One of the more exhausting boomer shooters I've played. The retro FPS revival has lead to a lot of new ideas and I feel Forgive Me Father is on to something, it's just very rough around the edges.

The combat pacing is great, the guns all feel pretty good, the RPG tree adds some nice tradeoff paths to upgrade into, the art style is top notch, there's plenty of enemy variety that all feel different, and the music is pounding and loud.

It's just a shame that it's level design (despite some great set dressing and level ideas) is very... messy... While I can't say I got terribly lost, it started to remind me more of Turok or Shadow Warrior level design than say an id FPS or Duke Nukem 3D. Lot of what's almost hostile type encounter setups that hinge on feeling a bit cheap. There's also some pretty annoying enemies added to the later levels that adds much unneeded vertical stress to combat (flying enemies always suck shit, don't do them).

I think the other part where this falls flat is the boss fights. They're inventive and I appreciate that they're there but they just feel unpolished. Requiring you to take your eyes off the arena floor while pummeling you with smaller enemies. The challenge comes off like it was originally too easy so they had to add more to ramp the difficulty up. It just ends up being too busy.

Which I guess really that's this game's biggest problem... A lack of polish. The bones are there and they're strong. I love the presentation a lot with it's grindhouse pulpy comic book approach to Lovecraft. I think this almost could have been among The New Great Ones. Hopefully the second game ends up ascending where I wish this did.