A Quick & Dirty Game Review: High Hopes dashed in Prayer

Everything about A Church in the Darkness excited me. The premise, the graphical style.  Upon loading the game I was impressed equally with the voice acting and how easy everything felt. It all fell down from there.  The first three times I didn’t even make it into the camp. The “stealth” has no actual stealth element to it and is very unwieldy in maneuvering. I was shot dead. The strangest thing was the major premise is that your friend (sister?) suspicion’s are all wrong. Yet the place is guarded by heavily armed guards who shoot you on sight. How does that even make you wonder if there’s a twist?  Understanding how to use a gun didn’t come easy though. There’s a tutorial but it explains very little along the way to things. You’re truly learning on your own. This isn’t such a problem except you don’t know what you’re doing. When directed to a map. The map made no sense cause while it told you where you were in relation to the map itself it was quite hard to read and figure out. As said after trial and error on a fourth run I made it to town, but then there were tons of people. I was told to find a disguise but there was no where to hide to find such disguise as there was a person everywhere. There was no way to walk into town They also started shooting or running away right away.  I don’t expect this much frustration on an immediate first run through of a game. On a fifth run of the game I got much further. I finally found a disguise. It lasted 10 seconds at most though. I was hot dead, but it turns out I didn’t die. Suddenly I was in a prison. I easily escaped that prison, was shot again, and found myself in another prison. I escaped that prison, but found myself so far on the map from anything that I was lost. I was somehow able to make it back down the map, but was then shot dead again without finding any useful items along the way to help me survive. Despite getting much further in this run my desire to try again is non existent.  While the game’s description is Rogue-lite there is enough not enough fun in the elements of that to keep one pursuant. One of the biggest qualms is the lack of melee combat. That I just stand there as I get shot, but can’t try to slug my attacker is ludicrous and agonizing. It made me want to just quit. Not because I needed a break, but because I just didn’t care.  I’m a lone person in what is obviously some evil camp. Even in easy mode I was shot and given little resources. Your enjoyment may vary. Your skill level at this time of game may also vary, I would deter you to not give the game a try, but it is definitely not geared towards my likes and interests as much as I had hoped from promotions and early feels.

You can find A Church in the Darkness on Steam at  a discount of $15.99 if seeing this review between August 2nd (release date) and the next month and a half or $20 at regular price.

 

This entry was posted in Video Games. Bookmark the permalink.