Bleak Faith: Forsaken

Sadly I cannot recommend this. I was pretty hyped about this game from its release but waited for all the updates, bug fixes, general polish, etc... Finally got it on sale and decided to give it a shot and..... wow just wow. I didn't think the combat would be this bad. I can tell there have been improvements from what I saw at release but it actually still plays just as slow, choppy, and frustratingly jank. Pretty much everything about this game feels very old, not necessarily in a bad way for everything but it just does feel old. The music, ambience, design are all on point but pretty much everything else still isn't there. They got rid of most of the glaring issues from launch but I'm surprised even after all this time it still plays this bad. The biggest issue for me with combat are the animations being so slow and stamina recovery taking so long to start recovering. I haven't gotten too far yet but the boss by the tree; his moves are weird AF and not intuitive at all. The "giants" still have that awful back stab sound and animation (WHY???). The mage monsters are still the most bs thing on the planet because there is no indicator as to range of aoe and other abilities are still basically invisible. Honestly I'm just overwhelmed by the amount of things I assumed would be fixed or changed by now. The UI is still pretty buggy. My key binds reset every time I open the menu. The level design (not the art style) is very close to being good but alot of times the part that "inter-connects" is empty, drawn out, and serves almost no purpose. Some areas feel abit too big because it's just a few normal mobs and a few worthless items that leads to nothing. I think the equipment should have been spread out a bit more, instead of all in one spot. I still want to try to finish but right now it feels like i'm constantly fighting the game's jank then actually fighting the monsters themselves.

>"Is it good, friend?" Um. Yes. Profoundly. I could write a several page paper on why Bleak Faith is now one of my all-time favorite games, but I think I'll try to keep it brief: -Bleak Faith is dramatically better than it was ~2 years ago when I last played. Excellently done Archangel Studios. I really hope that you are planning a DLC or maybe a BF2. I would gladly buy it at full price with the current level of quality. -ABSURDLY good OST. Seriously. It's ~3H30M long and I've listened to the entire thing almost 10 times, select songs even more than that. -The sense of mystery, wonder, and immersion that the world of Bleak Faith gives me is equivalent to those of my other favorite worlds of all time, which funny enough, I believe must have been inspiration for your game as well! Bleak Faith has elements in it that remind me heavily of Shadow of the Colossus, Made in Abyss, and of course the Souls games. Consequently, making for an entirely new world that also managed to feel nostalgic and familiar at times. VERY unique feeling and I couldn't get enough of it. If there is one thing that you guys do exceptionally well, it is your ability to create a world that BECKONS to be explored. 11/10. Quick comments: -The combat is not the strongest part of the game, but it is sufficient and still very fun. It's no more clunky than Dark Souls 1, in my opinion. My advice is to go with a crit-build. -Some say the game feels empty and some areas feel like you're playing "out of bounds." Unlike many "dead and dying worlds" that just so happen to be BLOATED with enemies.. Bleak Faith is not. It has a very reasonable amount of enemies and bosses, making encounters fun and occasionally surprising. Not to mention the way the game handles loot, crafting, and lore notes really encourages thorough exploration, not just for the fun of it, but for the precious exp as well. You do not grind in Bleak Faith, you explore. I LOVE this concept and wish more games did this. As for the "out of bounds" comment, I will say: Yes, it is actually pretty easy to get out of bounds in this game. I could even sequence break, if I tried. But with this, there is also a positive: Not every area that you think is "out of bounds" actually is. There are some places that feel like they would be, but they're actually secret paths to secret loot. This, in my opinion at least, only added to the joy of exploration. -The game looks best, in my opinion, with everything set to ultra and the gamma reduced down to 1.7. It makes the game VERY dark in some spots, but gives the entire world an appropriately oppressive/bleak(heh) feeling. I prefer this in games. I actually HAD to use the torch! -With my previous point in mind, my only complaint (which is completely due to me lowering the gamma, by the way) is that the torch could really stand to have cast more light and in a wider radius around the player. But that said, the limited visibility made some areas genuinely tense to explore. So maybe I shouldn't be complaining? -I LOVE the post-processing filters and being able to find them in the world. I really wish that more games would do this. -If you like taking screenshots, you'll love this game. I took ~950 in the ~45 hours that I played after coming back to BF. In sum, I can now fully and whole-heartedly recommend this game. It gets an "off the charts" 11/10 from me.

best game to play when u n a bleak place