izigame.me

THIS GAME SHOULD BE LABELED AS EARLY ACCESS.
I came back to Bleak Faith hoping the last couple updates had noticeably rebalanced builds and enemies. Nope. They added multiplayer. Archinquisitor Belisarius is one of the most abysmal bosses I have ever fought. Whatever game Bleak Faith fans are playing it has to be different than mine.
It’s still good enough that I want to keep playing it, but actually playing it isn’t quite as fun as I hope.
I really want to give this game a second chance, but coming back to find my current situation is just as horrible as I left it... there are better things for me to do. I'm not giving up on it just yet, but Bleak Faith needs A LOT of work, especially in balancing enemies and builds.
The first 2 hours were the most fun I had, and while I did have fun a few times after that, I would've refunded it if I knew what the rest would be like. Do your research before you buy it.
There ARE many things to appreciate. This is an extremely ambitious game for indie devs. The world is often beautiful in its dreary greys (bleak, perhaps), and exploration is rewarding. It's incredible to look up at the mass of concrete and metal to see an enormous creature gliding through the air. I really enjoyed a couple areas, namely the Monastery, Rain District, Deluge, and Asylum. The world is intertwined in sometimes interesting ways, and it scratched a bit of my Dark Souls 1 itch.
Pros:
+ The world and its spectacles are often amazing to take in.
+ Exploration is usually well rewarded. Items are hidden in clever spots, and tough enemies drop weapons or armor.
+ Level design, while hit or miss overall, is sometimes done really well.
+ The combat is fun once in a while, despite its problems.
+ Music is good.
+ There seems to be some decent build variety.
+ There are tons of weapons and armor, and some are pretty cool.
+ Cloaks are cool.
+ Ran pretty well at a steady 60fps outside of some loading zones.
+ What bugs I did find were rare and never serious.
+ Placing your own respawn points is a fun gamble, and a really cool mechanic.
+ MNK controls felt natural and worked quite well.
+ The way you build your character through upgrading armor/weapons is kinda cool.
Cons:
- They seem to have just removed seamless level transitions instead of optimizing them. Part of the fun in exploring is entering a totally new area WITHOUT a loading screen. I'll take the 2 minute elevator rides or lag spikes over this any day.
- Leveling revolves around consumable upgrade crystals, the best of which are limited and non-craftable. This means if you waste your greater crystals or accidentally destroy one, you’re locked out of attaining the highest possible stats, which, at the moment, feels like a necessity.
- Changing builds sucks and requires hours of farming to make any significant difference if you run out of materials.
- Aaaaand many builds feel completely worthless because of how everything is currently balanced. All the numbers in this game need major tweaking.
- I want to trust in the no I-frame system because it would be cool if done properly, but the game never really feels tailored around that idea like it should be. Sometimes it works, but generally the best strat I've found is to just backpedal, and that gets old fast. It doesn't help that your short dashes are so clunky and... short.
- It is often unclear which direction is the right direction and which areas you're meant to explore, especially with all the branching pathways similar looking areas. I'd normally like this, but I began to dread having to choose which way to go. Getting lost in the Omnistructure feels fitting, but its rarely the fun kind of lost.
- Sometimes you find something worth your time. Other times you get stuck in a spot that wasn’t meant to be explored and have no choice but to respawn. In another area there are a few multi-story buildings with dozens of rooms and staircases leading all the way to the top. There's nothing in them. Why not block off the entry doors?
- To expand on the last point, a couple areas feel rushed, and the area I mentioned above, Upper Blocks, feels like a map I would've made in Halo: Reach forge as a kid. The open areas are refreshing, but they end up feeling like a huge dip in quality, and are often filled with annoying enemies spawned in by the dozen.
- Of the 7 bosses I fought (I think there are 8 or 9 total), I enjoyed 1. It was an optional boss too. Another boss, one of the coolest in the game, ended up being strangely easy, and actually boring. The rest were either just okay, or, in the cases of Nurgei, Silicon Visage, and Archinquisitor Belisarius had good elements but were ruined by horrible mechanics, frustrating attacks, and questionable balancing.
- Inventory UI isn't great, and equipping items could be simpler. If I click on the right ring slot and equip a new ring, I don't want it to ask me "right or left." Just equip to right.
- Most of the time, combat was uninteresting for me. Either I stunlock enemies until they're dead, kill them in one hit, backpedal around the map while slowly chipping down their overbloated healthbar, or get I killed in one hit and realize that I'm in a late-game area. Like I said above, combat CAN be fun, but it got a little stale by late-game.
- Traversal gets old. I enjoyed walking across massive bridges and climbing up Snake Eater ladders for a while, but eventually it turns into holding the shift key and waiting.
- In most buildings, the camera rivals 2-2 in Demon's Souls for the title of "Worst Ever."
- Many things are unfinished. There's an ability that gives you a chance to summon an illusory clone of yourself on a successful hit, but when they're summoned they just spawn in. No noise, no effect, and no way to discern it from an enemy aside from the fact that it's wearing your armor and won't attack you. Really spooked me a couple times.
- Climbing giant enemies quickly got old.
- I'm now at a point where I need to farm for healing items, resistance potion ingredients, and upgrade materials so that I can completely change my build thanks to a wonderful boss that can deal damage from 6 sources at once. I wouldn't mind it as much if my build was just not well optimized, but if my only choices are A) suffer for hours dying to a boss with overcranked health, damage and an insane gimmick or B) suffer for hours (grinding) and then maybe have a chance to fight the boss on even ground, then I'd rather not choose at all - Gerald of Rivia. Maybe it's a me problem and not a game problem, but I don't find it enjoyable when a game tells me my build, which was totally viable up until this point, is now worthless.
- HOWEVER, even if the above is a me problem, why are perks, which can be integral to builds, a permanent choice? You can only have 4, and if you're forced to change your build, you're stuck with whatever perks you had before. Want that bow perk? Want to get the most out of shields? Sorry, better start a new game.
- Update: changed my build and it barely made a difference.
I get that it's not easy for 3 people to make a game this big, and I don't know what's happening behind the scenes, but at this stage in development the game is playable from start to finish. I know it's time consuming, but is it so hard to go back and polish what's already been made? If it's a 3 person passion project they could have the advantage of not being pushed by execs to release an unfinished game.
I really wanted to give this game a good review, but there's too much holding it back for me. There's a lot of potential though, and much of what the devs have done is really special. I hope I can come back to it and find a better game than when I left it. If you're interested in trying it, I'd say wait.
EDIT: added/changed/removed things, fixed grammar