izigame.me

After more than 10 hours of gameplay i can state that i'm truly enjoying the experience.
I'm a game dev (senior 3D character and creature artist) and a passionate souls game player, i've been following this project since the first trailer and now that it's finally here i can say that i'm not disappointed. I'm not gonna lie, the game still needs a lot of polish and i will go more in depth later, but it's good.
As a gamer (ignoring my professional opinion) i love the setting, the soundtrack, the weapons and the mood. I'm a huge Blame and Escher fan too so the Omnistructure with its labyrinthine stairs and enormous brutalist blocks really fit my taste. The vast spaces and distances help enforcing the concept of tiny vs huge, ephemeral vs eternal, you truly are nothing more than a ant in a grey and infinite expanse of concrete. The beautiful ost by Martel sets the perfect atmosphere: desolation and melancholy, i love the dungeon synth and metal influences used with orchestration and liturgical chores (i now have it in loop while i work).
I like the vast choice of available weapons but they probably need a stronger style characterization (for example: medieval; minimal futuristic, organic), this could be useful to define the setting's technological level in contrast with ancient weapons. I'm really enjoying the twists on classical soulslike mechanics, the stat scaling and crystal system is a perfect way to replace character leveling and enhance equipment importance. The portable checkpoint is very useful considering the distance covered by each exploration. The inventory UI (and UX) is a weak spot especially while using a controller, the item selection and shelf navigation is a bit clunky and counterintuitive; the dark souls one is functional enough. I often lose the selection frame due to the low contrast with background. The combat and combo system is still clunky but i honestly still find it satisfactory, i can feel the weight of the weapon while wielding it but the hit feedback is not strong enough, especially on big enemies ( i expect at least a giggle on the fleshy parts like in bloodborne), the dodge without i-frames is strange at the beginning but it just needs a different approach. Animations are good but they need a smoother interpolation between legs and arms/shoulder movements, they sometimes get asynchronous. The foot speed seems synchronized with the root movement but somehow still feels slower than the real movement speed; i would slightly increase the sprint speed since you often need to traverse large empty areas (btw i enjoy combat free zones cause i like to take time to contemplate the environment, i'm treating this game as a journey instead of a combat intense soulslike). The camera movement works but it has some collision issues in narrow spaces causing an annoying stutter, i would suggest to implement a camera distance dither mask in the env master material and adjust the camera collision to always keep the character on screen and prevent stuttering. Please add an item pickup sfx. The overall lighting is good but sometimes it gets too dark, i know lighting can be tricky in unreal but can be easily fixed with post process volumes in specific areas.
I'm not going to judge the lore and story yet because it's probably too early but as i said i love the setting and mood. Considering the size of the team and the amount of work a game like this needs, i would consider bleak faith as a success, there's a lot of work to be done, a lot of polish and bug fixing but this game has a huge potential.
This game isn't for anyone, and if you can't see through slightly clunky animations and a not perfect combat system just don't play it, but please don't try to compare this indie game with multi billionaire productions like the dark souls franchise ( if you do, you probably have no idea on how a game is made).
AFTER JUNE 29 PATCH
UPDATE (SPOILER ALLERT) 20 hours of gameplay later: Finished the game and it's time for some final considerations and more tips to improve the experience. Finishing a game like this and seeing just 3 (three, 1;2;3) names is outstanding. Not because the game is perfect but because the amount of work and dedication to achieve a result like BFF is extraordinary. Let's start with some considerations: i enjoyed almost every area of the omnistructure but i noticed a progressive decrease in the consistency and detail amount, I feel like the sci fi and brutalist environment highly boosts the mood and strenghten the original art style choice, some of the other areas looks more medieval or Victorian resulting in strong Dark Souls/ Bloodborne feels (not a bad thing since BB is my favorite game) but i almost forgot we're in the omnistructure and electricity is a thing. (Pro: immersion is on point. Cons: the art style is progressively more generic).
WEAPONS AND SCALING:
Pro: the crystal mechanic offers endless customization; weapons are cool, i can almost always feel the weight.
Cons: I would have made more obvious the fact that caster weapons are powered by flux and not mana, technomancy and not simple magic; Heavy weapons are not strong enough and all the weapons of the same type deals the same exact damage. Manufacturing needs essence as base ingredient so there should be plenty, yes you can farm it but you have to farm for 20 minutes to get 3 or 5 essence (enough for a single crystal) the cool thing of this mechanic is the build freedom but i was unable to easily change build.
BOSSES:
Pro: Variety. Easy access to the bossfight. Amazing OST.
Cons: Bossfight are one of my least favorite things in the game, not too hard, not to easy but a bit frustrating when bosses have a ton of health. Belisarius...the bossfight concept was cool but i was completely unable to deal damage, i tried different approaches and then decided that it wasn't worth it and skipped it (left side of the arena). I've seen videos of people with my same build dealing 6k+ damage with the titanslayer but i was dealing max 400 while Beli one shotted me several times. (tried quick weapons but i was dealing like 20 damage). The final bossfight has almost the same problem, unable to deal damage with the weapons i used for the whole game, i beat them with the bow ability in a long run and hit battle. The main issue here is that a giant sword like the titanslayer doesn't deal enough damage in relation to the super slow pace of the attacks + It never breaks bosses poise or attacks, which is the main reason i always used greatswords in soulslikes.
I know that the original project was intended to be an open world and i really hope that this game gets all the updates it deserves. (climbing reintegration and some of the areas and features shown in the trailers)

Despite all the cons, i couldn't stop playing it and i already started NG+