Mansion in need of a watchmaker's attention.
While you might recognise the layout of a locker room or lobby here or there, these rooms slot together procedurally. There's a random element to levels, designed to keep them fresh. It's out on the job that the problems really start to stack up. There's a touch of Atlus-style life simulation involved as you get to know the regulars, win their trust, and ultimately pin them down to help out on the night of the Feast. There you'll sell your ill-gotten goods to the fence, pick ability-boosting tarot cards, and decide on your job for the night. There's a satisfying sense of procedure to this setup: rolling out of your bed at noon, pottering around a petite hub to pick up side quests, and then sliding into the underground pub where thieves gather in the evenings. And so, each night, you take on a smaller job for a local ne'er-do-well: clearing a stately home of its valuables to get some practice in, fund better equipment, and increase your reputation among potential collaborators. At the beginning of the game, the feast is a couple of weeks away.