Blood of Mehran review

Don’t you just hate it when you are looking forward to a game and it turns out to be adequate at best? Well, welcome to my experience when I booted up Blood of Mehran. This game filled me with promises of adventure, drama, and exciting hack-and-slash combat. However, what I got was a bit of a damp squib that left me wanting from the opening gambit.

Permanent Way Game Co. promised an awful lot. In fact, their trailer shows a promising and interesting jaunt across deadly deserts. Yet, the finished product doesn’t get close. Fluid combat, intuitive stealth mechanics, and fascinating encounters were at the top of the agenda. Unfortunately, all that is delivered is a rudimentary adventure experience filled with bugs, poor acting, and a hero whose beard disappears regularly.

Revenge and loss form the backbone of the Blood of Mehran.

I love a tale of loss and revenge. The anger and pain that drive a protagonist mad are oddly compelling. Furthermore, when they eventually get their hands on the culprit, you can’t help but smile. This is the basis of Blood of Mehran. The hero wishes to avenge the death of his wife and daughter. However, he must break free from his prison cell if he is to fulfil his promise to himself and his wife and his child.

In theory, this story should be captivating and interesting, but sadly, it isn’t. The writing, acting, and cinematic are pretty basic and wooden. Moreover, visual issues, bugs, and poor lip syncing may make it impossible not to laugh. As the plot evolves, I found myself further detached from the protagonists’ plight. Unfortunately, the poor quality and laughable delivery undermine practically every element.

Rudimentary gameplay.

Blood of Mehran offers nothing new. This genre has some incredible games, and this isn’t one of them. The exploration elements follow a semi-open world design. However, in reality, it is linear and underwhelming. As you explore, you’ll find items to sell. Additionally, there are chests filled with armour to improve your health and magical powers.

Though new weapons are added, the combat elements are dull and often imbalanced. Thwarting archers is a walk in the park. For reasons unknown, they can’t hit you if you use your tiny shield. This was unbelievably unrealistic and removed any challenging layer to the gameplay.

Alongside this, the stealth mechanics are pretty rubbish. Your foes struggle to see you when you are hidden behind a tiny wall. Yet, they’ll spot you from 150 metres away while you slowly crawl in the shadows. On top of this, the execution button doesn’t always work. Consequently, you’ll start a mass brawl when you intended to slink away into the night. This unpolished design creates frustration and will piss off every gamer.

Blood of Mehran is poor but manageable on every level.

Visually, Blood of Mehran doesn’t live up to the hype. There are texture issues, awful frame rate drops, missing facial hair, and other minor bugs and glitches. Furthermore, the level design is dated and pushing through every chapter feels horribly arduous. The audio follows suit with its uninspiring soundtrack, dull sound effects, and awful acting. I’d accept the B-movie level cinematic if the script wasn’t so shite. Unfortunately, I couldn’t take the hero seriously when he spoke to everyone like they were children.

The controls didn’t help matters either. Everything feels clunky, and aiming the bow and arrow was unnecessarily challenging. Moreover, the combat is often unfair when you are swarmed by fast-moving monsters. No matter what you do, you will not be able to execute a dodge, parry, or attack in time. These problems impact longevity and replay value. Though the developer has incorporated 3 difficulty settings, I will not be returning to play it again.

Blood of Mehran is playable, but not very good.

If you want a bland but playable adventure title, Blood of Mehran will be for you. As you traverse different environments, you will experience a feeling of Deja vu. This wouldn’t be too bad, but the Groundhog Day gameplay and dull action will not inspire you to keep playing. Though it wasn’t for me, you can grab your copy from the Xbox store!