Bleak faith is a master class in awful.
On any given day this game would be appalling, but to be released in the same window as Wo Long, further highlights its shortcomings and is the nail in it's coffin.
The best way to describe it would be with a movie analogy; whenever Hollywood releases a blockbuster, there is usually a low budget, poor quality cash in. For every 'Guardians of the Galaxy' movie there is a 'Galaxy Guardians' movie. This game is Galaxy guardians through and through.
There are no redeeming features about this game. If you are looking for a reason to buy it? then stop reading now.
Bleak faith, is a soulslike. To be perfectly honest it is probably the most challenging soulslike game I have ever played, not because the actual game is especially difficult, but because trying to actually "play the game" is difficult.
Firstly, the developers made this game primarily for mouse and keyboard, stating that "if you want to play on controller you may encounter some issues" .... and they were not kidding!
I have no idea why, in 2023, anybody would want to play a soulslike ARPG using a mouse and keyboard, but I guess some people do and I think it's fantastic that the option is there. However primarily, most modern gamers, with modern setups, would most likely prefer to play this with a controller.
The ingame support for controller does seem to have a lot of options, however none of them actually work.
The unwritten rules are, that when you create a soulslike game, you stick to the tried and tested soulslike controller layout.
People have poured hundreds of hours into this genre and muscle memory is invaluable when it comes to playing this type of game.
Bleak Faith immediately throws all of that out of the window and presents you with a default controller setting which is one of the most bizarre, uncomfortable and unintuitive I have ever used.
The button you would ordinarily use for jump, is now an interact, while the Dodge button is Dodge; as well as Sprint and jump.... and never seems to do what it's supposed to do at the time it's supposed to be doing it.
Simply trying to walk up a knee height step becomes an almost impossible 'Boss' challenge.
I managed to gain some semblance of control over my character by sacking off the ingame and using the Steam controller settings.
Even then control of your character feels somewhat weightless and janky. Within my first 5 minutes of the game I had suffered three deaths, not at the hands of any enemy, but simply by falling off the environment in bizarre and floaty ways.
Combat is equally sluggish and clunky causing frustration. Not in the classic 'harsh but fair', learn the mechanics and overcome type of way; just in the pulling your hair out why is this happening way.
Graphically the game looks okay, it's one of those games where a screenshot is going to look good, but when you're actually playing the game it's all very 'samey'.
I will give them credit however, frame rates seemed to be pretty consistent and the game seemed well optimized on PC (which given the current state of poorly optimized AAA releases is praise indeed).
At the top of the review I mentioned this came out around the same time as Wo Long from team Ninja. An example of a beautifully balanced and designed game that feels responsive and a genuine joy to play. I have already put over 30 hours into this game and can't recommend it enough.
Conversely I had a very hard time with Bleak Faith. If it were purely down to personal choice I would have stopped playing this game after about 15 minutes and apply for a refund however given a professional responsibility for a fair review I played for a couple of hours and quite honestly disliked every moment of it.
As a fan of the soulslike genre, it is an incredibly disappointing experience and not one I would recommend to anyone.
I am neither a purist nor an elitist I have enjoyed most of the soulslike games released to some extent or another.
Some of the indie souls have been fantastic most notably Mortal Shell and more recently, Asterigos. Proving that you don't need a big budget and large development teams to produce a quality and enjoyable game.
Unfortunately Bleak Faith, is neither quality nor enjoyable and I can't recommend this on any level.
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