Forgive me Father

Forgive Me Father is a perfectly competent first-person shooter that successfully manages to integrate a lot of elaborate elements, such as a fairly unique art style, as well as creating an engaging progression system, and has more than enough content to keep even a speedy player engaged for a decent length of time. However, where it falls short is in its implementation of the most basic details, such as sound design, hit registration, and level design. For someone who’s not looking for anything exceptional, but just a solid, relatively fast-paced shooter to pass a couple of hours playing, Forgive Me Father will be right up your alley. But if you’re aiming your sights higher, then maybe you’re better off letting this particular title sink back to the crushing depths of your nearest ocean.

If you have the time for another retro FPS in your life, Forgive Me Father will provide some solid entertainment. The fact that it’s fairly inexpensive and has Lovecraft-inspired enemies will be attractive to some, too. There are better examples available in the genre though. So, while it’s in no way a bad game, it’s hard to call it essential. It’s simply an enjoyable but unspectacular old-fashioned romp.

Forgive Me Father is certainly atmospheric and a lot of fun, although fans of retro boomer shooters will find much more to like than those who prefer a more modern approach.

Forgive Me Father mixes the tried and true mechanics of classic FPS's with an atmosphere so thick it couldn't be cut through with a hail of bullets.

With its monotonous gameplay and dull story, Forgive Me Father makes Cthulhu sad.

Forgive Me Father is one of those games that I like more in theory than in practice, unfortunately. It’s got a solid premise, a really cool, unique art style, and a compelling RPG system, but it lacks a certain level of polish that would help make it a more memorable experience. I’d say if you’re a diehard FPS fan, you should totally give it a try, but if not, this might be one to skip.

Forgive Me Father is not a bad game and knows how to give good moments, which will surely be appreciated by fans of the genre to which it belongs, that of vintage first-person shooters. Too bad that the many ingenuities of the development team are evident, which failed to avoid some design shortcuts or the use of some not-so-exceptional gimmicks to put the player in difficulty. All in all, you might tolerate them, but they certainly keep them from excelling.

Outside of a few mostly inconsequential panel-based vignettes scattered around, and levels that take you from a small town through to a backwoods swamp and then through to industrial and supernatural locales, Forgive Me Father’s narrative is mostly a mystery. In the end it’s hard to look at this as anything but a missed opportunity, where the mix of old and new doesn’t quite come together. The horror aspirations amount to little more than set dressing. Fast-paced shooting is where Forgive Me Father settles, a place where enemies move in predefined patterns and strafing is just about all you need to do to survive. As fun as that can be in doses, there’s little incentive to keep going once you realise that’s all there is.

Forgive Me Father is a Doom-clone like many have been seeing of late. A concentrate of extreme splatter, comic graphics, Lovecraftian suggestions and some small RPG ambitions that however end up collapsing under the weight of some anachronistic and superficial game and level design choices.

Forgive Me Father feels like a missed opportunity to bring an inspired lovecraftian horror style in a great retro FPS. The game offers a good art direction and some good moments, but its repetitive gameplay, linear design and light story elements prevent it from being a very good one.