This review contains spoilers
I don't know what to think about Bendy... pretty much nothing here is mediocre, every aspect of Bendy is either great or terrible, and so playing through it was an absolute rollercoaster. But unfortunately, I think the bad does outweigh the good here, and my takeaway tl;dr review would be 'unrealised potential' (and yes, this review is definitely 'tl').
I think it's important to state there are some things I really did like about this game though. In general, the art direction is very strong. The 'pencil-drawn' sepia-tinted monochrome aesthetic of the game is genuinely very good. I also particularly like how they subvert this near the end by introducing colour into the world just before the final boss. The world is very derivative of Bioshock's Rapture at times, but this art direction does give it enough of a character to stand out somewhat. The game is also pretty good at conveying both a dark atmosphere and a sense of adventure. The level design is generally pretty good and, while the level theming is pretty scattershot and abruptly changing at times, it does all contribute to the pretty decent worldbuilding. At times parts of the world of Bendy feel almost Lewis Carroll-esque, and these were where the game shined the most; I wish they had leaned into this side of things more and taken themselves a little less seriously.
But Bendy also has a strong tendency to set up interesting-sounding ideas, concepts or enemies, but then seemingly not know what to do with them. The aforementioned use of colour that I really appreciated in the moment just... abruptly ends two rooms later and is never mentioned again. The same goes for things like Searcher enemies or the Pit; things constantly referenced and bigged up in NPC dialogue, only to appear only very fleetingly or not at all. But there's also a fair bit of the opposite problem too. Plenty of set-pieces, and plot reveals happen with seemingly no explanation or reason I could see (e.g. when you get kidnapped from Wilson's Retreat by a character you've never seen before for like 5 minutes and then just end up back where you were before without anything being changed). I'm going to assume a lot of this is callbacks to Bendy and the Ink Machine, which I have not played: there's no problem having a touch of fan service in your game, especially if you are a sequel, but there really is a lot of this kind of thing in Bendy and it just comes off as incredibly underdeveloped.
Also on that front, the characters' visual design is... baaad. Nobody looks like they belong in the beautifully crafted world. Most standard enemy types boil down to 'Bioshock sploicer covered in glossy black slime' which never fails to look out of place in the deliberately very matte and straight-line based environments. The Ink Demon looks more goofy than scary, and Bendy himself... don't get me wrong, he's a nice character design in 2D and a great mascot for the series, but he just looks kinda dumb rendered in 3D. I wish they had had characters like Bendy and the Ink Demon just be 2D animations in the 3D world in the style of Who Framed Roger Rabbit or similar; especially because, despite Bendy being a game about a 1930s-style 2D animation studio, there is somehow no 1930s-style 2D animation in the game! Come on Bendy, if Cuphead can do it, so can you. Such a wasted opportunity!
The gameplay could be worse, but there really isn't much there to write home about. The main two options available to you in most encounters are stealth and melee combat, and neither is well-developed at all. The enemy AI and detection cones in the stealth sections are very very generous, meaning there really is almost no challenge here, especially as you can reset all enemy aggro by finding any designated hiding spot and sitting in it for 2 seconds. The combat is pretty dire; the only option you have is a wrench, with no ability to block or dodge, so every fight becomes 'whack the baddie in the face until either you or they stop moving'. This becomes especially pronounced when you realise there is no punishment for death; you just respawn in a nearby Vita-Chamber (or whatever Bendy calls them, it really isn't trying to cover up what it's stolen from Bioshock at this point).
There are two gameplay mechanics that really pissed me off though, and honestly they are the two biggest complaints I have about this game: Slicer and 'The Ink Demon is Coming'. Slicer is an enemy who likes to, at random intervals, suddenly appear in the middle of the screen with a big audio sting, whack you once for a bit of damage and then vanish. Bendy is full of cheap jumpscares that honestly I was willing to overlook, but Slicer is probably the cheapest jumpscare tactic I have ever seen in any media. And as far as I can tell it is completely random; I once had her pop up 4 times in one room in the space of about 2 minutes, and it's not scary it's just unpleasant. The Ink Demon thing is better on paper, but implemented very poorly. Every now and again, wherever you are, the screen will darken at the edges and you will get a message 'The Ink Demon is coming, Hide!' and you have a few seconds to find a hiding spot or die (you get a game over screen and everything, no Vita Chamber cheesing here). In theory, this makes you constantly on edge, advancing slowly through the world while making sure you always have a mental map back to the last hiding spot you passed. In practice it's just fucking annoying. If it pops up while you're slowly crawling in air vent (which apparently doesn't count as a hiding spot) or about to enter a combat set-piece where hiding is disabled, you just get to die and there is fuck all you can do about it. This is particularly bad when backtracking; if you aren't manually saving every couple of minutes, then these unavoidable deaths can set you back minutes because the game doesn't autosave when you're backtracking. So yeah, I guess I did 'Fear the Ink Demon', but not in the way the game wanted me to.
Basically, this review is as long as it is because I really do want to like Bendy. It really is commendable for an indie developer to tackle something of this scope, and there is strong promise peeking through some of the cracks. But the final product ends up being a Bioshock clone made by people who seem not to understand what made Bioshock great. And I think that's just a bit sad. It's not like I didn't enjoy my time playing Bendy, it was a decent enough experience on the whole and the unique world makes it quite a memorable one, but Bendy drops the ball in so many ways that I just don't feel like I can ever recommend it.
I think it's important to state there are some things I really did like about this game though. In general, the art direction is very strong. The 'pencil-drawn' sepia-tinted monochrome aesthetic of the game is genuinely very good. I also particularly like how they subvert this near the end by introducing colour into the world just before the final boss. The world is very derivative of Bioshock's Rapture at times, but this art direction does give it enough of a character to stand out somewhat. The game is also pretty good at conveying both a dark atmosphere and a sense of adventure. The level design is generally pretty good and, while the level theming is pretty scattershot and abruptly changing at times, it does all contribute to the pretty decent worldbuilding. At times parts of the world of Bendy feel almost Lewis Carroll-esque, and these were where the game shined the most; I wish they had leaned into this side of things more and taken themselves a little less seriously.
But Bendy also has a strong tendency to set up interesting-sounding ideas, concepts or enemies, but then seemingly not know what to do with them. The aforementioned use of colour that I really appreciated in the moment just... abruptly ends two rooms later and is never mentioned again. The same goes for things like Searcher enemies or the Pit; things constantly referenced and bigged up in NPC dialogue, only to appear only very fleetingly or not at all. But there's also a fair bit of the opposite problem too. Plenty of set-pieces, and plot reveals happen with seemingly no explanation or reason I could see (e.g. when you get kidnapped from Wilson's Retreat by a character you've never seen before for like 5 minutes and then just end up back where you were before without anything being changed). I'm going to assume a lot of this is callbacks to Bendy and the Ink Machine, which I have not played: there's no problem having a touch of fan service in your game, especially if you are a sequel, but there really is a lot of this kind of thing in Bendy and it just comes off as incredibly underdeveloped.
Also on that front, the characters' visual design is... baaad. Nobody looks like they belong in the beautifully crafted world. Most standard enemy types boil down to 'Bioshock sploicer covered in glossy black slime' which never fails to look out of place in the deliberately very matte and straight-line based environments. The Ink Demon looks more goofy than scary, and Bendy himself... don't get me wrong, he's a nice character design in 2D and a great mascot for the series, but he just looks kinda dumb rendered in 3D. I wish they had had characters like Bendy and the Ink Demon just be 2D animations in the 3D world in the style of Who Framed Roger Rabbit or similar; especially because, despite Bendy being a game about a 1930s-style 2D animation studio, there is somehow no 1930s-style 2D animation in the game! Come on Bendy, if Cuphead can do it, so can you. Such a wasted opportunity!
The gameplay could be worse, but there really isn't much there to write home about. The main two options available to you in most encounters are stealth and melee combat, and neither is well-developed at all. The enemy AI and detection cones in the stealth sections are very very generous, meaning there really is almost no challenge here, especially as you can reset all enemy aggro by finding any designated hiding spot and sitting in it for 2 seconds. The combat is pretty dire; the only option you have is a wrench, with no ability to block or dodge, so every fight becomes 'whack the baddie in the face until either you or they stop moving'. This becomes especially pronounced when you realise there is no punishment for death; you just respawn in a nearby Vita-Chamber (or whatever Bendy calls them, it really isn't trying to cover up what it's stolen from Bioshock at this point).
There are two gameplay mechanics that really pissed me off though, and honestly they are the two biggest complaints I have about this game: Slicer and 'The Ink Demon is Coming'. Slicer is an enemy who likes to, at random intervals, suddenly appear in the middle of the screen with a big audio sting, whack you once for a bit of damage and then vanish. Bendy is full of cheap jumpscares that honestly I was willing to overlook, but Slicer is probably the cheapest jumpscare tactic I have ever seen in any media. And as far as I can tell it is completely random; I once had her pop up 4 times in one room in the space of about 2 minutes, and it's not scary it's just unpleasant. The Ink Demon thing is better on paper, but implemented very poorly. Every now and again, wherever you are, the screen will darken at the edges and you will get a message 'The Ink Demon is coming, Hide!' and you have a few seconds to find a hiding spot or die (you get a game over screen and everything, no Vita Chamber cheesing here). In theory, this makes you constantly on edge, advancing slowly through the world while making sure you always have a mental map back to the last hiding spot you passed. In practice it's just fucking annoying. If it pops up while you're slowly crawling in air vent (which apparently doesn't count as a hiding spot) or about to enter a combat set-piece where hiding is disabled, you just get to die and there is fuck all you can do about it. This is particularly bad when backtracking; if you aren't manually saving every couple of minutes, then these unavoidable deaths can set you back minutes because the game doesn't autosave when you're backtracking. So yeah, I guess I did 'Fear the Ink Demon', but not in the way the game wanted me to.
Basically, this review is as long as it is because I really do want to like Bendy. It really is commendable for an indie developer to tackle something of this scope, and there is strong promise peeking through some of the cracks. But the final product ends up being a Bioshock clone made by people who seem not to understand what made Bioshock great. And I think that's just a bit sad. It's not like I didn't enjoy my time playing Bendy, it was a decent enough experience on the whole and the unique world makes it quite a memorable one, but Bendy drops the ball in so many ways that I just don't feel like I can ever recommend it.
Landshark
7 months ago