Sneaky Sneaky Review

By AJ Hanson on 29/04/2024 21:51 UTC

Throughout my time as a gamer, there have been games which have immersed me fully into their world for hours upon end until such a time that I look up and realize I should have eaten a few hours ago. Usually such games are long, sprawling, epic RPG's that have many characters and a great cinematic storyline made by a AAA gaming studio. Needless to say I wasn't expecting that kind of time consuming all out fun from an indie game called Sneaky Sneaky by indie developer Naiad Entertainment.

Sneaky Sneaky is a stealth adventure game with a twist; it offers a unique turn based combat system that is usually unseen in this type of game. The game blends real time stealth and turn based combat elements seamlessly and seemingly effortlessly to provide a one of a kind experience that I believe everyone should play.

There is a basic, followable story here; after scoring the heist of a lifetime, thief Sneaky (yes, that’s the characters name) is ambushed by a bunch of revenge seeking creatures and his loot is stolen. You shoot, stab, and loot your way through vast, varying levels to reclaim the stolen treasure. Short, simple cutscenes appear after each “world” and give you a sense of purpose for what you're doing unlike some other games in the genre that drop you into yet another random world with no rhyme or reason to your being there.

The game is an absolute blast to play. You control Sneaky by moving him up, down, left, or right across the map. There are varying enemies with different movement patterns and you can choose to either sneak by them, or find a way to fight them head on with your sword, bow, or other unlockable item such as Sleep Poison. Enemies get more challenging and varying as you go on through the levels, so just when you conquer one enemy type you find yourself trying to adjust to another ones movement and attacks. The constant reward of XP and loot is satisfying and it can be a real challenge to decide what to upgrade next. More health obviously allows you to survive longer but what if you want to do away with your enemies quicker? The choices of your upgrades have real consequences in the following levels and that gives a weight to your decisions not seen in many games like this.

The game looks wonderful on PC. It's subtle, yet stand out graphics continued to wow me visually over and over again from the character design to the animations of the movement and battle scenes everything is really well done visually. It's obvious a lot of thought was put into the final product. It's so nice, for a change, to play a game where time was taken to consider each and every detail rather than rushing to get a product out due to time constraints.

The music is another high note as well with its free and flighty melody during your travel across the realms, moving to a more serious ominous tone during the battle scenes. Most indie titles make me turn the music off as its obvious they just phoned in some music to say its there but Sneaky Sneaky had me turning my volume up to hear each varied song in the level.

9

“Sneaky Sneaky snuck it's way into my top indie games of 2014”

Overall the game is a joy to play. It is a refreshing change of pace from the AAA games released this fall and has kept me coming back for more far more often than I would have imagined when I started playing. Its replay value is very high, as enemy movement patterns can change with each play through and you can make other upgrade/weapon choices to vary the game play. Sneaky Sneaky stands as a very strong first showing from Naiad Entertainment and I cannot wait to see more.  
Story80%
Gameplay90%
Graphics90%