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This is a hard game to review because I love almost everything about it. While conflicted, I was ready to end on an overall recommend, until I reached the final stage of the game. The visuals are stunning. The story is interesting, and the game play is overall very engaging. It genuinely feels like a perfectly crafted game. The one failing trait is that I don't think the developers actually care if players enjoy the experience.

Don't get me wrong, there are players who want this level of challenge, so there is an audience for it. The enjoyment of everyone else is just unimportant, or so it feels. What sucks is that it just seems utterly unnecessary as you could easily enable different difficulties, or even build in options to remove certain mechanics of the resource management--a component I generally enjoyed engaging with, but only up to a point.

While I am marking it as *not recommended*, the truth is I just want to see the developers release an update that offers more accessible difficulty levels. It took me a solid 10 hours to learn the basic game play techniques needed to thrive in this game. While I recognize part of that is on me, I also think there needs to be much better tutorials. We can punch or smash gas barrels without using ammo--except when they are red. You can evade most attacks by walking away as the enemy charges up, and you don't always need to shoot--in fact its best to assume you don't until you know you have to given the limited resources. Then there are enemies who only take damage on glowing boils--sometimes only after being burnt (details that are just left to figure out on your own). These are essential things that you learn playing, but the lack of sufficient guides by the game makes you learn by experience--which it is hard to get joy out of failing just because I've not been told basic mechanics for the game play.

After my first 7 hrs or so I decided to max out my equipment upgrades with Cheat Engine, but I left the resources limited. This works out well because equipment upgrades are limited by how far you are in the game (even if you have the right ingredients to otherwise upgrade). This, coupled with learning the basic techniques, made for a generally great experience for me. That is, again, until we reach the final set of boss fights (the church fight specifically), where I spend an hour and a half trying to defeat the boss, literally up to the last strike needed, only to go down given the increasingly limited resources and area to maneuver. I can't tell you how unsatisfying that is. I don't even mean losing. I knew how close I was, and even if succeeded, that was a level of difficulty I just got little enjoyment from. I promptly proceeded to use Cheat Engine for unlimited ammo, because I had no interest in repeating that a single time. This is where I am at now.

I will finish the game. I don't know if I will keep the unlimited ammo, but i do know this game needs to be better accessible if I am going to just mass recommend it. If you are up for the challenge or are ready and able to utilize cheats, then I say 100% go for it. To be clear, I loved this game in almost every way. I wish more people could enjoy it, so why not let them Blooper?

Solid 9/10 if we pretend difficulty is adjustable. 7/10 as is,