Forgive Me Father
Platforms: PC
Reviewed on: PC
Reviewer: Maiyannah Bishop
Review Play-Time: 7h
Developer: Byte Barrel
Publisher: Fulqrum Publishing
Released: 2022-04-07
Review Published: 2022-07-23
Editor's Note: Maiyannah's copy of Forgive Me Father was gifted to her by a reader.
Forgive Me Father is a Lovecraftian-themed retro first-person shooter developed by Byte Barrel and published by Fulqrum Publishing. This one stood out to me among the many other retro FPS in the market for admittedly two reasons: firstly, after Strife I was looking for a game that had a visual style that was different but also appealing - which to me at least the comic-style appearance of the press shots of this one definitely was something a little different if nothing else, and secondly, while there are plenty of Lovecraft-inspired adventure and horror games, a FPS is rather different a take on the theme so I was intrigued as to how Forgive Me Father would pull that off. Well, this is more Hammer Films horror than actual horror, but the game I found was something of a flawed gem: an enjoyable, schlocky shooter with plenty of ham and a few shortcomings that stop it short of true greatness. That's already more positivity than I can manage for most of the retro-shooter glut, so lets dig into this steaming seafood buffet, no?
Most immediately, the thing that I noticed about Forgive Me Father is that the first level with which I was presented is aggressively linear. I forgave this as it was the opening level, but I cannot say that it improved much as time went on through the first episode. Indeed, even the boss arena in the first level was somewhat claustrophobic, and there are only a scarce handful of areas which felt open in any sense. In fairness to the game, however, it does open up pretty significantly in the “second episode” and from that point onward. I wouldn't really blame anyone who said this game gets off on the wrong foot, all the same.
- good selection of weapons and variety of monsters, not too overwhelming like strife
- very neat art style
- shooting is impactful, feels good - not amazing, but good
- special items feel a bit gimmicky
- false choice in upgrades tree
- some neat attention to detail: realistic and non-distracting echo in one large arena bit in 2nd ep for eg
