Bleak Sword DX Review (interpol99)
Not a bad game, but also not one that held my attention in a world with so many games, shows, etc, competing for my attention. This is basically pixelated, simplified Dark Souls played on miniature, diorama-like levels. You dodge roll past attacks and enemies, punish during openings, and if you die you get one chance to recover your corpse before losing all accumulated items and experience. The design influences are obvious.
However, this game has a couple of fairly glaring flaws. First, the default key bindings are absurd and reek of a lazy console port. They should have used WASD for movement, left/right mouse for attack/dodge roll, and bound items to two logical keys. Instead, we have arrow keys for movement (really, in 2023? In a game released on PC by a serious publisher?), and a bunch of nonsensical bindings for everything else. The game is also brutally inconsistent with which enemies you can roll through. After 10 stages where you can roll through any enemy, the boss has an attack that deals damage if you try to roll through it. A lot of damage. And yet you can roll through the boss's attacks (and model) for every move up to that point. Same thing with the undead knight enemy in the swamp. Sometimes you cannot roll through him. No, don't ask why. It's just like that. Perhaps there is a telegraph, but the overly-pixelated graphics mean I couldn't see it.
The basic question you want to ask yourself before buying this game is do you want mini-Dark Souls? If yes, then consider picking it up, as long as you rebind the keys to be closer to the control layout for the real Dark Souls (not sure why they didn't steal the key bindings when they lifted so many other features). If not, give it a pass. Maybe pickup Monolith instead if you want a great action rogue-like with a retro art style.