Forgive Me Father Review (SuehtamSatierf)
Forgive Me Father looks deceivingly good and fun, but it starts falling apart in action. If I could pick a few words to describe this game, it'd be "immersion breaking" and "bland".
Review
While the visuals are highlight of the game, they kind of collapse the moment they start to move. Animations feel cheap, with a (I believe) deliberate low-framerate style that ultimately did more harm than good. Enemies look awkward with movements that don't feel believable and make them feel like they're always sliding cardboard cut-outs that are always facing the player. There are little to no position and scale animations to the weapons like I've seen in other games of the same genre, making them also feel like inanimate pieces of paper. It's even worse when there's absolutely no animation for changing weapons, they just snap on the spot!
The art style, albeit great, also felt inconsistent at times. I missed outlines in some 3D geometry in the levels as well as in some enemy projectiles. Those flat-coloured glowing orbs just felt so out of place and like a missed opportunity to have some cool designs. Also, no light emission from muzzle flashes was really off-putting to me. I think it was an opportunity to increase the level of polish and create interesting visuals through lighting, and it was ultimately wasted.
While the main mechanics, such as moving and shooting are fine and inoffensive, the level design is what led me to refund this game. The levels in Forgive Me Father are bland, often boring and sometimes straight up bad. The first level reminded me of Wolfenstein 3D, with dull rectangular rooms and hallways at straight angles and no variation in ceiling height. Most levels in the game feel like nothing more than interconnected rooms and hallways with a thematic dressing that tries to trick you into believing that you're not navigating a series of boring boxes. What sucks is that, once again, the game actually has a good style and there's a good variety of themes per level! However, my immersion has been broken so many times by poorly designed maps and inconsistencies in the visuals that I couldn't look past the fact I was playing as a cardboard cutout that shoots at other cardboard cutouts in textured boxes.
Granted, the later levels I played did improve, but they never felt great. They were never able to sell me that I'm in fact in a fucked up hospital, or in an old town, or anything really. The worst part is that I can feel that they were trying to, and failing. The pacing and flow was also all over the place.
Additionally, for characters with such bad voice acting, they do talk a lot! I don't remember the last time I had to mute the character dialogue in a game, yet I did it here (and thank god the game lets you!). The voice lines are also really poorly written and do nothing other than, once again, break my immersion. The experience of playing this game was dramatically enhanced by muting the voice channel! The music is not bad, but I still wonder if it fits the style this game is going for.
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Conclusion / Summary
In conclusion, Forgive Me Father is a game that looks great in the screenshots, but just don't feel very good to play. It's not horrible and I wouldn't even consider it bad, but it's terribly unremarkable in most departments, which is worse in my opinion. While it stands out with its hand-drawn lovecraftian style, not even that manages to excel due to overall lack of polish, inconsistencies and a few bad decisions. The mechanics are inoffensively fine, whereas the level design is the lowest point of this title, failing to keep me immersed in the world and being mostly boring or, at best, just fine.
Its highs are not so high and its lows are not so low, making it truly unremarkable. That is disappointing, because the screenshots made the game look like it had great potential! Maybe with a bit more polish and care it could at least excel in the visual side of the whole.
Despite all my negative feedback, I did feel that there was genuine effort put in the development of Forgive Me Father and that some decisions were made with the scope and the size of the team in mind. I highly respect that! Therefore, I want to still congratulate the team on the game they've created and I'm looking forward to what's next as I can see clear potential from them. I didn't get to play Forgive Me Father 2, but I hope to be pleasantly surprised the day I do.