Blood of Mehran wears its influences on its sleeve. Part God of War, part Assassin’s Creed, and borrowing from various other action games from a bygone era, there is definitely a passion to create a game that captures the highs of a linear action game, but Blood of Mehran has issues that do not allow it to elevate above average.
The game follows Mehran, a warrior turned farmer, who has to pick up the sword again when tragedy strikes, sending him down a path of revenge. This journey is split into linear levels in which you go down a path while taking out waves of enemies that get in your way, until you reach the boss at the end of the level. Mehran starts with a sword, eventually unlocking a bow & arrow, double scimitars, and a sword and shield combo. Each of these are good at dealing with different situations, and can be upgraded at the occasional shops you happen upon, and your abilities augmented through experience points.
Combat in Blood of Mehran does have a bit of depth to it, requiring you to switch weapons to deal with different threats. Archers can be a pain, so using the shield to block their arrows and then switching to the bow and arrow to hit back shows there has been thought put in. However, the combat is also a core issue in Blood of Mehran. Feedback is almost non-existent and if it wasn’t for the health bars above enemies you wouldn’t be able to tell if you were doing damage.
The hit boxes don’t seem to be based on your actual weapon placement either. Get in close enough to an arbalester, for example, and you might get a hit in, but they will then flip away from you. If your sword is still swinging and it slices through the arbalester while they are flipping, no damage is done. That isn’t the only situation where sword swings seem to do no damage, but it is one of the more noticeable. Parrying also feels off. When it works it is great to give openings, but other times parrying just seems poorly timed, where it looks like you are parrying at the right time but it does not register.
What Blood of Mehran has got is looks, at least in the environments of the levels. Each level has a lot of detail to it, and the water in some levels looks particularly good. But, you then notice the pop-in, the frame rate drops, the character models that look very smooth and a wide eyed, and the lip movements not matching what is being said. That great look in the general environment is undone by the smaller details when it comes to character models and actions.
There’s also how things sound. The voice acting is serviceable, with the emotions not necessarily lining up with the situations. Mehran also has a habit of addressing his enemies saying things like they are punks, while nowhere near them, like he is psyching himself up for the fight ahead. There’s no real hint of anger which you would expect, the lines instead being recited quite calmly. The line delivery from secondary characters is a bit worse, and comes across as annoying in one particular character.
