Honestly, it is a shame this game ended up the way it did. It has so much potential to be one of the best 2D Mario platformers ever made, and in some ways it is. However, it ultimately flops in so many aspects. No collision in co-op takes away all of the fun from stealing your friends moves, jumping on your friends to access new areas, throwing each-other for the sake of griefing, and so forth. The wonder flower was a great idea that was held back by repetitiveness by its endgame with its quirkiness and the boss battles were god awful. Some of the worst I have seen in a AAA title in a long time. Extremely easy, boring and lacked creativity. The animations itself are gorgeous and I hope this game acts as a stepping stool for upcoming mario titles. I look forward to the future.

For a long time, I have wished for one game to give me a similar feeling of wonder and discovery as my time with Dark Souls 1. For years I have searched, and as the market filled with countless soul's-likes, I was still unsatisfied. Because they strive to fulfill different criteria of what makes a soul's-like truly great in varying degrees. Except for a single Indie RPG. Bleak Faith: Forsaken.

Made by 3 developers. And one I feel has nearly enough to stand next to Fromsoftware's beloved Soul's games for an indie RPG. Yet, the recent release has been unjustly, unfairly, and unreasonably panned by many users on the web for bugs and an Epic controversy. The former has been hyperbolized beyond disbelief and gatekeeping, while the latter is a rabbit hole; I'm not going to discuss it here.

Despite, these major claims, I sought to review the game based on its own merits upon release. This is my review of Bleak Faith: Forsaken after 34 hours. For full disclosure, I did not ask the developers for a review copy since I wanted to experience it with everyone else.

Anyway, let's get started.

Primarily an open-world survival horror action third-person RPG. A cross between sci-fi and dark fantasy. A ‘Blame! By Tsutomu Nihei’ meets ‘Berserk by Kentaro Miura’ game. You will explore the omnistructure and discover the history behind this unforgiving world. Embrace the unknown and risk your life multiple times against powerful adversaries.

That’s the main gist of what I can glean. And for the most part, it is pretty true in exploring the omnistructure. It does share similarities as a souls-like. However, there is enough content here to differentiate itself from being another soul's clone.

You don't level conventionally in Bleak Faith. Instead, the game runs entirely based on the gear you find in the world and the equipment you earn from enemies. This is an interesting take on the gameplay formula since it eliminates the need to go to a stationary safe zone to allocate stats. Instead, it enforces a bold approach where players must venture to explore the Omnistructure.

A vast world full of verticality with medium-large levels. And where some can quickly become lost in the sheer scale of wonder and discovery. In my experience, I was captivated by the level design and appreciated the environments of sci-fi megastructures to the mix of fantasy elements of technomancy. I became lost in the narrow corridors while searching for better loot and taking in the sheer scenery of places. At times, you will need a mental map of the levels you encounter. Nonetheless, sometimes your curiosity might lead you to find a great treasure or a hidden shortcut to unlock. The great thing about playing games like these without any official guides or information on the web at the time of release is that it forces the player to go in any direction at their peril and curiosity. To my utter joy, the first area you start does a good job of dropping you into the world and letting you go off in any direction. And the 2nd area is impressive due to each level being intrinsically interconnected.

Early previews of trailers have some heavy Shadow of the Colossus inspiration here. And I am glad to report there is such a system in place to climb onto large enemies to weaken them. The mechanic is not half-baked either. You will be fighting differently by striking their legs to stagger them. And then you climb atop their body to strike at their weak points. This mix of Colossus-style combat is refreshing to the combat formula where you fight lone or multiple adversaries. Now you have to keep in mind the larger giants as well.

Climbing, jumping, water traversal are allowed in the game. Adding to the player freedom and traversal on nearly every cliff, crevice, as well as a sprinkle of platforming here. A nice change of pace from battles. To see more of the level structure, the power to do so at any time and for players to figure out their path is an incredible feeling. Granted, it is not at every level. But, the fact is we can jump anytime. Also is integrated well enough with the other mechanics, not to the point of a checklist, but each mechanic felt natural and not thrown in haphazardly. Enhancing the world to make nearly every nook and cranny possible to reach. So if you think there will be some obstacles blocking your path... Well... You know what to do.

I love your character abilities here and the perk system. They visually affect different playstyles to become extra powerful or subtly with stat upgrades. For example, I could pick the Vamprism perk, granting my character life steal. One perk: Increases the number of health potions on my belt, a passive chance to create illusions. Dual weapon & heavy weapon masteries to increase damage and more.

These coupled with interchangeable character abilities, made my playthrough very enjoyable since it emphasized different builds and experimentation.

I like the crafting system here. Since it does not contain a currency system to buy equipment or items. Unlike the Souls games it's inspired by, you don't lose currency on death, so it is okay to die. Therefore, the gameplay loop of exploration and defeating enemies to gather materials becomes a euphoric feeling. Allowing the player to become stronger as they progress further. Upgrading your weapons and gear outputs a good change in the stats of your character. As a result, the crafting system helps the player overcome bosses or tough enemy mobs.

For bosses. They are threatening and do a fantastic job of giving you a good bit of trouble. But, not to the point of being insurmountable to defeat. Simply upgrade gear and weapons, and have enough items on your belt to increase damage, armor rating, and more items. Help immensely to turn the tide of battle. And for the most part that was enough for me. Attackers are also varied and I did not see a lot of copy-paste here and there. The whole world evolves in a way I didn't expect as I progressed deeper into the game, making new foes appear.

Dig the large variety of weapons and armor you can find. Made hunting around the world for unique armor sets and equipment a pleasure and fighting opponents not dull. Considering, I wanted an enemy's gear. Cool cape? That's mine now. Woah cool staff dude. That too will be mine. So the gameplay momentum is sustained as you progress further in the omnistructure.

Weaponry feels powerful and usable in certain situations since they can have one or two unique abilities attached. A unique weapon can emit a sword slash in front of you. The other can teleport behind enemy lines backstabbing them, others can summon beams of light. I haven't found all of them yet, but the sheer amount of weapon abilities with unique animations is a great plus in my books. Just like the souls series, boss weapons feel very powerful to use and very rewarding to have after a tough fight. Also, they aesthetically look very epic.

Speaking of epic. The music slaps. And I dearly want to buy the soundtrack as soon as possible. Boss tracks especially are fitting and overworld levels give off a pleasant track tunes.

Now then, as much as I want to go on praising what works effectively here. There are some things I must critique. And granted, the developers have already fixed the controls and Giant's bug. Two major complaints I had were quickly resolved. During my playthrough. This is very satisfying to see and so, I’ll focus on other matters.

First. Inventory updates. Occasionally will not show what I acquired from an enemy or what item I found. I had to check my inventory constantly and discover, “when did I get that item?” All items should pop up clearly. So I do not need to check my inventory and double-check.

Minor to somewhat troublesome bugs. Compared to the exaggerated claims by some users online panning the release as unplayable due to the number of bugs. Quite frankly, I didn’t encounter that many. And when I did they were largely fixed by the re-spawn mechanic you have innately. You can spawn one nearby when there are no enemies. Nonetheless, I did experience falling off the map, not intentionally mind you two to four times, getting outside level boundaries two to three times, and collisions with the enemy where I am stuck to them about three to four times. These all occurred throughout my thirty-four-hour playthrough and one crash to the desktop. And suffice it to say I didn’t lose a major amount of progress either. Granted my playthrough could be different and I’ve seen different reviews from other reviewers who have played to end credits stating different experiences with bugs. So this could be a ‘your mileage might vary’ type of deal. Be that as it may, most reviews on Steam still have negative thumbs-down ratings. When the developers have already fixed a good number of those complaints regarding the controls, floating while jumping, and instant death from climbing giants. This is a gentle reminder to read other reviewers' impressions of the game who have played extensively. And provide clarity and logical reasoning. There is a clear difference between ten to twenty minutes of playtime to two hours or less and then compared to those who played five, ten, twenty plus hours.

Moving on.

The next points I'll cover can be a hit or miss. Not a negative or a positive. All the same, I have decided to say here for transparency.

To start, hitboxes can be a hit or miss. Sometimes the weapon I am using is just a tad bit short. Other times it is great when evading an enemy. Could be better I feel.

I wish there is a 'perk reset' button or drinking a unique consumable to revert perks. I made the mistake of clicking one perk thinking, "This will be good." Except it's not. And now I'm stuck with a perk for my whole playthrough. Granted, there was a warning attached of picking a perk being irreversible. So that's on me.

Has jank when it was good. But also jank when it is bad. Yet, I still had a lot of fun throughout my playthrough and didn't reach a point of frustration to the degree I wanted to gatekeep this indie RPG for good. In several cases, I had jolly good laughs on some jank occurring. Some of which work in my favor!

I wish there was more story here. Seems, the narrative can be a bit vague at times. And while I appreciated the cutscenes greatly, more dialogue to explain some lore, sidequests for more side activities to do and more NPCs to flesh out the world-building could do wonders in immersing me further.

I also think the combo system can be a hit or miss. I barely touched it early on since I couldn't get the mechanic to activate it correctly. While a friend of mine told me it works for them. So I am going back to see if I can properly activate them in fights. Probably my fault for not fully understanding how it works. Perhaps a tutorial archive in the menu to refresh players on mechanics would be nice.

And that’s it. My final score for Bleak Faith: Forsaken is an 8/10. I was thinking of a 7/10. But I feel that is way too harsh. There is plenty of good content here, the game has organically especially from 3 developers. I could see it going to a 9/10 in the coming months as the devs continue making incredible progress as each day passes. And will add more free updates. Such as NG+, content expansions, and multiplayer. But first fixes since that is a very high priority.

So! If you are on the hunt, for an indie RPG souls-like in the vein of Dark Souls 1 just as I was. A mix of sci-fi and fantasy with a cross of Blame! & Berserk. And don't mind the occasional jank here and there. Then I recommend Bleak Faith: Forsaken. I have faith that the developers from Archangel Studios will come out with something great in store for us.

an asura's wrath without the substance to be an asura's wrath

this game takes a lot of inspiration from that one god capcom game, meaning that most of the cool stuff will be done in QTE and cutscenes, meanwhile youre playing simon says through the entire game, the combat is done through blocking correct colors to both give damage and heal damage but it gets boring so fast, not because its easy but because its the only thing you will do through the entire game, even if it short it will still feel like it drags.
there are some weird bugs like geometry clutching you, enemies throwing you off the map, fall death in like 1 feet from the floor because thats where the character is supposed to die (?)
my biggest grip is that in the cutscenes and QTE youre making 2 extra arms to fight a giant monkey, bodymorphing to match the strenght of a giant gorilla, fighting light with darkness while in game youre just matching colors at the right time, by god it gets dull.
because enemies are designed to always hit you unless you parry, you often see enemies do a quick 190 turn to hit you even if you used the dodge, there is an attack button but it does so little damage compared to defending the right color, it might as well only be there to remind you that parrying is the only thing you should go for in this game, at some point i just ran past enemies to get to the boss fight because all the enemies do is increase game lenght of something that already feeling dull.
it has visuals going for it i'll give it that, its a shame i didn't like it as i went on because it has some amazing designs, cute visuals and a nice non-vocal storytelling.
i specially love the design of the bosses and their attacks, its a shame all the fight revolves around is color matching parrying.

I love these kind of games and GiantSquid never dissapoints. Artstyle and movement is impecable. Performance-wise is extremely smooth. The game's mechanics are quite simple but really satisfying to do. Momentum is really easily gained and easily lost so it becomes this game of snowballing your movement though I didn't quite like that the game has a really low speed cap for the boosts. I would've loved that you could potentially gain as much as speed as possible. The gameplay loop is quite repetitive since the challange-skills gained are extremely static. Since you don't gain any new skills (or at least really significant ones) the difficulty in the game plateaus. Visual effects and music are insane. The fire and the speed movement particles are extremely smooth. Also the beasts have quite a unique design and art to them. I was a bit underwhelmed by the inherent lack of content of the open world since, the only reward you got from it was a really little experience boost which only added a jump to your eagle. It would've been more interesting if exploration could reward you with different attire or bow improvements (more arrows shot per volley, faster drawing speed, more range, etc). Overall really satisfying game.

✔
GameFreak cooked, but they probably should've left it in the oven a little longer. That's precisely how I'd describe this title. This is gonna be a longer one than usual, so grab a snack and get comfy.

Pokémon Scarlet is probably best described as my Cyberpunk 2077: a video game broken at launch that I had such a fun time with, even though the flaws are so obvious to me that I won’t be defending those. I’d like to preface that the bugs I dealt with were minimal at best. I didn’t get any crazy glitches or anything. I just got graphical bugs and the occasional weird goofy thing. The Switch could absolutely run this game no problem, but the fault is with the developers who didn't give the game enough time to get properly optimized for the system it was running on.

The gameplay is largely the same as most Pokémon titles. Catch, battle, and do what you have to do to be the very best. One of the big hooks is that you're running around in a big open world. While I do like the freedom this allows, I think this also causes the routes and paths the game takes you on to lose some of that Pokémon sparkle. Even Generation 8, as bad as Sword and Shield were objectively, had unique areas that stuck out in the mind (Ballonlea, as an example). Scarlet and Violet had maybe two or three places that stuck out in my mind and for a game with many places you can go to, that isn't great. The game feels less "free" and more "unrestricted" at times, if that makes sense. You're able to go wherever you want, but you can only do the things you want if you do them correctly.

The other big hook is Terastalization, the Mega Evolution/Z-Moves/Dynamax of this generation. This is where things get a bit spicier (even though I hardly used Terastalization during my playthrough). This mechanic essentially allows you to change a Pokémon's type during battle. This has a LOT of potential both casually and competitively (I hear, because I'm not in the competitive scene that much, admittedly).

However, the gameplay is where my bigger complaints come in. The Pokédex grind still sucks and in order to have a seamless 100% experience, you need one of three things to be true. You have to have both versions, you have to know someone who has your opposite version, or you have to get extremely lucky with raids (which is really difficult when the raids don't have Pokémon you need). This also becomes a problem when the online functionality for raids requires payment for an online service. The game is also fairly easy, with battles not really scaling to your level if you're going in order (and if you're not, there's a good chance you'll die your first time around). Despite that, I really think that some of the battles in this game are amazing. When you get to the late-game, the battles may not be hard, but they go hard.

You know what else goes hard? The music. This is in no small part thanks to Toby Fox coming on to compose the best tunes in this game. There's a certain theme in the postgame that rocks so hard that he composed and I'm listening to it as I write this. Despite the bangers on this OST, there is one weird song choice that was by someone you probably wouldn't associate with Pokémon normally. You'll know it when you hear it, but it's in the main story.

Speaking of the main story, let's talk about that for a second. It was the one thing that caught my attention. I know not a lot of people come to Pokémon for the story (and I also don't to an extent), but ever since I played Mystery Dungeon, I wanted to see the main series hit that stride. I'm happy to say that while Scarlet and Violet still have the usual Pokémon story, they manage to pace it a lot better than in most of the 3D era (Generation 6 onward).

One more small complaint. I really don’t like how the shiny sound and sparkle from Legends: Arceus is gone. It’s such a small change, but it’s the feature I miss the most. They’d better bring that back in a patch or in the next generation because it’s so easy to unfairly miss a shiny Pokémon now.

Missing those shinies is even more of a shame since I really liked a lot of the Pokémon this generation. Koraidon, the mascot of Scarlet, is a doofy lizard that I adore. Quaxly, one of the starters, is in the running for my top 10 favorite base form starters. Oh, and who could forget Clodsire? My bumbling muddy boy makes me smile every time I see him. There weren't as many misses this time in comparison to things like Dhelmise or Bruxish from Alola for example.

On the whole, I liked it a lot, but it is 100% not without its shortcomings. The bugs can be annoying, the Pokédex grinding was pretty annoying, and some of the online components were less than ideal. None of that bothered me enough to hate it.

Also, yes. I 100% completed the Paldea Pokédex. I'll take my trophy now.