Every now and then, it can be worth taking a gamble on a smaller, lower budget video game like Blood of Mehran. A little jank is to be expected, as is some lower quality of writing, especially in an industry which only seems to be soaring to even greater performance heights. Unfortunately, Blood of Mehran was a tedious and labourious affair, that despite by best efforts, was just too clunky to ever develop a rhythm for.

There are pockets of this game that are okay occasionally, but then even an arrow in your eye might not be agonising all of the time it’s in there. Doesn’t mean I’d particularly want a missile lodged in my retina, though. Reach for your blade and dust off your bloodlust, we have a revenge tale to unpick.

Let The Bodies Hit The Bore

I’ll start with the story, which I’ll be honest, will be a struggle. Our protagonist’s name eludes me, owing to his lack of a properly defined personality. Blood of Mehran begins with you dueling the lord of the land, who it turns out murdered your wife. Thus begins your quest to slay his underling bosses and wreak hellfire via blade upon him. As such, our character is supposedly obsessed with taking vengeance for the atrocity wrought upon him.

Only, he’s kind of… not? Blood of Mehran hugely suffers from emotional whiplash in its writing. One minute, he’s declaring death upon all before him. Then, in the same scene, battling his supposed mortal enemies, he’s having flirty banter with some lady he’s quite literally just met… in a prison. It’s more tonally jarring than a learner driver trying to use a clutch for the first time.

I don’t have particularly high expectations for writing nor voice acting when it comes to smaller budget games, both of these facets are expensive for getting the best talent. However, the delivery of lines is unintentionally hilarious where it shouldn’t be, and the inconsistent, barebones plot clings to life by the tiniest of threads. The villains are also bordering on caricature – a maniacal masochist biting an apple before murdering someone? It’s a real struggle to take much of any of it seriously.

Blood Messfusion

When you’re in control of proceedings, Blood of Mehran does ever so slightly better, but the bar is basically in the floor, nevermind on it. This is a basic hack-and-slash affair, with light and heavy attacks, parry system, dodge and weapon-specific special attacks. It’s… competent, in a PS2 era kind of way. Attacks work fairly well and hitboxes are at least consistent.

What’s not competent however, is unblockable attacks and the dodge input. Enemies do that Arkham style “glow red” flash when producing a attack that requires dodging. Unfortunately, the game fails to communicate this until they’ve already started their animation, which means you have approximately the difference between Barrichello beating Schumacher in 2002 (look it up) to not only spot the attack, but input the dodge. The dodge itself also doesn’t have I-frames from the immediate input.

Different weapons you acquire have their own upgrade trees and functions, but again, they come with issues. The sword and shield, for instance, allow you to block projectiles. What’s amusing about this is, you don’t have to aim. Simply hold L1, face anywhere, and you’ll just Neo-style prevent any ranged assault. The skill ceiling for Blood of Mehran is therefore non-existent. Master the ultra-forgiving parry timing and just keep hitting attacks until you win, while getting frustratingly hit every time an unblockable happens.

Flood of Meh-ran

To its credit, Blood of Mehran does have a decent amount of enemy variety, even if it does rely far too much on ridiculous numbers of mobs to best you. Shield users require heavy attacks, assassins have multiple combo strings, archers are pesky nuisances. When you can overcome the clunky mechanics, there’s an okay sandbox of enemies and abilities to utilise.

Outside of combat, you can choose to take the stealthy approach. Naturally, enemy vision is as precise as a shotgun, meaning you can almost walk up to anyone to gut them. I like the different takedown animations, including a sprinting (which hilariously doesn’t make any noise?) and aerial variety. It’s incredibly formulaic as far as stealth mechanics go, but whistling a guard over to stab him in the gullet is nice.

If you’re not hacking or stealthing, you’re basically doing nothing. There are a small number of chests for health upgrades (via cosmetic armour) and trinkets for selling to find, but otherwise these levels are barren and more empty than a typical UK bank account. Most levels are single lane, linear affairs, with the occasional open space to navigate, but I was always just blasting forward, hoping the level ended sooner than it did.

Meh-ran For Your Life

Given everything else I’ve said thus far, you may be surprised to find that I actually found some things to like about Blood of Mehran. Namely, the environments of the bazaars and palaces you’ll slash your way through. Cutting through a golden, sun-scorched market that was surprisingly bustling with people was quite a spectacle, as was the ascent through multiple stories of a castle turret, battling a rather stubborn boss.

Sure, the facial animations are hysterical at times, owing to the apparent weight of the moment being met with the kind of visual void usually reserved for possessed children in horror movies. However, this had an amusing charm for me, and I didn’t hate it at all. Additionally, the developers put some decent effort into flashy finishers and powerful strikes to cap off an enemy being reduced to mud beneath my feet.

Even so, Blood of Mehran isn’t an especially impressive game, visually or stylistically. There are aspects that fare better than others, but overall, this is a rather dull saber.

Packed Off To The Desert

I firmly believe that Blood of Mehran is a well-intentioned, noble endeavour to create a fun hack-and-slash title in a setting we don’t often see enough of in the industry. It does plenty of the basics to a competent degree, in that the combat works, the graphics serve and the story exists. Sadly, it just doesn’t do a whole lot beyond that premise.

Almost every facet of its design suffers from stifling frustration or tedium. Exploration is a chore, combat is a gruelling, endless trudge, stealth is just too mechanically simple to be engrossing. I enjoyed the setting, bar the hilariously off kilter writing and delivery. Instead of being a prince of Arabia, this sultan ends up choking in the suffocating desert heat.

Blood of Mehran is available October 7th on PlayStation 5 (review platform), Xbox Series S|X and PC.

Developer: Permanent Way Game Co.
Publisher: Blowfish Studios

Disclaimer: In order to complete this review, we were provided with a promotional copy of the game. For our full review policy, please go here.

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