Blessed Surface Reviews

The reason I can't recommend this is because we're already a month past the loose deadline they set in the early access info box, which tells me that it's either almost finished and is just behind schedule, or that the development is "falling off the wagon" like your typical kickstarter project. I don't like the current version because of some polish issues that ruined the game for me rather quickly, with controls that feel clunky and restrictive and an overdesigned drag-n-drop equip menu that really should have just used a "highlight box" controlled by the d-pad. but I'll reserve my judgement until release. For now, refunding and following. When the game content is finished and the gameplay is more polished, I'm prepared to do something unprecedented and give it a second chance, because I see potential here. Dev: when you finish the game, you should release a demo. [h1]Update (June 2019)[/h1] Whelp, here I am again. I waited until the game exited EA, there's no demo, I gave the game a second chance, and...it's still not good. Maybe I just don't get it, but the controls, combat and UI are all just confusing as hell. It doesn't feel any more polished than last time, you die for seemingly random reasons with a horrible ticker feed on the bottom of the screen logging what's happening, inventory management is extremely unpleasant, I can't even figure out how to eat food when the game's telling me to do it, I seem to remember the controller working last time and it's not working now, the game doesn't seem to tell you that you switch weapons with shift, but it's also confusing because shift [i]uses[/i] the weapon you're switching to (which means holding it causes a charge-up attack) and it's just...[i]not[/i] a good experience. I'm sorry man, I know you put a lot of passion into this game, but it just isn't good.

It's kinda like if the Japanese version of Super Mario Bros. 2 was a sort of a metroidvania. Expect a lot of trial and error. There's still some very rough edges. I'd recommend using the mouse and keyboard to start because the controls aren't immediately obvious (SEE BELOW). But, once you get the hang of the specific kind of gameplay, it works pretty well. If you're like me, the odd (sci-fi/fantasy?) dream-like environments are the biggest draw. You are thrown into a world that seems to have a history, ecology, and (maybe dead) society. The enemies interact and fight amongst themselves. You can explore, or dive quickly. Remember that your different weapons' attacks are as much a way to move about as they are defence. Left click = attack left Right click = attack right E = equip/invt Scroll up = restore armor Scroll down = finishing blow (when the enemy has a red dot) A,D = movement SPACE = jump SHIFT = weapon switch (also a special attack) Q = swap weilding CTRL = gunz

Eat the hearts of your enemies and claim their powers. Summon destruction and calamity to kill even the framerate. Bring along a pet that's probably useless. Like someone once said "With great power comes the ability to break the game". Alright it's been a while since I touched this game so it's not that fresh on my mind, but the fact that reviews stand on such a low number and a mixed at that yet I got quite few hours entertaining hours from it I feel I owe it something. So here goes. You wake up in a cell. A small tutorial teaches you how to get out of it. You probably get out by accident trying most things. You don't know a lot. The controls feels a little off compared to most games. You fight some enemies. You manage to kill them somehow too. It's not yet clear that in this game enemies won't die unless you use a finishing move on them after damaging them a bit. If you fail to get it you've probably closed the game already. It's not your fault. Alright you're still here. In the game. Maybe reading the review? Bah. Onward. You struggle forward. Finding some weapons or two. Even equipping them is a hassle. Shit. Not a good look, but you're still here. Within the first hour you find the first boss of the game. It feels impossible. You try again. You get better. It feels like the thing is supposed to die already, but unless you managed to learn that you truly need to use a finishing move to kill an enemy this is where you probably bail out. Yet you're still here. By some luck of the straw you managed to find an efficient feeling enemy ability from eating an enemy heart. Something that feels like one of those anime moves where you draw your weapon, step forward, strike them before they can react and they are already dead. It does triple damage and works as a finishing move. And with this you manage to beat the first boss. It feels pretty good yet you're still not convinced. You still decide to stick around at least until the next boss. You find some more weapons. Some more enemy hearts/abilities. Some work better than others. Nevertheless it seems interesting to find them to find out which work the best for you to find the best combination. This is the point the game has hooked you. You need to see all the enemies, npcs, bosses, events, weapons, pets, secrets, but I think the most important and most fun one was the combination of enemy abilities I could find and use. Some of them could be useless and yet some could be almost broken in some combination. The fun part began as you started to break the game with those abilities. So lets face it. The most fun part in this game is the ability to break it. Because unless you learn to do it you probably left already. The second most appealing part is seeing all it has to offer in the sandbox system it has created. Let me put it this way. There is random* spawn at play here. Each map part has a few monsters, npcs, events that are not always there. Some might be too rare for their own good too, but those random spawns also give you tools to work with your character building. Enemies don't always drop their hearts that can be used to gain their abilities either. So lets say a really rare monster spawns, yet you don't get their heart to drop to see what their ability might be? How frustrating.. Maybe next time. It's a rough yet mysterious ride here. Looking at the update calendar this game has it feels the developer has given it their all before they had to move on. It's hard to love for sure given the clumsy controls, unexplained and unbalanced nature of the game, but I fell for it anyway. Even started to catalogue some events and things I didn't find on the fanguides and that's a first time for me. I probably didn't do a good job explaining most things you do in the game or all the problem that could be fixed, but if it's in your nature, are you not interested in seeing them yourself and what the game has to offer? Just be prepared to break it. Is the game a good one if you need to break it to even survive forward? Probably not. Yet it might be a fun one still.

Stop. Don't do it. Took me 13 minutes to refund. 1. You have to open your inventory in order to (move a cursor with a joystick) pick up and store items from the ground. Why? 2. Mobs don't die when their health reaches zero. ??? Im sure there's some hipster reason for both of these, but neither are intuitive so the reason doesn't matter.

-TL;DR- This game is one of the most unpolished THINGS I have ever played. It's buggy, it's bare bones, counter intuitive, and above all else, it's weird, weird, WEIRD. There are a lot of problems, but this is also a really creatively designed game with a lot of likable aspects to it. I'm a sucker for experimental games like this, so I still recommend it if you're someone like me. Besides, it's Early Access, and the developer seems to be set on finishing it. Things can only go up from here. ______________________________ -THE REVIEW- This game is.... weird.... like REALLY weird. This game has this zen like quality to it where you can just look around and explore... except when you can't, and the enemies all want you dead. The combat is very simple, and straight to the point... except when it's not, and you end up taking hits more often because you ended up dashing into an enemy, or you pulled it towards you and you can't dodge. The exploration can be really fun and rewarding, with a LOT of interesting places to explore.... EXCEPT WHEN IT'S NOT, and you find yourself in platforming sections on par with a f***ing Mario Kaizo Rom Hack! Which by the way, if you find yourself making it to where you have to platform UPWARD from platforms directly above you with only one square to fit in, and your character is just small enough to fit in there if you have no downward momentum, no Corpse King. That is legitimately bad level design. Go back and try again, that is s*** design, just don't do that. I bought this game after the Combat Overhaul, so I have no idea what combat was like compared to now, but considering how counter intuitive the combat is NOW, and judging by reading the change logs, I can only imagine just how truly bad it used to be. I guess being kinda sh***y isn't as bad as being totally sh***y. Also, I realized that I ragged on exploration twice in this review, but that's for a good reason. One of the big selling points in this game, is that this dungeon is supposed to be a living, breathing ecosystem. There are a lot of games that pull this off very well. Monster Hunter World, for example, allows you to just explore its environments and take in the world around you, and you don't even need to hunt the monsters. You can just watch them in their natural environment. They eat, they wander around, they sleep in their nests, you know, just that kinda stuff. Now, you're probably saying that it's totally not fair to compare this low budget indie title to a big budget AAA game, but I made the comparison, because Monster Hunter World doesn't tell you that you're allowed to do that. Its main selling point is the boss rush gameplay loop that the franchise is famous for. The ecosystem is an unadvertised bonus. If you're going to tell me that the world is an actual ecosystem, make it a MAIN SELLING POINT of your game, and then, say that, for example, you can wipe out an entire area by killing the mother and getting rid of all the babies, then I don't wanna see the game randomly respawn them after I've only been gone for 2 minutes! Let me feel like I'm making an impact on this world, damn it!! Maybe I'm missing something here, I don't know. Now you may be wondering why this game is still recommended in spite of me constantly harping on it. Well chill, I'm getting to the good parts now. Simple put, this is one of the most creative games I have ever seen so far. Like I said at the beginning of this review, this game is WEIRD. Like, your character is just some silhouette, and his entire personality is dictated by what armor he's wearing. The weapons themselves are ALL unique, and none of them are conventional. You have a typical sword, but it looks anything BUT typical. It looks more like some kind of shadow demon monster blood sword. You get this little piranha plant looking claw weapon that you can actually fly forward short distances while using, A sword attached to some... kinda... tentacle looking thing, A pickaxe that makes spikes where you slam it, a Magic staff that does a short range lightning blast (well okay, that is admittedly pretty generic). I appreciate that the developers has committed himself to not just making a weird game, but going ALL THE WAY with it. The enemies range from weird looking bug birds, or walking spike pine cone looking things, or giant mew mew cats, or even just bouncing red balls! Did I mention this game is weird? Cause this game is f***ing weird!!! This is one of those games where you have to just sit back, and realize what you're playing. Even the combat is kind unique in that regard! Like I said, the combat is super rough, but I can totally see it working once you've adapted to it! Switching between weapons, shooting from a distance with your weird helicopter cursor thingy, eating hearts of your enemies to gain new abilities, WAIT WUT!? Experimental games like this are my jam. I don't care how unpolished it is. You offered me a game like this for only 6 dollars. I'd say this was more than worth that price point. I look forward to revisiting this game from time to time to see how polished Corpse King can make this idea, and how far they can run with it. Also, take a shot for every time I said weird. ;)

It's adorable and has a lot of variety and amazingly comfy vibes. Not the most polished game, as you might have heard, but dang! It's coooool. More?

If you like creative, weird, or experimental games, give this a try. If you manage to last past the first boss, you'll find a wildly creative game with a lot of unique ideas and charm. Be warned though, if you require polish and consistency in your games you probably won't enjoy Blessed Surface. But if you can bear a little jank, there's a lot of fun to be had here. This game is really weird and really janky. Almost everything in the game is confusing when you first encounter it, and it's even kind of hard to figure out how to get out of the very first room in the game. For me, a big part of my enjoyment with the game is encountering new and strange things and experimenting with them to try and understand them. I've found food that turns all your projectiles into ghost monkeys, a monster heart that gives me wings and spawns homing crystal barriers, centipede monsters that you can ride on to get around quickly, and a lot more. There's so much here, and every time I launch the game I find something new, even in previously explored areas. The combat seems awkward and simple at first, but after you get used to it and make a good build it becomes very enjoyable. It's still awkward and janky, but the variety of enemy and weapon behaviours combine with the heart system and environments to create some really engaging and unique fights. The world is expansive and strange, with weird creatures and items scattered around many distinct areas. Very little is locked away in the traditional metroidvania sense (asides from literal locks that can be opened with common generic keys dropped by enemies) and you can go almost anywhere as long as you can figure out how to get there without dying to the local wildlife. In short, Blessed Surface is a strange and confusing gem. It's got a really rough start which I think contributes to its relatively low review score, but for all its roughness it has a lot of great qualities. I think it's a shame that this game which obviously has had so much love put into it has been so overlooked and so poorly rated by the few that did notice it. If you like weirdness and don't mind jank, give it a shot. You might play it for an hour and decide it's not for you, or, as in my case, you might find the most memorable game you've played in a while. As a side note, there seems to be a decent amount of content in the game as well. As of writing this review I've played 6.9 hours, and have only beaten 2 out of the 10 bosses. EDIT: I just "finished" the game (in that I got the ending, there's still quite a lot of unfinished business and unanswered questions which I am definitely going to spend a lot more time on) and wanted to edit my review slightly. I played the game in a weird order, where I explored as much as possible before beating bosses. This meant that I could beat the remaining 8 bosses in a pretty short time. I just wanted to add that so my review isn't misleading about how long it takes to get the ending. Even though I've gotten the ending, I plan to continue playing for a while. There are a lot of things I still don't understand about the game, and there are some puzzles I and to solve and side quests I want to complete. Overall, really great game. It doesn't deserve its current steam rating at all.

If you can get past the initial awkwardness of the controls and many unexplained or borderline incomprehensible mechanics you'll find a fantastically unique game with a world packed full of content. Although the lack of information can be a source of frustration sometimes it's also a lot of fun experimenting with the huge variety of mechanics and equipment. It's unfortunate there isn't enough of a community to provide much outside information for the things you really can't figure out, but this could change in the future if more people discover this hidden gem. If you won't be immediately put off by the slightly clunky UI and controls then I highly recommend this unique experience! There's even a steam guide now for if you really can't figure something out through exploration/experimentation. Also here's a tip, reading old patch notes can be surprisingly useful to discover a few things lol.

DO NOT BE DECIEVED. THIS GAME HAS EXTREME POTENTIAL WITH ITS DESIGN DECISIONS, EXPLORATION, SECRETS AND LORE CAPABILITIES AND COMBAT. When you first open this game up it will appear clunky and dislikable. A feeling of powerlesness will come upon you as you're not even capable of getting past the first tutorial step. Then slowly but surely you begin to understand movement, controls, physics, mechanics, weapons, armors, abilities, everything. The learning curve is slightly steep but very very rewarding. The metroidvania-ish platforming and terrain is complex, well designed and dynamic, fluid and rather charming. You feel rewarded finding out how to get past certain platforms and sections that you couldn't possibly think you could before. (for example i found this really long vertical tunnel i had to climb upwards but there was literally no way until I got a firework gunner that i could use to propel myself upwards multiple times. I felt genuinely ingenious for doing it and this game makes you think quite a bit, regarding boss strategies and everything, really.) Each area of the open world is thematic and intriguing. The ecosystem idea is rather interesting as well, though I believe not fully fledged out as of yet but definitely something to look forward to. Equipment is greatly varied and unique, ability to dual wield, allowing you to combine two good weapons for synergies, and speaking of synergies, you can get active and passive abilities that you can combine to completely decimate enemies. What else can I say, I HIGHLY recommend you give this a try, if you have a bit of patience I'm sure you wont be regretting it, and for that price tag? Not a bad deal at all.

Only sidescrollers I've played lately are Vagante and Catacomb Kids but I think this game has good potential. In contrast to those two, Blessed Surface seems minimalistic and most of the challenge is in mastering the basic movements and reflexes common to all sidescrollers. However for such a small game there are a lot of unique enemies and environments to explore and learn about and the effort put into this game is evident- there are lots of little details like flowers drifting through the air and Princess Mononoke-esque critters. You start in the tutorial level- don't feel bamboozled, it's supposed to look this boring. Don't waste time trying to figure out the controls on your own like I did, just move through the level and let the signs explain it. Right away I had difficulty equipping things because I didn't know if it was a corpse (outfit/class) or a weapon and I still don't really understand how equipping works + aesthetic- it's creepy, pretty, cute, but mostly just weird. I like it + interesting mechanics with outfits, finishers. (Some enemies can only be killed with a finishing move, you will see their "core" exposed when they are weak enough) + type to talk to NPCs? I haven't met any yet but I haven't seen this since childhood adventure games so I think it's great :) -+ basic attack cooldown - personally I find it frustrating when you're surrounded by enemies and you can't move away or attack. But it does raise skill ceiling because of the combo system: if you spam attack and miss, you have to wait. If you time attacks correctly you can attack continuously. Some enemies are knocked back or into the air by your attacks, and different weapons have different effects. - controls are confusing at first, particularly the equip/wield options and the gunner which is janky as hell to control with the mouse- until you realize you don't actually have to because it autoaims - jumping- high gravity, very short horizontal distance. Again I guess this is a skill thing because there are many places where you have to wait until the last half-second to make the jump, and this reminds me of old school platformers but personally I prefer floaty jumps. It works fine with the way the levels are designed I suppose. - sound design - could use some work IMO - finishers take hp to use - can be frustrating as some of them are hard to aim and get the hang of, so you'll be staring at a wall and waiting for that 1 hp to recharge question: with the Key Thief Corpse I think I used my finisher to phase through locked doors- or is that the point?