Dawnstar

starting off!

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Thief: Gold

#6: THE SWORD

Oh man oh man oh man I LOVE The Sword so much, it feels like the penultimate level of Thief Gold. There are plenty of missions to love, but well and truly The Sword has it all.

You've got this giant fuck-off-sized mansion for a wealthy eccentric, so there's tons of loot to be had and guards/traps aplenty, and then the deeper into the house you go the weirder it gets. Crooked hallways, corridors leading to nowhere, doors in the ceiling, a whole tiny village and a giant room scaled to make you feel like a mouse, A WHOLE FOREST, WHAT IS IN THIS PLACE???

This mansion is like a thief's playground. It's so big, sprawling, and full of weirdness you can just explore and have a blast doing so. It's also so nonlinear that there's a good chance unless you're the most meticulous of players, you're going to miss some stuff, which just adds more replayability.

It's also the first mission to kick off the plot, so yay! Bonus points!

Damn I just love The Sword.

#2: Break from Cragscleft Prison

This one was genuinely pretty tough for me to decide on. Between this, Bonehoard, and The Lost City, these levels tend to include a lot of what I really don't like in my Thief games, ie dumb monsters that turn a sneaky game into an adventure game.

Ultimately, its size/scope is the only cinching factor here, because I was damn close to picking Bonehoard or The Lost City. Those two win out (barely) by pure virtue of being large, sprawling maps with lots of secrets and places to explore.

Cragscleft Prison has no such luxury. Granted, it IS the very second mission of the series, so it can't be too overwhelming, but given that Bonehoard follows immediately afterwards I'm not so sure.

I do not care for zombies in Thief, and this mission, unfortunately, has those right up front. They're a pain, they're annoying, and I just don't care for them one bit, no sir.

The factory is alright, but the prison itself is… a bit lackluster. The different sections of the prison all feel identical to each other and is visually very lacking. For a Hammerite location, it's pretty bland.

I do like the pseudo-cameras, but there aren't very many of those.

Ultimately, this mission had too many elements I don't like, a bland and uninteresting visual aesthetic and setting, and was pretty on-rails and linear for a typical Thief mission.

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Thief 2: The Metal Age

#10: Life of the Party

This one is a no-brainer. Hailed as many people's favorite missions for a damn good reason, Life of the Party is probably also up there not only as a favorite for this game, but for the series as a whole.

What's NOT to like about it?

It's an absolutely gargantuan map taking you across damn near the entire district of The City with tons of paths to take. There's a wild amount of houses to poke into, conversations to eavesdrop on, even other fellow thieves out and about up to no good.

Not to mention this mission has LONGDADDY!!!! The one and only friendly spider in the series!

All the cool people love Longdaddy.

I didn't even see the whole section of the City on my first playthrough years ago, it was just so massive and sprawling. You really get the excitement of a true thief experience roaming the rooftops and being able to bust into SO many places.

And THAT'S ONLY HALF THE MISSION!

The other half is Angelwatch, the absolutely massive and opulent Mechanist building, full of nobles who roam on long winding paths, the terrifying combat bots, and mechanists out the wazoo. With 6 floors of wealth to rummage through, you spend just as much time here as you do in the City.

Also even more plot happens! Heck yeah! Shit's gettin' GOOD!!!

#13: Casing the Joint

To preface: I don't hate this mission in isolation. On it's own, it's perfectly fine.

But it has two major flaws:

Firstly that it's a forced-stealth mission, which isn't bad on its own! I love Framed, the other forced-stealth mission. But it DOES mean that the mission is going to be intentionally sparse compared to other missions.

Secondly it's a double-mission. I mean, it's the exact same map back to back. Casing the Joint, immediately followed by Masks.

Masks is great! It's a solid mission!

I just really hate that we have to essentially play the same mission twice in a row! It sucks!

It sucks more in Casing the Joint because of the forced stealth, and the limited AI, and the fact that it feels like you're picking up purses and pennies more than like, opulent treasures.

I just blast through this one as fast as I can, it's just not fun.

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Thief: Deadly Shadows

#5: The House of the Widow Moira

This is going to sound like blasphemy.

WHAT??? DON'T YOU MEAN "ROBBING THE CRADLE"???

Firstly: that one is a VERY close second,

Secondly: no actually this one is just REALLY good.

It really comes down to the ambiance. It's just so melancholy, the sound-design is stellar, all the staff on the grounds are the worst, and you just end up feeling bad for Widow Moira.

I think it's very funny that the Sneaky Upgrade allows players the ability to leave the money she required to survive on her own on Expert difficulty. lmao really shows that plenty of players would rather not take from this poor blind lady.

This mission has multiple paths to go through, is a beautiful and large mansion, and is just dripping with atmosphere. It's pretty fantastic, and I think that sound-design is what ekes it out ahead of Robbing the Cradle for me. (Sorry Lauryl, love you, but you do kind of kill the vibes)

#7: Killing Time

Between this and The Sunken Citadel, I found this one to be much worse.

Atmospherically, it kind of feels like a rehash of St. Edgar's Eve, but a little bit worse. Same sort of Hammerite structure, yadda yadda, gears and machinery around, lots of "thee"s and "thou"s,

But what really kind of kills it for me is how linear the mission is.

It feels like you're just kind of walking down a corridor, but vertical. You don't even backtrack at the end either, the mission just ends abruptly. (hilariously, because jfc Garrett you just killed so many people how did you manage to bring down the entire tower)

The clues for the Secret loots are also positioned poorly in such a way that you're forced to backtrack a few times if you didn't already know where they were.

It's just a slog. A boring, linear slog.

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Thief (2014)

DLC: The Bank Heist

yeah uh, not a story mission lmao. imo the side-missions were the highlight of the game.

The Bank Heist is what I kind of wish there was more of in Thief.

It felt very classic; what's better than robbing a wealthy and highly guarded bank? Full of traps, guards, and even cameras!

I love those!

Those cameras add extra challenge! Boy I wish they existed in more than just this mission!

But anyways, this mission DOES have all those things and while short, it's a dense and enjoyable location.

#4: A Friend in Need

I was torn between this and A Man Apart. Why? Because they're so taffin' similar to each other my brain keeps blurring them together.

Both of them have similar issues, but I'll focus on this one in particular:

It's so, so linear. You don't really have room to deviate from the plot, you go to A, then to B, then to C, following this adventure line all the while.

It's also GROSSLY action-heavy. MULTIPLE times it will yank the controls away from the player to show off some SICK ACTION SCENE with EXPLOSIONS and FIRE and Garrett WHOOSHING OFF THE SIDES OF BUILDINGS. I thought I was playing a stealth game, not watching an action movie. There is an excess of action scenes that just does not work with Thief.

Also uhhhh, the pacing is weird as hell. So the premise of the mission is "We gotta save Basso!", right? Great! I love Basso!

Wait, first up Garrett mentions he's gotta go see "Jacob". Wait who's Jacob? Uhhh, maybe he's got some information-

oh there he is like 10 seconds later, dead. Guess we're not gonna go see Jacob after all.

so WHY DID WE BRING HIM UP AT ALL???

Okay now uhhhh we gotta go to the Architect's house first. uhhh okay, guess he has schematics of the keep? I guess?

Oh this dude is also dead TIME FOR A SICK ACTION SCENE GOOOOOOOO

Okay NOW we're gonna go rescue Basso,

Hooray! Basso rescued!

What do you mean now we're just gonna leave him on his own to go rob some vault?

It's a mess. Pacing-wise, story-wise, and because of all the points of no return and action sequences slapping you right out of the moment. It's just no fun.

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and i don't have a VR headset so I have no opinions on Thief VR: Legacy of Shadow. looks fun tho.

That's it!