Bleak Faith Forsaken Review, a “Cursed” Soulslike Coming to PS5

With the great media coverage exercised over the years by the branded works FromSoftwareit was almost inevitable that, within a short time, many products inspired by these games would appear on the horizon. Among these, in a certain sense, we also find Bleak Faith Forsakena title originally released in 2023, developed and published by the independent team Archangel Studios.

This summer 2024 the title returns to the shelves with a version designed for the consoles of this generationwhich we reviewed on PS5. Since this is our first time with this intriguing and obscure project, we’ll focus on both the console adaptation and a brief analysis of the general aspects that interest the game itself.

Between horror and soulslike

Bleak Faith Forsaken was born and is proposed to the public as an experience capable of to melt the experience of Bloodborne And Dark Souls with some rather strong scenic and stylistic choicesas well as capable of making us jump on several occasions. In short, a hybrid between a Miyazaki and a third-person horror title, so to speak.

However, to define this title as a “more of the same” or even a copy of FromSoftware’s works, it wouldn’t do it justice: although the dark fantasy inspiration is evident in some moments Dark Soulsthe title has a soul of its own that is revealed to us from the premise of the plot and the artistic style.

With a strong science fiction component and futuristic, in fact, the title unites in fact the two great narrative universes taken into consideration, giving life to an iconic and easily recognizable style, and with a clear and carefully structured identity starting from the settings up to the character design.

It is precisely through this last aspect that we are able to fully understand the juxtaposition with the horror genre: never like in Bleak Faith will the enemies and, in particular the bosses, be structured in such a way as to to instill a fear that goes beyond the power expressed from these on the battlefield. Skeletal, disproportionate, deformed or sudden-movement creatures will be the order of the day and, as if that were not enough, blood will flow in rivers throughout the entire campaign, making the gaming experience not only terrifying, but also quite violent.

Also thanks to a careful choice of colours and elements of the settings, we can’t say that the title is actually a horror but, more correctly, we feel we can say that very few soulslikes manage to have a horror component Like this well-integrated.

Avoid death at all costs

Our pseudo-android, a character that we will control from the beginning of our adventure, has a further peculiarity which contributes to detach Bleak Faith from the mass: he must die as little as possible if he wants to increase his potential in a decisive way. The character quality system, in fact, is simplified compared to the titles we are generally used to in the genre (the parameters are only 4) but, to see our qualities properly enhanced, we will have to stay alive as long as possible.

The title offers the player a moveset Already well known for lovers of the soulslike genre: third-person movements with the ability to run, crouch, roll, perform series of “light” or “heavy” attacks and parries, in addition to the special abilities which we will talk about later.

Let’s look at the title’s combat from two perspectives: we have precise and well-defined hitboxes, which allow us to “play” with the enemy’s not exceptional AI and, at the same time, a character with his own physics, with his blows that will be slow and heavy, unlike the faster and more hasty ones of his opponents.

All these variables are carefully managed by developers but, especially regarding the second one, we struggle to find a motivation beyond the necessary increase in the overall difficulty level. In short, the gameplay does not shine for originality in the choices, except for the introduction of special abilities which will allow a substantial improvement of the player, from their activation until their death.

One element that we are going to underline is the fairly small sections of the mapbut much layeredwith a large presence of stairs and floors to climb that modify our way of acting in a rather intelligent way (the risk of seeing a terrifying monster appear at the end of a climb will require us to act with incredible caution). A level design that at times also pleasantly reminded us of the brilliant Lies of P.

Every aspect of character control, along with the all-important camera management, can be easily adapted via the game settings, full of variables to apply to every type of player. An observation regarding the structure of the menus is necessary: ​​writings and screens are very small and, often, difficult to read.

Going beyond the gameplay setting, we come to what is, unfortunately, the achilles heel of Bleak Faith: the management on technical side. In fact, from the very first moment of the game, we will have to deal with the interpenetration of our character with the setting and unappealing frame rate dropseven in relatively calm situations on screen.

The most punishable aspect of the entire project, however, is animation management: clumsy, limited and unrealistic, they seem not to keep up with the rest of the game world, deep from a technical point of view and delicately brutal from an artistic one, with a impeccable choice of colors and soundtrack and capable of creating great transport.

The PS5 adaptation, therefore, does something we would hardly expect from a small team: take full advantage of the controller’s potential. When walking or running on a hard surface, for example, we may perceive a slight vibration: details like this help us understand how much the developers have focused on the vibration factor.identification For a product with a strong sensory transport.