Bleak Faith: Forsaken PS5 Review

Bleak Faith: Forsaken PS5 Review | A big miss

Рет қаралды 250

Күн бұрын

Пікірлер: 9

@iTried-cr4to 20 күн бұрын

Loved the game, you can feel the amount of imagination and passion went into it. For an indie souls from a small team it's amzing.

@MattackGaming 20 күн бұрын

I'm glad you liked it! I don't wish for games to fail. I hope they make another one. But this one just wasn't it for me.

@johnbaga1191 23 күн бұрын

I can fully understand where you're coming from here and I know this game has an uphill battle to please most folks. Bleak Faith is a different animal. While a soulslike, the gameplay has to be regarded as secondary. Think of it like Silent Hill 1 and 2, which had clunky combat but you didn't play them for that. It is an experience of pure atmosphere and exploration that kept me going. I'd quibble about the visuals being nothing special. They are astonishing because of the art direction and mood set by the environments. Yes the graphics quality and textures are not up there, but this game oozes more atmosphere than any soulslike currently on console. You said "I'm a gameplay guy" and that explains it. Bleak Faith is a game that should have you cranking up your TV's volume, turning up the music and ambient volume in settings, while lowering the SFX so you can barely hear combat sounds. The music is truly special and haunting, like nothing else in the genre. This is nominally a soulslike yes, but above all it is a horror game set in a bizarre dreamworld that is even more cryptic than Dark Souls. Regarding the perfect block, there actually is a reason to do it. If you parry and do a heavy attack right afterwards it will be a guaranteed critical hit. It even makes a sound equivalent to the ping noise of Elden Ring's guard counter. By the way, yes the stamina regen is rough in general and especially slow early game. I adapted to its sluggishness because I started out as a 2H unga bunga build. Eventually you will find upgrade mats that increase stamina regen and leech stamina upon hit and you won't notice the stamina issues. Note that the game is much easier if you go for a dual-wield build or technomancer. I had trouble mid- and late-game with damage output on some elites and bosses, but switching to dual-wield made me OP instantly. It looks like you're going sword and board in your footage, which is a safe choice but won't dish out good damage. I couldn't disagree more on your observation about not much to do outside of combat and that exploration was minimal. Exploration is the main drawing point of this game. It offers the best exploration experience since Elden Ring. There are so many hidden items, hand-crafted secret alcoves, places to climb, AND you get large chunks of experience for actually finding items and reaching new areas. In fact, you often get more experience finding items instead of killing enemies. This game literally rewards exploration with actual exp chunks and is made for people like Ratatoskr who must explore every inch for items. The jump button is great and allows you to reach places with similar verticality as Elden Ring. I was more focused on exploring, opening shortcuts, and going on a hunt for shinies than killing enemies. In looking at your gameplay footage, I'm guessing you stopped at Deluge with those harpoon guys. That means you've seen about 10-20% of the game. It's massive and the sense of discovery is wondrous with the weirdest, most surreal biomes ever fashioned in a soulslike. The imagination of the three developers who made this game surpasses anything churned out by Ubisoft or Electronic Arts. Bleak Faith's visuals are copied from virtually no other game, which can't be said about our recent incursion with Morbid Lords of Ire; that one was so bland and uninspired, and it practically copied and pasted Lies of P's assets for the Irelia map. Level design-wise, Bleak Faith achieves interconnectedness not seen in anything outside of Dark Souls 1. If you thought no one could match FromSoft, these 3 devs did. Everything loops back onto itself from the smallest shortcut inside a zone to the macro world where an elevator or pathway will take you back to an area you visited hours ago. You know that feeling when you reached Undead Parish and took the elevator down to Firelink? That happens in Bleak Faith a dozen times. I will note that I did not find that Deluge place with harpooners until mid-late game. It is an early game area but one of the beauties of Bleak Faith is that there's very few barriers to progress. It's so non-linear that you should never get stuck. You can reach and explore every zone in the game minus a late-game level at any time, and without having to defeat bosses. I went through the whole game only beating Konrad, the tutorial boss, which made the game much harder and I don't suggest doing it, but it was something I did based on paranoia about making a particular trophy harder to get for the platinum. Turns out it really wasn't worth hobbling myself over. Despite all this and some difficulty spikes that were self-inflicted, I remember this game fondly and wish we had more stuff like this: rough around the edges, but with soul. The combat is jank of course and it might be the worst combat in any soulslike apart from Hellpoint or Chronos, but it doesn't kill the game for me. It's not *that* bad really. I forgive the jank because of what this game is really about. There are mind-blowing sections and vistas you have yet to see that compare to the first time you encounter Farum Azula or Ainsel River. I keep citing Elden Ring because Bleak Faith generated the same kind of wonder and sense of discovery. You remember the first time you took that Limgrave lift down to the underground area? There are moments like that in Bleak Faith. I would recommend anyone who is a sucker for atmosphere and exploration to give this one a chance. As a memorable experience it is in a league of its own, superior to any of the Surge games, Lords of the Fallen (2014), Hellpoint, Mortal Shell, Ashen, Asterigos, Code Vein, etc. But I know if you're not feeling it nothing will change your mind. Bleak Faith hooked me from the start. 10 minutes in and I only wanted to keep exploring and see where this brooding, dreamlike place would go next. If you didn't have that feeling and gameplay is king for you, that's valid.

@MattackGaming 22 күн бұрын

I will admit. Your explanations do intrigue me into possibly giving it another chance. To me, Soulslikes live & die on the quality of their combat. There is obviously much more to them, but to me it's sort of like a horror game being not scary, or suspenseful. There is more to it, but that one thing is the main deal. It's possible that my distaste for the gameplay & combat had me so preoccupied that I was blind to other elements that were note worthy. But I do believe that is a fault of the game. Studios should understand that the majority of people that play soulslikes are looking for the combat & the boss fights. So that should be the first thing you polish up and make sure is smooth. Then, you have a strong hook to get them wrapped up in the world, story, and art. But, maybe that is just a me thing. Regardless, I am glad you enjoyed it and appreciate your input!

@sikevillain 17 күн бұрын

Now this is a true souls player lol love it.