Forgive Me Father is a first-person shooter developed by Byte Barrel and published by 1C Entertainment. The game is a Lovecraftian tribute to the 2.5D retro shooters of old, like Doom and Duke Nukem 3D, with some light RPG elements thrown in to help the player against the overwhelming odds they’ll face.
The player selects one of two characters at the start of Forgive Me Father: the Priest or the Journalist. The Priest has more defensive skills, such as a cross that acts as a portable health pack, while the Journalist has skills befitting a more aggressive playstyle, with her version of the cross being drugs that restore her health when damaging enemies. The story of the game involves the protagonist receiving a puzzling letter from their cousin Louis, talking about mysterious deaths and strange occurrences. The protagonist returns to their hometown of Pestisville and they track Louis to an old inn. They discover bizarre notes among Louis’ possessions, but their investigation is interrupted by the arrival of zombies. Thus begins a quest to discover what is happening in the town, as strange creatures emerge from the shadows, and the name “Cthulhu” is spoken in hushed whispers in the dark.
Right off the bat, it’s obvious that Forgive Me Father is a loving tribute to the old 2.5D shooters, as it has gorgeous comic book-style backgrounds and sprites, which almost make the game feel like an incredibly well-made Doom mod. Forgive Me Father also features a heavy metal soundtrack that is evocative of Doom and it speeds up whenever monsters appear. The gameplay also follows the retro style, with medikits taking the place of regenerating health, and levels that involve finding keys, rather than several long corridors stitched together. There are some arena shooter moments thrown in as well, with the player being locked in a room and fighting hordes of enemies, in order to acquire items. The gameplay loop is just as fun now as it was in the early ’90s, especially for those who love challenging shooters.
Forgive Me Father does have some RPG elements, in the form of its skill tree and Madness mechanic. The player earns experience points by killing enemies, which can be spent on skills. What’s interesting about the skill tree is that it can be used to permanently upgrade weapons and change how they work, such as turning the basic revolver pistol into dual-wielded pistols, or into a Mauser-style pistol that’s more accurate. Once these upgrades are implemented, there’s no turning back. These encourage a second playthrough with the other character, as the properties of the weapons can change drastically.
As is befitting a game based on the works of H.P. Lovecraft, Forgive Me Father features a Madness mechanic, which is a meter that increases whenever the protagonist kills the enemy. Madness acts in a manner similar to mana, as it powers the player’s skills. A high increase in Madness also increases the damage dealt and taken by the player, as well as giving the visuals a monochrome filter that makes it harder to see. The Madness meter feels like a missed opportunity to include Eternal Darkness-style insanity effects, and it doesn’t fit as well in a game where the player is wading through hordes of Lovecraftian horrors every five minutes.
Forgive Me Father can be an extremely challenging game, as it becomes incredibly difficult to avoid enemy fire in later areas of the game. Luckily, there are difficulty options that can be switched at any time, but the game is still hard, even on the easiest difficulty. One major misstep the game makes is by using a checkpoint/save point system, rather than letting the player save whenever they want. This adds some unnecessary frustration to the game, as it should be up to the player’s discretion when they need to save, based on their judgment about their current health and ammunition situation.
Forgive Me Father‘s single-player campaign lasts around eight hours and there’s never a dull moment to be had. The game is challenging and the player will need to use every resource at their disposal to survive each stage, but it offers that Soulslike feeling of satisfaction when overcoming overwhelming odds. There has been a revival for retro shooters on modern platforms in recent years, with games like Doom 64 and Quake coming to modern platforms, and Forgive Me Father proves that there’s room for new games in the genre that retain everything that makes them fun while adding some new elements to spice things up.
Forgive Me Father is currently in Early Access on PC and the full version will be released on April 7, 2022. Screen Rant was provided with a digital code for the purposes of this review.
