Forgive Me Father Review

 Where's my Duct Tape

Another Retro style boomer shooter to throw on the pile. Forgive Me Father take an amazing art style and builds a relatively standard, but nonetheless solid shooter around it. Feeling akin to something like Blood or maybe Duke Nukem over say, Quake. You jump and shoot your way through a ton of levels using various powers and weapons that, frankly, aren't unique enough to go into detail on but are nonetheless solid.

Yada yada-ing past the gameplay. The art style and atmosphere is the real star of the show here, enemies are beautifully animated in a manner akin to the original Doom. Using stills to make for a strange, weighty illusion of movement alongside careful use of 3d effects and locational damage. Tearing apart the cast of Forgive Me Father is as satisfying as any super shotgun blast at point blank on a cacodemon. Alongside wonderful levels that basically run the full gamut of Lovecraftian tropes. If you find the art style appeal in it's own right, I could basically recommend it on that alone.

Which is good, because while I'm not about to come around and diss the gameplay. It is very solid and I don't really have complaints on a mechanical side. I kept running into issues when it came to identifying or spotting enemies amidst the darkened lights or dingy corridors. Silhouettes felt indistinct and hard to make out, not helped by the usual lovecraftian gibbering masses being a staple, so often times what would kill me is my own inability to actually see what was taking shots. Thankfully, there are no hitscan enemies, so the issue is mitigated somewhat and doesn't become a dealbreaker. But this game might be worth taking a 2nd look over if you're up for considering that old design nugget about making enemies distinguishable at a glance in a hi-energy shooter. Basically, I commend the art style but in the same breath think there are parts of it that clash with the actual core gameplay. Like the screen turning black and white as the combat ramps up, which adds so much to the atmosphere yet only exacerbates the enemy identifying issues.

I wonder if the sequel is better about that. I suppose it's in that Boomer Shooter bundle huh?.... Eh, too many games on my backlog. Especially given clearing my backlog is basically the only reason I played through this one. 

Speaking of, starting Baldur's Gate 3 next so expect the next review in a few months unless I play something alongside it :3

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