Bleak Faith: Forsaken

The atmosphere, scale, and exploration really carry this game for me. I'm thoroughly impressed with what this small team was able to accomplish. Well worth trying for the $30 asking price for anyone who enjoys the atmosphere and exploration that souls-likes are known for.

Read Blame!, the manga series, then play this game!
Very well made for the feelings and all the surroundings!

It's the story you like to see: rough on launch, but devs stuck with it. Art direction and atmosphere 100. I am very hard to impress. I was impressed. I can see why fans are avid, and you can count me among them now.

Little polish things like fx I can forgive, they pale in comparison to the aesthetic experience delivered. Starts out slower-paced like DS1, then you can build up to be a beast. Interconnected world like DS1, and the areas lend themselves well to exploration (because it's mostly not a gank/ambush simulator), which gives plenty of time to soak in the absolutely killer atmosphere and mood.

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.

Tbh if the combat were a bit better this would be one of the best souls likes IMO. The exploration is so dope though. The setting is called the Omnistructure, it was once a gigantic city, brutalist style architecture and built within mountains. Like the Souls series, the events of the game take place many years after it's fall. So, you're exploring and fighting your way through this huge labyrinth of a once bustling city that tied nature to sci-fi within an abandoned cyberpunk dystopia, and I'm not exaggerating when I say huge labyrinth. It's somehow both open world and dungeon crawler, many areas you can get to the next place without even finding or fighting the area boss, but you'll eventually a wall due to missing an item you need from a boss or find in an area the boss has blocked off until you beat them. It's winding, there's multiple paths around every other corner, tons of short cuts and run backs, interconnected like crazy. You'll be exploring somewhere you've never been before, kick down a ladder and descend it to find yourself at one of the beginning areas of the game, etc. You can even explore a lot of areas that would be considered out of bounds in other games. Sometimes you'll be questioning yourself if you're in one of those areas but then suddenly find an item on a random roof or cliff top that you wouldn't have been able to navigate to otherwise. You can swim and even dive pretty deep, there's a dragon you can ride in an area, if you figure out how to drop onto, that'll drop you right across from the boss arena. Another similar creature lurks in the water and will eat you when swimming sometimes lol.
I suppose the cons are: the graphics are about somewhere between late ps3 and ps4 launch titles.
The combat is serviceable. It's certainly not great, but not absolutely terrible and broken. I'd put it somewhere between DS and DSII. The color palate is rather dry, it's mostly grays, but I typically enjoy games with a mostly gray aesthetic (DSIII, Bloodborne etc) it really adds to the feeling of long time abandonment, decaying and desolate IMO.
Overall it's a souls like that is more focused on exploration and world building than anything else. The best summary I can give is it's a souls like with a SotC/Ico vibe to it, and NGL I have been absolutely loving exploring and getting lost in this abandoned cyberpunk wasteland.

This game has only a few issues and they are.
No OST
No Artbook
No DLC
Played 47hrs, got all the trophies, absolutely loved it. Closest thing to DSR that is not DSR.

If you are a souls fan, really, go ahead and do your self this favour

P.S I had to fiddle a bit with the controls in order to get a smooth experience, but after that is was smooth sailing. ( Mainly changing the left stick curve in steam to "aggressive" setting )

The fact that three people made this game is blowing my mind. It's every bit as good as any Dark Souls. Most souls games have limited environments and lacking in enemy variety. Not this game. Incredible talent involved here. I'll be buying what these guys come up with next.

Finally a Soulslike that feels DS1 inspired. After playing almost all Soulslike under the sun and patterns repeating over and over this is such a breath of fresh air. Despite being made by 3 people and therefore suffering in the technical department the vision displayed here is peak. Similiarly to a game like Outward one could only imagine what this game would do with a proper budget. Hopefully we'll get less parry and boss rush games and more like this in the future.

This game is fantastic. Moody, atmospheric, forlorn, melancholic. Recaptures that first time playing Dark Souls feel. More people should know about this game. Buy it.

A solid indie souls-like that deserves more love. Massive environments that are fun to explore. Similar to Hellpoint in terms of weirdness and playstyle.

This game has come a long way. I see a lot of people bashing it over animations or bugs or bad performance, but I think nowadays most of these issues have been addressed.

The animations are smooth and crisp, the combat is still slightly jank, but endearingly so. The difficulty is not ridiculous and there is a lot of secrets to uncover if you like that sort of thing (I actually made it to what I thought was an out of bounds area multiple times, just to end up finding an item placed there by a dev, making exploration feel really rewarding). The boss design is hit-or miss, but overall quite enjoyable and once you build your character it will feel great. The weapon skills all feel pretty unique and grinding for sets of armor/weapons is actually quite good. You can never get dupes, so every drop will be a new piece. Thus farming out a set is usually at most a 5-10 minute affair. There's a wealth of content here that genuinely deserves some praise. The environment design, set pieces, enemy, armor/weapon designs and themes are fantastic and it keeps a clear vision from the start to finish. The lore was quite confusing to me personally, however I did not read a lot of the logs I picked up, so I'll chalk it up to that.

If you enjoy playing soulslikes for the atmosphere and cool weaponry this is definitely one to pick up.
My total game time to finish was exactly 38 hours, which imo is the perfect length. Not too short so you can really experiment and explore, but not long enough to start feeling stale.

Want to get a souls-like feeling but don't want to grind a ton or worry too much about stuff? Try Bleak Faith. If you're into megastructures, it captures that feeling at times. It won't shake any of the conventions or blow your mind, it won't thrill you with amazing combat, but it does give you that lonely exploration vibe.

I don't think there's a game that does exploration quite like this at such a scale. Bleak Faith isn't afraid to let the the player get lost, wander out of bounds or trek long distances on foot just to see if there's anything there. The ambient guitar soundtrack and Blame-inspired post-future setting really tie the room together.

YOU MAY ASK WHY I'M 9 LEVELS AHEAD, THAT IS BECAUSE I'VE BEEN GRINDING THE SAME ENEMY FOR 12 HOURS! JUST TO REACH THIS I HAD TO SUFFER AND KILL MY GRANDSON IN A BLOOD RITUAL! GET THIS GAME IF YOU HATE YOUR GRANDSON TOO, I KNOW I HATED MINE BUT NOW HES GONE!

Just finished the game for the first time, was surprised but how much the game has improved since it came out first.
If you like souls-like game you should definitely give this one a chance.

9/10 easily, the best off-brand souls-like game I have played. Atmosphere, level design, voice acting, combat, exploration, OST, all of it is extremely enjoyable. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in these types of games, and be assured it is much more manageable and fair than the more mainstream entries.

The level design is incomprehensible. I feel like I roam around and randomly find the next level then explore the rest of the area via roaming aimlessly killing the same enemies that randomly one shot me until I find some npc that says something incomprehensible and does nothing. The level design feels aimless and so far there is no environmental story telling. I also lag in combat? Like my character will freeze and my attacks become delayed and it feels like I am lagging and its just so weird. I've never felt anything like it in a game. That one meme where its like " incomprehensible have an nice day" applies heavily here. Despite that and the weird janky combat its still more enjoyable than LOTF. Buy on sale and feel perpetual confusion.

Edit: more on the combat, why does it feel like I have high ping? Sometimes I kill a enemy and they will just get stuck in place and die later and it just feels wrong. Sometimes it feels like my character is stuck in place. My character gets stuck on stairs. I am always out of stamina. It just feels so weird man. The only reason I am giving a thumbs up is I am weirdly enamored with this game. Its just such a strange experience.

If positive reviews tell you that aesthetics and atmosphere is best part of the game then it's a good indicator what the rest of the game is gonna be.
Game is worth 1 pound at best.
Congratz on being first game I ever refunded

For a souls-like game made by only by a team of 3 devs, this game is amazing. I didn't encounter any major problems throughout my play through, and I'm glad they added i-frames to the dodge roll. The environments, atmosphere, and music are really good. My only complaint is some of the areas are so massive you can spend too much time trying to figure out where to go and end up going in circles. Overall though I would recommend the game to anyone curious to give it a try.

I'm almost at a loss for words for this game. The entirety of my play time I had a look of disgust/grimace on my face (along with some chuckling). This game is what scraping the bottom of the "Souls-like" toilet bowl is. The texture work here is abysmal, everything looks bad. So bad that the texture work here, looks like texture work other games would use in out-of-bounds areas because the player isn't supposed to go, see or be there. The UI is just bad, enough said. I've spent more time on this review then playing the game, it's that bad. This game gets a big "Oof!" out of 10.

tl;dr: If you like Blame!, E.Y.E., Kenshi and exploration then you will enjoy this.

Bleak Faith plays similarly to Dark Souls in that you control a character from a 3rd person perspective, level up, distribute skill points, upgrade gear and so on. What sets it apart is the amazing atmosphere and the huge interconnected levels. The game world is absolutely MASSIVE with lots of intertwining pathways and you are free to go whereever, whenever you want. The only potential blockade being strong enemies.

It's not a very difficult game. Consumables are plentiful and recharge after each fight. Equipment stats are unified. For example every heavy helmet has the same stats as every other heavy helmet letting you pick and mix and match whatever you think looks the coolest. Gear difference comes from the gems that you can slot into each gear piece to match your playstyle / build. There aren't too many bosses but they are each very distinct and fun to fight. Defeating a boss grants you a perk point, provided you make it to the next checkpoint which is btw the only real death penalty this game has. If a checkpoint is far away you can place your own to minimize run backs. Perks are what really defines your build and can have quite a big impact on the way you play. I said the game was easy but you do have to figure out some things on your own. Tutorials are only rudamentary and you are only given rough directions on where to go. No minimap, no quest markers, no quest logs, nothing. But I think that is great because this game is all about exploring.

The game has some optimization issues but my PC is fairly old at this point so this might just be a me-problem but some areas run at 60fps while others would drop down to 40fps. The settings sadly aren't granular enough to allow me to fine tune my performance but oh well. I never experienced any crashes. Textures here and there can be low res and it's possible to get stuck on terrain while exploring but there's a suicide button to return to your last checkpoint so it's not a big deal.

People often complain about "jank" but the game plays smooth. Combat is weighty and weapons have satisfying impact. I just wish there were more enemies to fight. Rarely will you go up against more than one or two guys. This leads me to my criticism of the game: It's not as advertised anymore. If you watch the second trailer you might be thinking that you'll carve your way through hordes of enemies with blood and limbs flying everywhere but that is not the case. Blood and limbs are there but as I said the enemy density is really low and corpses as well as blood disappear almost instantly. It wasn't like this before, this was changed in a patch for I assume performance reasons? But then why isn't this an option in the settings? In general the game has seen a lot of changes both visually and gameplay wise removing a lot of it's uniqueness in favor of catering to the Dark Souls audience which is a dear shame. If I wanted to play Dark Souls / Elden Ring I'd play Dark Souls. But I wanted to play Bleak Faith and the dream that the devs had when making this game "jank" be damned.

That being said I still had a lot of fun playing. Exploring the huge Omnistructure, getting lost in the atmosphere, building my character and gear was a fantastic experience. If you enjoy exploring strange places and figuring things out on your own then this is the game for you. If you're looking for challenging combat with lots of boss fights or a scripted story then maybe look elsewhere.

Wish I could play the 2023 version.

I was super stoked for this game, pretty sure I even bought it day one, and it absolutely sucked. I refunded it probably that same day. However, the devs have been absolute champs and have worked super hard to turn this game around and make it something super impressive. I’m very glad I gave it another shot, and major props to the devs for all their efforts. Highly recommend this one.

This game was put on my radar back in 2020 with a video of a tech demo. My one disappointment with this game is that they scrapped the free-reign climbing system (understandable as it would've been hell for development and design reasons), but my disappointment ends there.

I loved the **** out of this game, and while there is jank, there's a lot of wise critical design choices.

I LOVE that the combat is less punishing and more predictable. The highlight of this game is the exploration and the fewer times I'm dying to some nonsense attack and losing progress the better.

I LOVE that you don't have to go all the way back to a checkpoint to refill your resources.

I LOVE that you can carry around a portable checkpoint, both adding relief to when you put it down, and the tension of whether you should use it yet or press on further.

I LOVE THAT YOU DON'T LOSE XP WHEN YOU DIE

All this meant my frustration level was consistently lower than in any other soulslike.

For this and the awe-inspiring scenery, Bleak Faith is at the top of my favorites in the genre, second only to the Souls series itself.

This game is less about making small short cautious cycles to and from checkpoints and more about going and getting lost in a world where massive is too small of a word.

Great indie souls-like with a unique environment, emphasis on exploration of a large open world, and fun combat. Gameplay feels like DS1/DS2 in a good way.

more like blame! faith

is fun

I'm not sure why steam only shows 8.1 hours on record, I've definitely put a lot more than that in. That said, I refrained from buying this game at first despite desperately wanting to (I could see the Blame! influence from miles away lol) because of all the issues people reported. However the devs have continued to work on it, and I picked it up a few updates ago. At the current sale price of 14.99 usd it's steal. The game is loads of fun especially if you like souls-like games or action RPGS.

I'm really glad the devs keep working on this despite it being released already. You guys deserve success.

The atmosphere in Bleak Faith is what I hoped for Elden Ring to have. A must have for souls fans.

Wandering through this place is an experience

Love the art, the sound design, the music, the level design, and the gameplay of fighting normal enemies is fine/ok, but when I fought the first boss, it felt really bad (visual and audio cues felt bad, and sometimes when i though i should've been hit i wasn't, and when i thought i shouldn't be hit i was, along with other issues with it, it just felt really bad).

I really wanted to give this a thumbs up, but considering how important boss fights are in such a game, I have to (for now) give it a thumbs down.

A great soulslike game that manages to capture the feeling of the early Souls games.

While it certainly had a rough start, it's impressive how much the game has improved since its initial release, with massive overhauls to combat and progression that did away with most of the early problems the game had.

As far as combat and gameplay goes, it's slower, it's a little janky, but that's if you're comparing it to Elden Ring, it still works well, and giving player the option to animation cancel and not having input queuing puts it a step above some of the earlier Souls Games for me.

The environments are vast, hauntingly empty at times, but not barren in terms of content, there's plenty to do, and a great deal of enemy diversity, each zone have distinct themes and atmospheres while still retaining the feeling of being stuck in a megastructure.

It's a great 15-20 hour romp and was absolutely worth the time and money invested.

Gameplay has been significantly improved since I first purchased the game in November 2023. However, pretty much all the promotional screenshots are of what the game DID *used* to look but, but does not currently look like. A seemingly quite recent update downgraded the lighting shaders in a pretty noticeable way - essentially none of the reflective surfaces you might see in promotional videos or screenshots are actually reflective in the current build of the game, which overall looks really bad, arguably worse than even unmodded Dark Souls: Remastered. No graphics settings changes this.

It's unclear why the developers chose to do this as the game was never in any way hard to run, I was getting a solid 60 FPS at max settings with 1.3x resolution scale on top of that on my GTX 1660 Ti both when I originally played it and now. I'll change this review if they either revert the shader changes or perhaps introduce some kind of toggle option to restore them, at least.

I've been addicted to Soulslike games since I first played Demon's Souls in 2009. I usually snatch up any new souls-like/light I see with eager glee. However, I recall distinctly giving Bleak Faith a hard pass upon it's release a few years back. But I always thought that the premise and setting seemed to be really appealing. Love the abandoned megastructure aesthetic and vibe, so mixing that with a Soulslike, seemed like a really great idea in concept.

Unfortunately the overwhelming negative reviews pretty much scared me off from giving this game a chance. And honestly, I'm glad I waited. Because I have a feeling I would have had a pretty poor reception to this one. But thankfully, that year or two I gave the devs to clean up and "finish" their game, was well, well worth it.

From the moment I loaded into the world, I was entranced by the environment and wanted nothing more than to explore it to its fullest. I don't really write detailed breakdowns of every facet of a game I review. But I want to point out how much I love the graphics and options the devs present the player. You can get this thing looking as good as a modern AAA title, and even on a mid-tier machine, you're going to get great performance using DLSS.

Also of note, the music, sound and atmospheric effects are very very good and really fit the mood and pacing of the game.

The combat mechanics are perfectly serviceable. I have only run into a few minor issues relating to combat (one boss for example, completely disappeared in the middle of a fight, and I had to load back to my last checkpoint to start the fight over). They are really similar to what you would expect from most soulslikes, with a few nice little QoL improvements, and some original ideas thrown in as well. Your builds are highly customizable, thanks to slotting of gems in gear. I'm still toying with a few ideas, because I'm currently totally stuck at two different bosses, and a new area I just opened called "The Desert" seems like somewhere I'm not supposed to be yet (one-shotted by trash mobs lol)!

And finally the environments, which are really the star of the show here, are very interesting and varied. The entire world feels like a mash-up of the classic Manga Blame! with OG Dark Souls and a little of The Surge. The map splinters in every direction but circles back around to create shortcuts, just as you would expect. There was one area in particular "The Deluge", that features some great underwater exploration (which I wish there was more of in that area). It has been a pretty manageable game so far, but there are a few bosses and that aforementioned Desert area that really have me on the ropes at the moment. But these are good things, for a soulslike lover. :)

I can't finish this review without at least mentioning, that despite this game having almost two years of polish and bug fixes, I'm still experiencing the odd and random issue. One bug in particular is very nasty. It makes my player character stop walking at full speed. Almost like a slow spell is on them. But none of them have been game breaking or blockers of any type. So I can live with it.

Overall if you have a love of the genre, I definitely think you'll really vibe on this game. Alternately if you are new to the genre, this one has some QoL features you may miss in other soulslikes, but it's a little obtuse as far as story and player direction (even for this genre), so keep that in mind.

If you like demon's souls you will like this game, it's kind similar to demon's souls and yet you have the demon's souls armor :) if like to get lost in a world full of secrets then this game it's for you.

I don't know what to say that hasn't already been said...

The atmosphere and sheer scale of the world is...unbelievable. A truly awe-inspiring realization of the developers' concept (I recommend watching Mista FiOth's interview with the lead designer!). And it's only a 3-man development team!! Insane what they've accomplished here.

And don't even get me started on the soundtrack (by Berlin-based artist Gabriel Martel), which adds immensely to the atmosphere. Hands down my favourite game soundtrack, and it's not even close.

If you've been waiting for patches to try this game, the time has come to play. There's still some jank, but it's absolutely playable now, and the overall experience is very worthwhile. There's also tons of scope for NG+ build-crafting, etc.

Why don't you play this game? It does everything that dark souls should do. There's more

Top level atmosphere. You will be lost.

Gameplay is better than dark souls. Weapons with variable stats.

Blame!

Same music

Indie. Few bosses. Short game time. Finished in 20 hours.

Support the producer for such quality games.

87

If you like Blame! and soulslike, this is for you. Keep in mind that this is a small dev studio and will feel clunky.

The strength of the game is the aesthetic and potential strengths it has is the the world as a whole,giants,horror elements,story,spectacle,etc. But combat isnt necessarily a part of any of this and the games combat sucks enormous dick. A huge drain that was given centre stage. me no like

Have played quite a few indie souls-likes and BF:F is definitely one of the better ones.

Enemies are a bit janky, combat is clunky (but mercifully not stiff), and the playable vs unplayable game areas aren't that well defined.

But by god, does this game have atmosphere and style. It's a thematically pleasing experience that doesn't waste its time on setting up its world, it just throws you right in and lets you explore it yourself. Most importantly, I never felt like the game was wasting my time - it ended at the right moment and didn't leave a bad taste of wanting it to be done.

A pretty fun 12-15 hour adventure.

Blame meet DS.

A must-buy if you're a fan of BLAME! manga.

Pretty good souls-like experience despite the ps2-era jank.

Might be a bit overpriced, but it definitely calmed my clunky, dark and convoluted action/rpg itch.

It's the love child of some passionate people and it shows, but if you're looking for a purely fun, responsive and engaging action/rpg, this might not be it.

Great Souls-like with an incredible visual style and atmosphere reminiscent of the manga BLAME!
If you like the aesthetics of that manga, you'll feel right at home here.
Combat and gameplay have been greatly improved in the last few months.

the graphics are not good also so many glitches but the combat system and the sound track are great. worth a try

i bought bleak faith sometime shortly after release because the souls features but mainly due to the atmosphere unfortunately at that time i didn't enjoy the game i had a rough experience due to the core mechanics that made the game what it is i wanted badly to enjoy the game but just couldn't bring myself to put more time into it and i refunded the game because i thought the core of the game wouldn't be tweaked to something that i would enjoy but i kept it on my mind and stored it away for the time being.

Fast forward to January 2nd of this year i checked back on the game and the updates the devs put out and a lot of things were tweaked and fixed as well as additions i didn't expect like i-frames on rolls as well as combat fluidity so i picked it back up hoping it might just be the updates that would really make me enjoy the game. I played a bit got a bit more used to the combat and how to fight correctly then i found the item that removes i-frames from rolls and decided i would give it a go the devs made the game without i-frames originally right? maybe i don't need them maybe i didn't give the game enough time or credit and maybe i should stop seeing this as a souls like and more of a souls inspired.

15 hours in im fighting mobs and bosses and im finding beautiful areas, hearing great music, and feeling the urge to keep moving forward even after getting destroyed by cool mechanics. this game is a crazy good time it can be as rough as any souls like\inspired game is but man the things you can do and the places you see are well worth it.

TLDR; give it a shot homie the sights and fights get so much more interesting the more you push through.

Edit: Changed it to not recommended. This game is so frustrating to try to finish and I am fed up with it. Things are so bad near the end game especially the anomaly area boss that is spamming spells. This game disrespects your time and money being advertised as a full-game with a price tag of much more polished products. I don't care if 3 people made it; this isn't a funding round for your pet project.


5/10 overall; giving it a thumbs up for support. Only recommended with a discount and if you can tolerate the bugs and atrocious gameplay, controls, physics and animations. The main selling points are exploration and atmosphere/art. I recommend using 60fps, V-sync and Lossless scaling x2/3 otherwise it is a rough experience.

Very clunky and badly designed. It doubles down on the things it does horribly like the platforming sections. Enemy design is atrocious and bosses are just terrible. I don't agree with trying to make the game a "complete" experience when its base is absolutely broken.

If you run it without V-sync and 60fps lock (which both look terrible), you get stuttery lower fps animations on 90fps preset. A lot of animations are bad. There are bugs and collision issues everywhere.

Overall, a very rough experience. I enjoyed it a bit and liked the atmosphere and bleak art direction, dystopian-futuristic-apocalyptic combination. I wouldn't recommend this game unless it is on a discount and you absolutely want a souls-like after trying everything out there because this "Game" is at the very bottom of the genre.

The only good parts of gampelay are experimenting with builds and perfect blocking attacks with the heavy attack guaranteed crit counter.

I wish the developers kept it simple as a beta or indie title with one small, very polished area with a solid gameplay, physics and animation foundation that will be expanded on. The game needs an overhaul or a more funding with a bigger team to make it a successful IP in the future.

Combat doesn't feel good and for me that the most important thing with game like this.

I hate to be the guy who leaves a negative review with barely any playtime. This game just ain't it. I had high hopes for this game based on the footage, screenshots and relatively positive reviews. It just ain't it. I don't think the promotional material reflects the game well. The environment looks bland and a lot less detailed. The combat isn't fluid like shown. The story is incoherent. This game is like if Lies of P and Mortal Shell had a baby but the baby was born with severe mental and physical disabilities. All the animations and movements just feel off. It feels clunky, sluggish and unresponsive. I rarely stop playing games this early but the gameplay is just atrocious. I'm sure some people can get past the jank and find some enjoyment in this game but this is my limit. There's several much better souls-like games out there. I'm not wasting my time and money with this one.

I watched this game grow from its days just being posts on twitter about the game's development.
Playing from day one to now is such a colossal leap in difference. I very rarely love a video game. Ocarina of TIme, Majora's Mask, and the Mega Man X series when I was a kid, but that was about it until Bloodborne.

This game for me was such a pleasure to be able to watch grow from basically nothing. It's gameplay is awesome, the graphics and world design are incredible, the weapons are all sick (though I'm partially biased in that I've always wanted a Khopesh), and even the enemy designs vary. It's such a good game.
Just buy it. Learn to love the struggle. It's worth it.

Fantastic game, mix of dungeon crawler and souls-like. Atmospheric and beautiful. Combat system is solid. Its well worth full price, on sale its a bargain.

So, this game is NOT the next Elden Ring by any means. If you want something that is spectacular and feels like an old X-Box type RPG game then this is definitely for you. The designs and concepts everywhere are beautiful and the soundtrack is perfect for the game.

This is a game where exploring is rewarded and there is nothing to help you with direction or strategy for most of the game. You need to learn to do all of it yourself. That said, nothing in this game is particularly difficult from a skill perspective. With a modicum of game sense and experience with RPG type games, you will absolutely love this. Definitely worth the price point.