Just painfully mediocre but with a lot of promise...

For starters, the movement feels pretty bad, just plainly. An important aspect of a shooter (or just games in general) is if it feels good to simply walk around... that is not the case in Dread Templar.

There are a few neat guns but for the most part, the gunplay is pretty lackluster. Almost everything in this game feels weak. I mainly attribute this to the fact that the sound design is pretty horrendous, everything just sounds dull. Really that's the best word for this entire game, dull.

Level design is also not very fun and since the movement feels horrible, I don't care to look for any secrets (not that they're very easy to pin down anyways).

The most redeeming things this game has are its upgrade system and I guess the visual style?? The upgrades can be fun and interesting but they alone don't save the game's gunplay. The visuals are also just kind of generic for the most part... some of the later weapon designs are neat though and the enemies look pretty neat... environments are also kind of cool for the most part.

All this to say that it's not particularly bad, just really damn bland. I can't see myself picking it back up any time soon.

a tolerable checklist of boomer shooter game design. shotguns this meaty and the game's fun take on a BFG-like super weapon are severely hampered by sprawling yet empty levels that somehow look so drab in such a cool setting. the world is so monotone in its textures but not in a mirrors edge or devil daggers way, it's more like samey textures plastered all over rooms making them hard to distinguish themselves from each other. the lighting can be pretty at times but barely gets adventurous, neither being too playful or dramatic at pretty much all times.

the combat is close to good, the quick weapon swapping is akin to doom eternal catharsis but the repetitive enemies and lame movement is a brick wall to the fighting. theres no bhopping man and it feels so sluggish. theres seemingly no momentum, just holding W to shoving a shotgun into a demon's face.

so far, it's just average. nothing to write home about but nothing atrociously horrible. seems short so ill play it through.

I dunno! I like how it controls, the weapons are all sick, but it’s a very exhausting game. The music never lulls meaning there’s lots of times it’s playing the hardest riff you’ve ever heard while simply scavenging for ammo and secrets, and enemies almost all rush you at a rapid pace, with few enemies that do not, leaving me with want for a little space. The story’s also pretty bad and the production value in some areas is really lacking but I can excuse that kinda thing for an indie retro shooter - I just wasn’t feeling it, I guess.

I don't really play FPS a lot, but I am interested in this genre. Dread Templar picked my interest, so I decided to give it a go. Movement feels good and responsive, guns shoot, music rocks, enemies slay and are being slayed too, retro-style graphics are stylish but detailed enough to contain more... details; power-ups are plenty but the currency you pay for installing those upgrades is not, which is a good thing - it makes you choose between preferred guns and therefore between playstyle. But that's pretty much it. Dread Templar has seeds of a good game scattered here and there, but they did not grow in some memorable and engaging mechanics.

The music is just there... it's not a bad music, it's just metal. Metal everywhere. Even when you're just walking with no one in sight. Feels goofy.

Save system is weird. I mean, where is autosave? I'm not against having an option to save in different slots but after two hours of playing I started question myself why would I need different slots anyway? It's not like if I find more secrets the ending would change, is it? And why do I need to press several buttons to save in the only slot I use? Too much work for something trivial. Also, sometimes (at least in the first chapters) these checkpoints at which you can save are close to each other which doesn't really makes sense. You can save here or 50 metres away, it won't really matter.

The enemies lack some sort of interactivity. Yes, they are different in their attacks, but all you can really do is shoot them. The only difference is target's size and (sometimes) speed. But it honestly looks uninspiring and feels boring to just walk and shoot. Would be cool if some enemies reacted to your arsenal differently depending on what guns you are choosing to use. Because for now it seems like you just need to use weapons that deal more damage. That is until you run out of bullets.

Also, explosions. I want to see their impact. But really you don't see the explosion itself, there is no immediate visual responce. Yes, enemies die around some radius, but it's not as satisfying when you actually see fire and smokes. Just a side note.

I refunded the game because my limited playtime wasn't promising. The only thing I hold against Dread Templar is lack of more nuanced directional and artistic approach. It's just a boring game. It's not that bad, but it also is far from good.

Dread Templar is one of those games that, for the first hour or so, feels like pure bliss. Refreshing ideas are being dropped in left and right, enemy variety and challenge feels just right, and the whole thing is wrapped together with satisfying gameplay. However, the more you play it beyond that, the more the cracks start to show. Some of the initial praise still holds true, but much of it quickly deteriorates until you're left with a game that, by the end, you just want to be over.

Credit where it's due, the visuals are the strongest point by far. They're this weird mix between Quake and Blood West, though in a way that helps it feel both distinct and at times beautiful. Environments are wholly unique, and each episode has a very distinct style that, for the first few episodes, feels like a natural progression. The later episodes can feel like serious tonal shifts for reasons I'll explain more soon, but they're still beautiful in their own right.

The sound design is also very well done. The weapons each sound quite punchy with some heavy bass accompanied by impact, and of course there's a "HUH" on every jump as all boomer shooters should have. The soundtrack is also excellent, with the relatively unknown John S Weekley showing off some serious skill.

...However, the game doesn't quite do his soundtrack justice. While the tracks themselves are great, most tracks are used as the only background audio (and constant background audio, may I add) for two straight missions... which each last 10-20 minutes. This means that, best case scenario, you're listening to the same constant song for 20 minutes straight. By that point, the song just becomes grating. I get that the budget for music may have been tight, but having the music be constant rather than used sparingly was a deliberate choice that seriously harmed the audio.

Gameplay also quickly devolves into the same process over and over again. Enemies work off either spawning of through line of sight detection, and most run straight at you with a mad sprint. This means every fight goes the same way. You run into the room, spawn or aggro all enemies, then consistently walk backward while firing into the group till all are dead. From there, you head through that room, head into the next, and repeat the process. There are a couple times where this wasn't the case, but these were the exception rather than the standard. It caused the game to become very, very repetitive which is already a common problem with games like this.

For what it's worth, there is quite a lot of side content combined with an upgrade system that genuinely rewards exploration. Each weapon gets two upgrade slots along with a super upgrade slot of sorts, completely changing the function of that weapon. These require certain items and to physically find the upgrades which does feel welcome, especially when I can completely transform something like the super shotgun into a crowd deleter. I do wish the stat boosts were more impactful, but you take the good with the bad.

The cherry on top, and again a common problem with boomer shooters, is the length. The first three episodes feel fairly cohesive despite outstanding issues, though it's clearly obvious that they saw these initial outings took 4-5 hours and scrambled to get more content in. Episodes 4 and 5 feel grossly disjointed from the rest of the game, with more random locales compared to the first three episodes. Again, the visual fidelity is there, but something's lost in the progression. Instead of being some welcome additional content, it ends up only drawing more attention to the glaring flaws of Dread Templar, and ended up dragging down my score.

I still enjoyed my time with Dread Templar since the gunplay is genuinely satisfying and again, the game is beautiful. However, it leaves a lot to be desired and could've been a much better game with some changes in key areas. Instead, it's an experience I'll mostly forget ever happened.

Decent retro FPS, but a lot of its positives are accompanied by something pulling it down.

The upgrade system includes a lot of unique changes to how a weapon behaves or can be used as a whole, although a good deal of those mods are extremely overpowered whereas some are borderline useless.

The soundtrack is pretty good with a lot of nice metal songs, but they loop so often during the game's long levels that it kind of blends together at some point.

The game really drags on towards the end, featuring five episodes with levels being really long compared to other retro-FPS'.

The arsenal itself is decent, with (mostly) punchy sounds, but as is often usual with Retro-FPS, their impact on enemies is only felt after you kill them by gibbing them (and even the gibbing is somewhat underwhelming).

Dread Templar is a boomer shooter that seemingly wants to be everything and it almost nails everything! Something is just... off about the whole game.

It reminds me of everything that is good and bad about that era of shooters: The very chaotic levels, seemingly large but very shallow enemy variety and the fact that it has "episodes", each with a different theme.

What makes Dread Templar unique are the runes and the "default equipment" of the protagonist. At the first episode of the game, you assemble what is basically the essential weaponary for your character, namely a katana, a bow and a trap launcher. These weapons will be your best friends along the journey, as 2 out of 3 has infinite ammo, you only need to wait for a short cooldown to use them again. The runes are essentially perks and modifiers that you can find in secret locations, and along the main path, making your weapons shoot faster, deal more damage or store more ammo.

Along these weapons you also have a bunch of other toys, as a demonic rocket launcher thing, dual SMGs, shotguns and the list goes on. These weapons are pretty standard and you need to mix them with the above mentioned katana and the bow to create combos. You can also slow down time, and dash, so you can really make those ugly demons suffer for what they done to you.

Speaking of demons, the enemies are annoying, and their designs are just simply flawed most of the time. There is one in particular, that can sidestep, but only in one direction, no matter where he is, so he can just sidestep into a wall and appear out of nowhere, making these creatures annoying, instead of challenging. There are also enemies, which can just zap you almost instantly, ones who can bombard you with what seems like exploding spores and the list goes on. They are not that good to engage with, that is what I am saying.

What makes this game seemingly fun though is the fact that you have the bow and the katana, and the obvious mixing and matching of runes, where you can create alternate versions of guns with the highest tier runes. The SMGs can become mini chainguns or the regular pistols can become demonic versions with better bullets. These alone can make up for the flawed enemy designs, the seemingly messy concept of the game, and the overall fact that it feels kind of overly long to finish this game. I played this one for 10 hours, and it did not have that much content in it. I wish this was a shorter, sweeter and better game, but I did not regret my time with it, thanks to the vast combat equipment.

I don't know how to describe it other then everything feels very amateurish? Guns feel okay but some have missing animations like the shotgun while others feel weak to shoot like the duel smgs. The most annoying is the save system however i dont know who thought it would be a good idea to have a save system in you fast paced boomer shooter where you have to stop at save points and manually save halting all action. This will inevitable end up withe you forgetting to save and then dying and having to replay a decent chunk. It does have auto saves but they are not very common. Put in almost an hour before I realized it was just not for me.