What's the best stealth mechanic you've ever encountered and why?
While the one in VtMB is often broken, when it does work I always liked how it tells me how close I really am to getting detected. I wouldn't say it's the best, but it's the kind of direction I'd want a stealth mechanic to go to.
Elder Scrolls games.
It just works.
in Metal Gear Solid 4 and FF11, a fucking MMO of all things, smell was actually a factor in enemy detection which is pretty cool. it wasn't anything more complicated than "get too close and they can smell you" but still.
E.Y.E Divine Cybermancy because you have to be actually invisible to not get detected, you can't just stand in the shadows in the corner and masturbate like some creepy fuck
Detection by scent seems like an underused concept, probably because it's hard to implement meaningfully I imagine.
Might not be particulary good but I really liked how you could use the wind in Betrayer to mask your sounds.
I really enjoyed the system in Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter that was essentially enhancing your New Game+ based on your performance in the previous run.
And also having a vat of Party Exp that you could save and roll over to a new game or use to buff a weaker party member if need be.
I really loved stealth in Boktai. Not because the stealth mechanics were anything special, but because the game was full of really great enemies. I think that's a pretty big component of stealth games that's all too often ignored.
The normal enemies have a sleep schedule and they react to sight and sound. Some of them are invisible until you get them in darkness.
Golems immediately try to attack you when they're alerted but because they're curled into a ball they can't see where they're going. If you're smart you can use them to defeat other enemies in order to save ammo.
Mummies are totally blind so you can sneak around them right in the open but their hearing is so good that they'll even notice normal footsteps on plain flooring. If you set them on fire they'll run around panicked flailing and killing other enemies in the room.
Spiders totally ignore you unless you get caught in their webs, which are usually invisible. So you need to use your tools or waste ammo checking to see if the way ahead is clear.
Cockatrices are birds so they sometimes fly above the terrain and spot you if you aren't pressed against the wall. Also you usually find them in hall of mirrors scenarios so you can try and hit them with their own stone gaze or angle your bullets while out of earshot to stun/kill them easily.
And while it's not exactly stealth, I really loved how in the 2nd game they gave you another option if you wanted to play more lethally. You have a sick vampire form that just tears through enemies and has some transformations that give you alternate paths through a level. You can't walk through the rain or eat normal food without taking a lot of damage. But you can suck blood or use your coffin to recover HP/energy. The coffin is the interesting part because once you reach the end of the level and defeat the boss you have to take him in a coffin and sneak back to the entrance where you finish him off with the solar piledriver. Being able to buy all sorts of coffins was a neat addition because obviously having a higher quality or gimmicky coffin makes your vampire form much stronger but it also makes it harder to transport the boss since more comfortable coffins also regenerate the boss and he'll struggle much harder against you. One of them is really neat because its a tank that lets you regenerate while moving through puzzle rooms or miniboss rooms but the downside is that it has a squeeky wheel so if the boss acts up and starts trying to escape he's going to attract the attention of a lot of enemies.
I felt like that about SkiFree.
It's in every hunting game ever.