Forgive me Father by developer Byte Barrel and publisher 1C entertainment—PC (Steam) review written by Pierre-Yves with a copy provided by the publisher.
Estimated reading time: 5 minutes
Having released in Early Access late last fall, Byte Barrel and 1C Entertainment’s Lovecraftian first person shooter Forgive Me Father has recently fully launched its madness. Combining a 2D/3D comic book visual style with a retro-like gameplay, there’s plenty for multiple genre fans to enjoy here as we keep seeing an amazing resurgence of the retro FPS style.
With nothing but good things to say back in November when I first previewed Forgive me Father, I find myself with one issue today after full launch. I’ve already said everything that needed to be said back in November. Forgive Me Father continues to be a very well built and designed retro based First Person Shooter taking Lovecraftian lore and putting its own spin on it. The length and pacing of the adventure however all depends on how afraid you are of the dark…
I think it goes without saying, I am, so any area where I had to hold up my lantern instead of my weapons would bring me to a crawl or a full stop. This was especially the case within the asylum where you could just hear things right outside of your vision but had no idea where it really was. Was it around the corner? On the floor above? The floor beneath? Or was it all in your head? In either case the audio design of your adventure will only ever make the visual presentation better.
Set in a first person view, you’ll be moving around a comic book styled world. Whether in normal resolutions or widescreen, the visuals ranged from bright and less creepy to dark and super creepy making you wonder just what was waiting for you around that next corner. Within this comic book styled world is perhaps the element that I enjoyed the most which was the enemy design. Designed in 2D but moving in 3D, these creatures range from undead looking zombies that can replace their heads as you land headshots over to more Cthulhu based beings with guns and tanks that can be exploded.
Regardless of the type of enemy, it’s not until you slow down and see that the enemy always turns to face you head-on where the 2D to 3D magic happens. It’s very well done and makes you think while racing around each level that you are playing a 3D based game even if most of the assets are in very well done 2D. Adding in the elements such as the above mentioned zombies being able to switch heads to keep coming at you and a variety of other madness inspired nightmares, there’s plenty to look at as you try to survive.
To survive these nightmares, you’ll start off with a knife and a pistol before picking up a double barreled shotgun and then an inaccurate submachine gun. Thankfully spray and pray works really well with this gun in large crowds so you just need to know when to use it! Short of these basic weapons, you’ll be able to pick up other new tools such as secret weapons that will last until their ammo counts are empty and you’re back to your own personal arsenal.
Adding to these weapons are limited use “items” which act as abilities as long as you can raise your madness high enough to bank it for further use such as a Healing Cross to restore some of your health or a Necronomicon… because that never ends badly… to give you a few seconds of invulnerability. This is where the twist in the Lovecraftian madness really comes into play. Unlike most other adventures where you have to worry about descending into madness, here you can almost revel in it as not only can you stock up on your item usage but you also become stronger and tougher the higher your madness.
So while it’s generally not recommended to pack an area full of enemies, in this case it can work to your benefit as you can feed off of the increasing madness to help you out later when only going through a few enemies and potentially being at a disadvantage. Also to help out is that you’ll be gaining experience and leveling up which grants you points to use in a skill tree. This tree varies from more health, brighter lanterns if you’re afraid of the dark, NO I DIDN’T TAKE THIS OPTION, being able to gain experience points faster or to be able to morph your weapons into newer and more powerful versions. There’s no right answer and experimenting is the only way to find out for sure.
If I were to have perhaps one complaint, and it’s not really that much of one because of the upsides, it would be the visual presentation when descending into madness. Whether bright and colorful or dark and requiring a lantern to banish the darkness, it’s always easy to see where you’re going and what’s coming towards you. Descending into madness however will steadily greyscale your screen making it harder and harder to see things as everything becomes dark gray against black meaning that you generally have to hope that unless you’re firing at the giant boss in the room that the area is packed with enemies and you can’t really miss even if you wanted to.
Overall though, Byte Barrel and 1C Entertainment’s Lovecraftian first person shooter Forgive Me Father was both very well done and awesome to sit down to. Whether you only have time for a quick level or have an afternoon to dedicate to it, the short levels can cater to both allowing you to decide just how far into madness you want to descend.
Score: 8.25 / 10
