The Church in the Darkness ™ Reviews

10/10

TL;DR: It's a good IDEA for a game, but the technical skills of the developers didn't do it justice, so they got a good artist to put lipstick on the pig. ------ The Review: I got this game because from the picture it is obviously amazing gothic farm horror, right? Welcome to the re-release of the 1986 release of Rambo First Blood, part 2 - with worse graphics and way worse gameplay -- but here is the twist... instead of soldiers, you're just running around murdering hippies because you think they kidnapped your nephew? But now that I think about it, it seems a lot closer to the original NES Metal Gear, spefically, the aimlessness, and the chunkiness of the combat. But this game seems way more shallow than Metal Gear. The maps are procedurally generated, but like, they don't really seem to make sense. There's no direction where to go, and no real sense when you're getting closer to your goal - except for a comically simple map with a circle, but no real indicator of where you are, I think? So, there's clunky controls, uninspired creepy story, 1990s graphics without the fun gameplay. But I'm a glutton for punishment, I mean there's some positive reviews on here, right? On my third playthrough, I started going around the town killing everyone with choke holds, and if I got spotted, I would just run around a building and choke hold the guy who was chasing me. I wouldn't quite call it "fun", but when I felt like I was finally getting it, I hid in a room indoors and got soft-locked in a closet that would eject me into a corner I couldn't get out of, because I was blocked by a tiny box. There's no save option, there is no "jump over tiny box option". Nothing. Just trapped in the corner of a room, with the alarm sound blaring on and off - never ending, with weird folk music music playing. It was a pretty unpleasant experience over all. I gotta tell you, if it's between 2 dollars, and this game, consider spending it on something else, unless running around choking out cultist-hippies is like, specifically, your thing -- in which case drop those two dollars I guess. ------------- played the game a little more just in case I shortchanged it ---------- I gave it a few more tries and I kind of get it. As you play more the map fills out. Looking up stuff online (because no where in the game does it explain this) the preachers have different personalities- and depending on like nice or mean, and the combination thereof, you can get different endings if you rescue, or leave behind, your nephew. Okay, makes sense. There's still a couple key issues... The game is intended for stealth but the enemy AI is incredibly stupid. Your nephew can get gunned down by the towns folk, but in the ending, it still treats it like you killed him. The playstyle is cumbersome, like, you can be kind of next to an enemy in a way you can't choke them out, but they can turn, and see you, and basically stun lock you to death. That's not really exciting or challenging game play. So far it seems like the thing to do is kind of run by everyone with no real lasting consequences. It doesn't really matter if the alarms go off, or if they see you, because they won't follow you half as far as you need to go across the map. There's some new items you get on replay, but non of these items really do anything to change gameplay. Also, the characters themselves are kind of ... the mother of Alex is like blaming you that you were never there and she had to raise alex alone, so somehow it's YOUR responsibility to rescue/kidnap him from the cult. The cultists are like shocked and offended that you've killed them (going as far to provide a body count) when the average cult guy is shooting you on site? It's just kind of weird. I could look past it if the game play was fun? But the game play is clunky and grindy and the things you get for grinding really don't improve game play. Also, the menu selection for actions and talking to people doesn't really blend well with real time enemies that will shoot on site. There's even some items that seem to punish this need to rush, like cyanide looking the same as pain killers. This game really is a combination of metal gear solid and rambo first blood part 2, but somehow the sum of these two parts ends up being lesser than either of the games it's trying to riff off. To be wildly honest, this game would have done MUCH better as a puzzle/mystery/suspense/thriller - that the cover art hints at ... but the game play falls dreadfully short of. The story is okay (at least there's some thought put into it). The art is actually VERY solid. The game play is just... half backed. It would have done better as a Resident Evil type thriller or a POV stealth game like the Thief series, or something, not a top down infiltration game. So in sum, it's a good IDEA for a game, but the technical skills of the developers didn't do it justice and they got a good artist to put lipstick on the pig.