another Souls-like game from the group – Xbox Generation

Technical section

It is always interesting to enter a new world, with mysterious aesthetics and overwhelming depth. Unlike many other titles, Bleak Faith: Forsaken understands its technical limitations, betting on immense worlds that work like a canvas, trying to ensure that the player does not notice all the graphic defects that exist throughout the experience. This is valuable, because it is a real attempt to take advantage of resources to stand out in certain areas, leaving well-marked efforts in areas that any player would notice and criticize.

Based on the above, it is clear that Bleak Faith: Forsaken is not the best game technically speaking. There are various performance and processing issues with some floor and wall textures.. This is a rare case in which the background of the scenarios loads perfectly, while what we have closest to the camera is still finishing loading. It is not annoying in principle, since it does not completely affect the gaming experience, but as you progress through the adventure it becomes obvious that something is wrong.

Moving on to the graphic section, it is necessary to highlight the artistic vision of the developers. The characters, the settings and the story seem to have a sinisterly striking aura. This dark aspect suits the game very well, as it recalls the first Dark Souls, with narrow and dark corridors, having a monochromatic environment that encloses the player. However, even if the style is interesting, the execution often loses a lot of quality; for example, in the first passages of the game there are times when important details such as stairs or objects are lost, since being dark and monochrome, no element stands out on the scene and they are lost.

Even if the game is “ugly”, I have to admit I loved the scenery and enemies.. It is always an adventure to enter new passages that discover large buildings or new enemies. The environment managed to absorb me, with very strong points on which it was mandatory to take screenshots and share them in this analysis. Now, the scenarios are not as varied as I would have liked, since everything is part of a futuristic mega structure, as if we were climbing a tower that contains an ecosystem inside.

Ultimately, the game works well for what it is, but it’s by no means something that can stand out from other games in the industry. Technically, it’s not ideal, and graphically, while I personally enjoyed it, I understand that not all gamers like games with poor graphics.

Gameplay

Within the Souls-Like genre, it is already common to see games tending towards excessive difficulty and developing their worlds through the exploration of semi-open worlds. This structure allows players to walk through corridors to feel a certain exploration, but also to bring in enemies that challenge the player and force them to stop and face them. Bleak Faith: Forsaken changes this structure a bit, as the world is a fairly linear corridor, with some alternative paths, but they do not go as deep as in other video games. In addition, the game is made up of levels and not zones. It is possible to return to areas of the first level, but these will be of no interest, since the objects and enemies concerned are on the main path.

Another key element of Souls-Like is that there is a currency that can be used to exchange experience points or to buy things in the game. In this case, it’s different, because this currency doesn’t exist, there is no way to lose “souls” that then have to be recovered in the traditional way. This radically changes the style of the game, since you no longer have to worry about dying and losing part of your progress, but the penalty only comes back at the last save point, which, yes, is quite rare.

Bleak Faith: Forsaken therefore has a very simple and expected combat system, so there is no great novelty on the subject either. We can make simple attacks, strong attacks, blocks and dodges. These actions are limited by the energy or “power” bar (magic or mana), complex to manage. This is all we have as a playable section, since the rest is defined in environmental elements, exploration, etc. That being said, and the combat being so simple, what defines whether it is good or bad is its implementation in the rhythm of the game, which, in my opinion, is the biggest mistake of the game. Not only is it linked to the fact that the character is quite slow, but also that the movements are quite limited by the bars mentioned above.. Energy is spent with only 4 attacks, and to recover it we will have to stay still for a while so that the bar grows again, otherwise we will never recover it.

The pace of the game breaks any affinity with the player, as it is something complex to manage. The enemies, especially the final bosses, are usually very fast, having consecutive attacks that must be dodged or blocked. But this is where the problem lies, because the developers thought that the game would be dedicated to perfect blocks or parries, and these, like the other movements, are slow and imprecise. If we can’t parry a simple attack, it’s best to blockbut since the game doesn’t want you to dodge, but rather block, it drags us into a cycle of imperfect blocking until we can finish off the enemy. In addition to the above, the energy bar is very short, forcing us to rest in each battle, even if they are simple enemies, lengthening the fights in a discreet way.

To improve our character and be able to better face these long battles, we will find equipment that improve the characteristics, in addition to being able to level up some specific attributes that are difficult to understand at first. Once equipped, we can improve armor and weapons with fragments that give different bonuses, doing more damage or defending more. We manage all the options we have in menus that are not adapted to consoles, but rather remained in their PC format, making the work a little more complicated.

It’s not all bad, because even though the game forces us to adapt to awkward systems, Boss fights are the best reward for the efforts put into the different levels.. These are tough and long fights, but they feel like a strategy game of effort whose rewards are taken to the next level.

Duration

The game is quite extensive, it has a large number of levels that, in themselves, do not seem extensive. The average duration of this game is around 20 hours, although the majority of players and reviews that I have found for comparison claim that they have played more hours due to the difficulty of some bosses. For this game in particular, it seems to me that it extends too much, since the story it tells has no direct relation to what we are playing, or at least they never really explain to us what is happening. For this reason and because the mechanics are very heavy, the game should last at least 5 hours less.

During the duration are secondary objectives, whose intrusion into the story is too easily overlooked, because they are difficult to detect or understand. In my experience, I was not able to complete any of them, as they extend beyond the end of the game, where almost everything is more difficult and tedious. With these missions, the game lasted a few hours longer, it is not too much, since they are stories that end along the way, but there are alternative paths that must be taken to complete them.

Conclusion

Bleak Faith: Forsaken is a game that, for the niche in which it is created, works very well. Personally, and after analyzing different games of the style, I do not consider that it deserves the notes that are given to it as mostly positive, because it has serious problems in its understanding as a video game that seem quite serious to me. The gameplay is not representative of what a good Souls is, although it is a source of inspiration, it fails in the essential which is to transmit security and satisfaction in learning to play it. It’s frustrating trying to get into a game that isn’t easy to play due to its complex mechanics.

On the other hand, the game’s plot is almost incomprehensible, it is not easy to adapt to cutscenes with strangers or NPCs who leave loose sentences with the intention of “depth” but who in the end are not very expressive or credible. During the experience, I always felt lost, as in FromSoftware games, only they manage to transmit information in objects and weapons. On the contrary, Bleak Faith: Forsaken says nothing, leaving everything to interpretation.

Bleak Faith: Forsaken may not be a bad game, but for the time I’ve been playing it as an analyst, it seemed worse than it is. In any case, I can’t ignore the fact that it was difficult for me to advance in the game, knowing that beyond my prejudices, the developers were more ambitious than they could have imagined. What stands out the most about the game is, without a doubt, its setting, because it always made me want to discover new settings and new enemies. In short, it’s an experience that left me with more doubts than certainties, and with the feeling that it didn’t bring me anything at all.