Gotta thank @Galaxy003 for gifting me this along with the entire trilogy.
You see a lot of fourth-gen inspired games, and a decent amount of third-gen inspired games too, but there's not many games inspired by titles from before those eras. Faith is one of the few that actually fits that category, and there is a deliberacy in this stylistic choice. The game is trying to evoke that era, one that housed a 'Satanic Panic' where many Christians in the US would accuse new things of demonic for some reason. Naturally, one of these hobbies was that of videogames. It's not like this sort of behavior is completely gone (I used to live in the Deep South of the US and you could still find multiple people who hold these beliefs there), but it was most prevalent around the early to mid 80s, so making a game styled around that era of games is an interesting choice.
I must confess that I haven't played many Atari games, and the few I have played are just arcade ports. However, this game does seem mostly faithful to that era, no pun intended. The only things you can really do is walk around, hold up a crucifix to scare demons, and open a map. Any important objects are interacted with by either flashing the crucifix or just walking into them. I must admit, I wish this game had some kind of interact button, because most user interaction is pretty repetitive. Walk around, point your crucifix at the creepy guys and anything that looks suspicious, repeat. This is pretty much how the entire game works . One could argue that deeper interaction wasn't really common in the era, but neither was the walls of text that this game tells the majority of its story with. I understand that visual storytelling is probably difficult to do when your game has less detail than Super Mario Bros. I think the game should've made more use of text in the style of the 'Kill her' that was painted in blood at the end. Even if it kinda lessened the impact of such moments, it would've been better on multiple fronts in my opinion. The actual story is fine enough, but I feel that the way its presented hurts it.
I also liked the rotoscope moments well enough. Sure, they definitely wouldn't be on the atari 2600, but it stays consistent with that console's limited range of colors.
Overall, it's fine. I definitely think this game's brevity is a positive, but that doesn't negate a few of the issues I have with it. It's fine, but I'm hoping that the sequels are better. 5/10.
You see a lot of fourth-gen inspired games, and a decent amount of third-gen inspired games too, but there's not many games inspired by titles from before those eras. Faith is one of the few that actually fits that category, and there is a deliberacy in this stylistic choice. The game is trying to evoke that era, one that housed a 'Satanic Panic' where many Christians in the US would accuse new things of demonic for some reason. Naturally, one of these hobbies was that of videogames. It's not like this sort of behavior is completely gone (I used to live in the Deep South of the US and you could still find multiple people who hold these beliefs there), but it was most prevalent around the early to mid 80s, so making a game styled around that era of games is an interesting choice.
I must confess that I haven't played many Atari games, and the few I have played are just arcade ports. However, this game does seem mostly faithful to that era, no pun intended. The only things you can really do is walk around, hold up a crucifix to scare demons, and open a map. Any important objects are interacted with by either flashing the crucifix or just walking into them. I must admit, I wish this game had some kind of interact button, because most user interaction is pretty repetitive. Walk around, point your crucifix at the creepy guys and anything that looks suspicious, repeat. This is pretty much how the entire game works . One could argue that deeper interaction wasn't really common in the era, but neither was the walls of text that this game tells the majority of its story with. I understand that visual storytelling is probably difficult to do when your game has less detail than Super Mario Bros. I think the game should've made more use of text in the style of the 'Kill her' that was painted in blood at the end. Even if it kinda lessened the impact of such moments, it would've been better on multiple fronts in my opinion. The actual story is fine enough, but I feel that the way its presented hurts it.
I also liked the rotoscope moments well enough. Sure, they definitely wouldn't be on the atari 2600, but it stays consistent with that console's limited range of colors.
Overall, it's fine. I definitely think this game's brevity is a positive, but that doesn't negate a few of the issues I have with it. It's fine, but I'm hoping that the sequels are better. 5/10.
sure i didnt have high expectations for faith but it was kinda weird how much of a traction it had around so i was curious about it and i was sooooooooo let down by it i have no idea i just wanted to really like it way more than i actually did but theres some really weird design decisions that i cant ignore even though it takes a lot of gut to make a game inspired by this era of videogames where there were like 10 pixels on screen congrats
for starter this is a game with an 8 BIT aesthetic reminiscent of atari and shit (not that i actually know about it) and some of the best scares in the game are delivered by the sudden change of art style into hyper detailed rotoscope animations of monsters trying to get your ass ABSOLUTELY GENIUS and this also creates a damn good atmosphere of “i have no idea what to expect next after that scare it may come from anything” building tension over tension and making the player shit their pants . brilliant
what i wasnt really too fond of was the fact that the gameplay tires this formula too much the most youre gonna do is some slender man type collecting pages walking around a forest looking for some kind of story elements (i cant fucking believe i had to read all this stuff that makes no sense to me but WHATEVER its not like i hate reading or anything) while a chupacabra or something is trying to eat you alive and for some reason he can also random spawn from any part of the screen while youre trying to collect these fucking pages and fending him off with a christian cross because hes a priest or something
so umh probably the best part of the game and the most tense is the house with the possessed girl absolutely incredible sound design (silence) and thick atmosphere that escalates into another rotoscopic animation totally gorgeous if it werent for the fact that youre gonna have to go through a pretty shitty boss fight if you want the “best” ending and i cannot stress this enough just watch it on youtube i have literally no idea why they thought it was a good idea to put a pattern based fight into a game about walking and pointing crosses at stuff but OK strike 3 my man this game gets a mid vote im sorry i really wanted to like it but theres too much jank to it that outshines the actual good stuff and when a game has like 2 good scares that get repetitive after a while because youre gonna die so many times that youre gonna watch them over and over again the tension is completely gone sorry to the man i MAY be checking the next installments if some reviews convince me to do so but for now i was left with a bittersweet taste its not like i had the highest hopes but for a game this short i just wanted some less tedium and some better pacing
gotta say i liked some of the elements here like the aseptic music or the use of some latin here and there and those god awful synthesized voices that somehow managed to give the game some kind of identity i wasnt expecting but all in all they didnt compensate the negatives
plus i have no idea what the story is about the priest is there but the storytelling is so messy why is he in a forest why is he exorcizing the spirit of a girl in nowhere and why should i care about all these papers pretentious ass dont talk to me maybe i dont really like indie games all that much call me an hater
also what's with the tree monster in the cover art not being present in the game HELLOOOOOO
for starter this is a game with an 8 BIT aesthetic reminiscent of atari and shit (not that i actually know about it) and some of the best scares in the game are delivered by the sudden change of art style into hyper detailed rotoscope animations of monsters trying to get your ass ABSOLUTELY GENIUS and this also creates a damn good atmosphere of “i have no idea what to expect next after that scare it may come from anything” building tension over tension and making the player shit their pants . brilliant
what i wasnt really too fond of was the fact that the gameplay tires this formula too much the most youre gonna do is some slender man type collecting pages walking around a forest looking for some kind of story elements (i cant fucking believe i had to read all this stuff that makes no sense to me but WHATEVER its not like i hate reading or anything) while a chupacabra or something is trying to eat you alive and for some reason he can also random spawn from any part of the screen while youre trying to collect these fucking pages and fending him off with a christian cross because hes a priest or something
so umh probably the best part of the game and the most tense is the house with the possessed girl absolutely incredible sound design (silence) and thick atmosphere that escalates into another rotoscopic animation totally gorgeous if it werent for the fact that youre gonna have to go through a pretty shitty boss fight if you want the “best” ending and i cannot stress this enough just watch it on youtube i have literally no idea why they thought it was a good idea to put a pattern based fight into a game about walking and pointing crosses at stuff but OK strike 3 my man this game gets a mid vote im sorry i really wanted to like it but theres too much jank to it that outshines the actual good stuff and when a game has like 2 good scares that get repetitive after a while because youre gonna die so many times that youre gonna watch them over and over again the tension is completely gone sorry to the man i MAY be checking the next installments if some reviews convince me to do so but for now i was left with a bittersweet taste its not like i had the highest hopes but for a game this short i just wanted some less tedium and some better pacing
gotta say i liked some of the elements here like the aseptic music or the use of some latin here and there and those god awful synthesized voices that somehow managed to give the game some kind of identity i wasnt expecting but all in all they didnt compensate the negatives
plus i have no idea what the story is about the priest is there but the storytelling is so messy why is he in a forest why is he exorcizing the spirit of a girl in nowhere and why should i care about all these papers pretentious ass dont talk to me maybe i dont really like indie games all that much call me an hater
also what's with the tree monster in the cover art not being present in the game HELLOOOOOO
[I HAVE ONLY PLAYED CHAPTER 1]
I wanted to like this game. I really, really did.
Modern indie video games often find themselves inspired by fourth and fifth generation console games, but rarely does anyone focus on making a modern passion project inspired by games of the 70's. A person denying to remake EarthBound for that of Adventure instead had got me so excited. The fact it was a horror game only added to it. Systems like the Atari were perfect for creating uncomfortable and down right creepy ambiences. The lack of music, the most simple of graphics, the terrifying limited sound effects. When told about it, I was so fascinated at the idea of how someone would work around these holdbacks in order to create a story heavy game; something the Atari and similar consoles could physically create, but just weren't the market at the time.
I'll start with the positives:
- The use of rotoscoping for certain scenes is SUPER cool looking. I love it. It's incredibly well done, and was used enough to be successfully unsettling while not relying too much on it to tell the story. [Though I have heard complaints of this happening in Chapter 2; but nonetheless I'm just focusing on Chapter 1]
- The idea of multiple endings in a story heavy Atari game is a great way to give one an end; something that's unheard of in second generation games. The exact endings and how they were done was not my cup of tea, but the idea to have multiple endings was good.
- The cover is perfect. It immediately hooked me in, and reminds me of how these type of games had to so heavily rely on beautiful cover/manual art in order to show what the image behind the pixels you're playing is supposed to give you.
- The graphics in game are good. If I'm being extremely nit-picky, I could point out that when people walked in Atari games, it was rarely that smooth, but honestly, who cares? I liked it. The character designs of Amy and the creature that chased you were terrifying, while still sticking to what this era was limited in doing. The details are great, or lack of them that is: rooms all being one color with the black background, how flat everything looked, everything clearly thought of as in a 2D environment (you can't walk behind the house, there is no behind! What you see is what you get!)
- I liked the Latin inclusion.
The negatives:
- While the creator didn't put too much weight on the rotoscoping for story-telling, he did rely far too much on text in the game, expecting people to read walls of text in order to get a better understand of the story. There were two reasons why I didn't like this.
1) I'm fine with walls of text when they can fit the timing and theme. In Faith, the letters felt like a way for the creator to lazily work around the difficulties second generation games gave with story telling. The unknown is a terrifying thing, and with the eerie setting that this type of game gives, the lack of words that a 70's game would only add to the feeling. The constant mouthfuls only takes the player out of the moment, and showed the creator's comfortability with staying with modern tropes that don't particularly work with this era of games.
2) The format used just does NOT work graphically with the game. Block after block of text is already not something you would ever see in an Atari game; and only gets the player to start skimming parts you deemed essential. The endings having so much text about the meaning when again, it entirely erases the ominous sensation of having to figure out the visual of your ending. The reader finishes the game, only to be rewarded with yet another wall of text.
- The music bothered me an insane amount. The music is a modern trope just put into an old format because the creator doesn't know any different, and expects their audience to not either. Want to know what background songs were like back then? It's NOTHING! They NEVER had background music. The absolute most you would ever get is MAYBE a 5-second intro tune, and it was the screechiest, most awful sounding shit you ever heard. This music used in this sounds exactly what is used in NES-type games and it bothered the shit out of me that just because it's retro-sounding means that it must fit.
I could look past it all, except that the music often ruined the creepy feeling that silence would have better fit! Random dramatic music constantly playing at spooky times is such a newer thing, that insanely disappointed me. The soundlessness of second generation consoles was THE spookiest part of them, and it was just thrown out the window.
- I was conflicted on whether to put the voice they used in negatives or positives, but decided towards negatives as the more I played the game the more, and more it bothered me. Yes, some very specific second generation games had talking in them, and yes, they did sound just like how they do in Faith! I assume they used the same system they used in the 70's for the Speak and Spells, and it worked really well!
The problem is the creator once again began relying on it in an extremely modern sense again. No game spoke every single dialog out; not just because it was expensive but because even back then the voice was fucking awful to have to listen to for too long, and that's exactly what happened in Faith. The voice soon went from unsettling to just plain annoying. The Intellivision had the Intellivoice for a few select games. It would speak to say things such as "start" or "go, go, go!" or "hurry up!" Short statements. The excessive use of the voice ruined scenes that once again would have been better in silence and ruined the creepy ambiance that only hearing such a creepy robotic voice every once in a while would have done. Keeping the voice to just the creature chasing after you going "run, run, run" or just a scream from Amy would have not only amplified how terrifying the moment is, but also stay true to how the games used the voice boxes!
- Lastly, the endings. The endings had so much potential for confusion and fear of thinking "what the FUCK was that??" The beauty of simple visuals to try and understand the horrible thing happening in front of you. Putting aside the ending being spoon fed to you through the text at the end, the endings just weren't that good. They made no sense in comparison with each other, and read as the creator knowing he wanted to make multiple endings but had no idea what he wanted to exactly do, trying to pass it off as "wow these all contradict each other a lot; which can you trust?" The endings again could have pulled that off much better with no giant write up after the act.
Overall, I give the game a 2.5/5 - just below what I consider to be a game that successfully does what it's out to do. Faith is just short of reaching that. The creator made a unique game that very few people have tried to do before, which I admire. But it's disappointing when the challenges of an Atari game appear, and instead of working with them, pushing them away in order to force something it shouldn't.
I wanted to like this game. I really, really did.
Modern indie video games often find themselves inspired by fourth and fifth generation console games, but rarely does anyone focus on making a modern passion project inspired by games of the 70's. A person denying to remake EarthBound for that of Adventure instead had got me so excited. The fact it was a horror game only added to it. Systems like the Atari were perfect for creating uncomfortable and down right creepy ambiences. The lack of music, the most simple of graphics, the terrifying limited sound effects. When told about it, I was so fascinated at the idea of how someone would work around these holdbacks in order to create a story heavy game; something the Atari and similar consoles could physically create, but just weren't the market at the time.
I'll start with the positives:
- The use of rotoscoping for certain scenes is SUPER cool looking. I love it. It's incredibly well done, and was used enough to be successfully unsettling while not relying too much on it to tell the story. [Though I have heard complaints of this happening in Chapter 2; but nonetheless I'm just focusing on Chapter 1]
- The idea of multiple endings in a story heavy Atari game is a great way to give one an end; something that's unheard of in second generation games. The exact endings and how they were done was not my cup of tea, but the idea to have multiple endings was good.
- The cover is perfect. It immediately hooked me in, and reminds me of how these type of games had to so heavily rely on beautiful cover/manual art in order to show what the image behind the pixels you're playing is supposed to give you.
- The graphics in game are good. If I'm being extremely nit-picky, I could point out that when people walked in Atari games, it was rarely that smooth, but honestly, who cares? I liked it. The character designs of Amy and the creature that chased you were terrifying, while still sticking to what this era was limited in doing. The details are great, or lack of them that is: rooms all being one color with the black background, how flat everything looked, everything clearly thought of as in a 2D environment (you can't walk behind the house, there is no behind! What you see is what you get!)
- I liked the Latin inclusion.
The negatives:
- While the creator didn't put too much weight on the rotoscoping for story-telling, he did rely far too much on text in the game, expecting people to read walls of text in order to get a better understand of the story. There were two reasons why I didn't like this.
1) I'm fine with walls of text when they can fit the timing and theme. In Faith, the letters felt like a way for the creator to lazily work around the difficulties second generation games gave with story telling. The unknown is a terrifying thing, and with the eerie setting that this type of game gives, the lack of words that a 70's game would only add to the feeling. The constant mouthfuls only takes the player out of the moment, and showed the creator's comfortability with staying with modern tropes that don't particularly work with this era of games.
2) The format used just does NOT work graphically with the game. Block after block of text is already not something you would ever see in an Atari game; and only gets the player to start skimming parts you deemed essential. The endings having so much text about the meaning when again, it entirely erases the ominous sensation of having to figure out the visual of your ending. The reader finishes the game, only to be rewarded with yet another wall of text.
- The music bothered me an insane amount. The music is a modern trope just put into an old format because the creator doesn't know any different, and expects their audience to not either. Want to know what background songs were like back then? It's NOTHING! They NEVER had background music. The absolute most you would ever get is MAYBE a 5-second intro tune, and it was the screechiest, most awful sounding shit you ever heard. This music used in this sounds exactly what is used in NES-type games and it bothered the shit out of me that just because it's retro-sounding means that it must fit.
I could look past it all, except that the music often ruined the creepy feeling that silence would have better fit! Random dramatic music constantly playing at spooky times is such a newer thing, that insanely disappointed me. The soundlessness of second generation consoles was THE spookiest part of them, and it was just thrown out the window.
- I was conflicted on whether to put the voice they used in negatives or positives, but decided towards negatives as the more I played the game the more, and more it bothered me. Yes, some very specific second generation games had talking in them, and yes, they did sound just like how they do in Faith! I assume they used the same system they used in the 70's for the Speak and Spells, and it worked really well!
The problem is the creator once again began relying on it in an extremely modern sense again. No game spoke every single dialog out; not just because it was expensive but because even back then the voice was fucking awful to have to listen to for too long, and that's exactly what happened in Faith. The voice soon went from unsettling to just plain annoying. The Intellivision had the Intellivoice for a few select games. It would speak to say things such as "start" or "go, go, go!" or "hurry up!" Short statements. The excessive use of the voice ruined scenes that once again would have been better in silence and ruined the creepy ambiance that only hearing such a creepy robotic voice every once in a while would have done. Keeping the voice to just the creature chasing after you going "run, run, run" or just a scream from Amy would have not only amplified how terrifying the moment is, but also stay true to how the games used the voice boxes!
- Lastly, the endings. The endings had so much potential for confusion and fear of thinking "what the FUCK was that??" The beauty of simple visuals to try and understand the horrible thing happening in front of you. Putting aside the ending being spoon fed to you through the text at the end, the endings just weren't that good. They made no sense in comparison with each other, and read as the creator knowing he wanted to make multiple endings but had no idea what he wanted to exactly do, trying to pass it off as "wow these all contradict each other a lot; which can you trust?" The endings again could have pulled that off much better with no giant write up after the act.
Overall, I give the game a 2.5/5 - just below what I consider to be a game that successfully does what it's out to do. Faith is just short of reaching that. The creator made a unique game that very few people have tried to do before, which I admire. But it's disappointing when the challenges of an Atari game appear, and instead of working with them, pushing them away in order to force something it shouldn't.
Há três coisas interessantes que FAITH faz que gostaria de comentar um pouco.
Primeiro, seu visual. Na descrição do game o criador já deixa bem claro que não está emulando um console ou computador específico, e sim uma estética geral da era: os gráficos 8-bits de PCs antigos. Temos então esse amálgama que parece pertencer perfeitamente ao início dos anos 1980, uma mistura sortida ao mesmo tempo anacrônica e autêntica. É a resolução do Commodore 64, a limitação de cores das placas EGA, a paleta de cores do Atari e a nitidez do Apple II e ZX Spectrum tudo num único pacote.
Segundo, o que torna uma estética retraux boa não é só saber emular o passado, saber quando e como romper com ele é tão importante quanto. As partes mais arrepiantes de FAITH são justamente aquelas em que o game quebra as limitações audiovisuais que escolheu para criar momentos inquietantes que seriam literalmente impossíveis nas máquinas que inspiraram sua estética.
Terceiro, esse jogo de uma horinha de duração sabe causar terror mais genuíno do que muita superprodução contemporânea. A princípio parece que ele só causa medo através de jumpscares, mas logo ele prova que também sabe perfeitamente a hora de não saltar com coisas na sua cara e deixar sua própria paranoia gerar tensão. Ainda bem que joguei de dia e sem ninguém em casa para reclamar de eventuais sustos.
Primeiro, seu visual. Na descrição do game o criador já deixa bem claro que não está emulando um console ou computador específico, e sim uma estética geral da era: os gráficos 8-bits de PCs antigos. Temos então esse amálgama que parece pertencer perfeitamente ao início dos anos 1980, uma mistura sortida ao mesmo tempo anacrônica e autêntica. É a resolução do Commodore 64, a limitação de cores das placas EGA, a paleta de cores do Atari e a nitidez do Apple II e ZX Spectrum tudo num único pacote.
Segundo, o que torna uma estética retraux boa não é só saber emular o passado, saber quando e como romper com ele é tão importante quanto. As partes mais arrepiantes de FAITH são justamente aquelas em que o game quebra as limitações audiovisuais que escolheu para criar momentos inquietantes que seriam literalmente impossíveis nas máquinas que inspiraram sua estética.
Terceiro, esse jogo de uma horinha de duração sabe causar terror mais genuíno do que muita superprodução contemporânea. A princípio parece que ele só causa medo através de jumpscares, mas logo ele prova que também sabe perfeitamente a hora de não saltar com coisas na sua cara e deixar sua própria paranoia gerar tensão. Ainda bem que joguei de dia e sem ninguém em casa para reclamar de eventuais sustos.
OUT DEMON!
An excellent showcase of being able to create a really compelling narrative and a top tier horror atmosphere with very little.
REH LLIK
man do i love religion
What Amy doin with that third hand tho…
fe en ingles
What a neat game !
Overall I enjoyed my time with this game I am glad I finally got around to playing it. What initially struck me with this game is its graphics that look very Atari like. To see a horror game in this type graphical is VERY VERY rare now adays so I had to check it out. While the Atari graphics are cool I think the in game cutscenes are honestly breathtaking idk what that graphical style is called but the cutscenes look so damn awesome.
Past that what do we get? an older style of game where you do a lot of walking , collectible finding , Demon Exorcising, and more walking. I think overall the gameplay was FINE at most I was pretty let down by the boring boss fights and the lack of interaction for the most part. You really can't do much within the game past walking over stuff or using your cross against demons. I wish there would be more interacting with the stuff versus having to walk over everything.
The game has 3 chapters each chapter growing longer in time length. I wouldn't really say I have a favorite chapter as all 3 chapters tell one big story so for me its hard to say which chapter I like more. Onto story the story is honestly very intriguing and filled with deep lore that you have to search very deep for in each chapter through notes you find. To keep this very shorty the story follows a priest going to the home of a family to perform an exorcism on a young girl named Amy who was possessed by a demo. There was a first attempt at her Exorcism but it didn't go well so now you are going back to try again. Now if you do not enjoy reading you won't enjoy a big part of this game as most of the lore is told through these notes and some notes can get pretty wordy. But if you enjoy that stuff you will love this game as the world and lore is very rich if you choose to dig really deep. If you do not want to dig that deep and feel confused by the end search up Flaw Peacock on youtube and watch his 4+ hour series on the lore for faith its very interesting. There are multiple endings for each chapter which are fun to hunt for until you hit the last chapter of the game.
This game is atheistically pleasing but lacking in the gameplay department and ease of story absorption. You can follow along but you will get very confused by the story by the end unless you watch a lore video which will make things clearer. But lord I am going to say it again the cutscenes in this game are so badass!!!!!
Overall I had a good time with this and I do recommend this game if you are looking for a retro style horror game.
Overall I enjoyed my time with this game I am glad I finally got around to playing it. What initially struck me with this game is its graphics that look very Atari like. To see a horror game in this type graphical is VERY VERY rare now adays so I had to check it out. While the Atari graphics are cool I think the in game cutscenes are honestly breathtaking idk what that graphical style is called but the cutscenes look so damn awesome.
Past that what do we get? an older style of game where you do a lot of walking , collectible finding , Demon Exorcising, and more walking. I think overall the gameplay was FINE at most I was pretty let down by the boring boss fights and the lack of interaction for the most part. You really can't do much within the game past walking over stuff or using your cross against demons. I wish there would be more interacting with the stuff versus having to walk over everything.
The game has 3 chapters each chapter growing longer in time length. I wouldn't really say I have a favorite chapter as all 3 chapters tell one big story so for me its hard to say which chapter I like more. Onto story the story is honestly very intriguing and filled with deep lore that you have to search very deep for in each chapter through notes you find. To keep this very shorty the story follows a priest going to the home of a family to perform an exorcism on a young girl named Amy who was possessed by a demo. There was a first attempt at her Exorcism but it didn't go well so now you are going back to try again. Now if you do not enjoy reading you won't enjoy a big part of this game as most of the lore is told through these notes and some notes can get pretty wordy. But if you enjoy that stuff you will love this game as the world and lore is very rich if you choose to dig really deep. If you do not want to dig that deep and feel confused by the end search up Flaw Peacock on youtube and watch his 4+ hour series on the lore for faith its very interesting. There are multiple endings for each chapter which are fun to hunt for until you hit the last chapter of the game.
This game is atheistically pleasing but lacking in the gameplay department and ease of story absorption. You can follow along but you will get very confused by the story by the end unless you watch a lore video which will make things clearer. But lord I am going to say it again the cutscenes in this game are so badass!!!!!
Overall I had a good time with this and I do recommend this game if you are looking for a retro style horror game.
actually one of the most profound , and insanely chilling storied to date with a very nice and comforting pixel art style that complements it .
highly recommended ₯ʩʘↈ
highly recommended ₯ʩʘↈ
Never thought a 2D game that looks like something the 8 Bit Guy would get working on some busted up Apple II could be this scary. Really really lovely mix of exploration, environmental storytelling and solid jump scares, this 80s computer aesthetic is untapped imo, let's leave the PS1 aesthetic behind. And it's short, more short games too! I know I'm demanding a lot, deal with it
retro horror game that always vibes. haunted houses, cult churches, and a town being slowly devoured by the devil, it puts in a lot without being overwhelming and does it with style. really fun
My god, this game was so terrifying.
It was so so much better than I ever expected!!
It was so so much better than I ever expected!!
I played this game, or a version of it, way back when it first came out in like 2017, and remembered liking it quite a bit, and didn’t really think about it again until just last week when I saw some friends on here playing Faith THREE. So I have some revisiting to do and I was quite excited to do it because I do recall this game making a pretty big splash in its original release.
If video games are a medium overly concerned with the frantic, masturbatory exercise of pastiche writ large, Faith is a game whose pastiche is focused and intentional. A schlocky story evoking aesthetics of the real fearmongering of the American satanic panic in the early 80s and 90s, its small bits of explicit text evoke not books like Michelle Remembers or McMartin documents, but the industry of exploitation media that sprang up underfoot of the media blitz surrounding this stuff.
Faith’s visual style homages the systems of the day and in mimicking Atari 2600-era graphics, developer Airdorf gets away with two really cool things: first he absolutely shows off his talent as a sprite artist, able to stake out this incredible sense of atmosphere MOSTLY through visuals that push how evocative you can be with the most minimalist sprites possible to represent at turns complex and esoteric shit. The second cool thing is the one this game is famous for and that’s the way it punctuates the big moments with these shotgun blasts of beautiful, intense, frightening, explicit fully animated rotoscoped cutaway shots, breaking the established graphical style to REALLY sell those ah fuck oh jesus oh piss moments. It works! It’s fucking sick bro!
It’s not just the graphics either, music sets a good tone but Airdorf is wise with when to cut it out entirely in the second phase of the game, or when you’re coming up on an important moment in selecting one of your five endings (all of which are some shade of funny or clever, and which immediately reload you to the decision point again, painlessly encouraging a full sweep of the game’s content). Sound effects are sparse but explosive, an unearthly hum reverberates through the most haunted moments, and all of the speech, be it human or uhhh less so, comes from the iconic SAM voice synthesizer so that when you blast a demon in the face with a prayer to buy yourself one more panicked screen of respite and he screeches “I GO UNWILLINGLY” in a computerized howl it is as unnerving as it is often unintelligible.
If there’s one complaint I have with the game, and it really is just one complaint, it’s that it has like, a Boss Fight at the end of it lol. Well actually it has two boss fights if you pay enough attention to ferret out a secret one towards the end but they are both pretty awful, and in a game where you always die in one hit no matter what I think it’s a really enormous mistake to suddenly incorporate a long, long fight that relies heavily on learned patterns and twitch reflexes. The really excellent and scary animation that plays before it repeats every time you have to start over, so not only does the tension completely go out of the actual game but those fantastic explosions of climactic terror that those animations represent are also cheapened when I had to sit through one of them like ten times.
That one moment isn’t great but it is ultimately one moment that took up maybe ten minutes of the hour or so it took to get through this bad boy? So certainly not a deal breaker on the experience. Given how much of a specific skill set goes into these it’s no wonder it took so long for sequels to come out, and given the nature of the indie space it’s no wonder they slipped right by me, but I’m glad I’ve found them again. I can only hope that the next two follow the better instincts of a game that is ultimately pretty restrained for the space it’s playing at. I think there are versions of this that open themselves more fully to schlock and bombast but if that comes along with more TERRIBLE FIGHTS, well, lol I’ll find out won’t I.
If video games are a medium overly concerned with the frantic, masturbatory exercise of pastiche writ large, Faith is a game whose pastiche is focused and intentional. A schlocky story evoking aesthetics of the real fearmongering of the American satanic panic in the early 80s and 90s, its small bits of explicit text evoke not books like Michelle Remembers or McMartin documents, but the industry of exploitation media that sprang up underfoot of the media blitz surrounding this stuff.
Faith’s visual style homages the systems of the day and in mimicking Atari 2600-era graphics, developer Airdorf gets away with two really cool things: first he absolutely shows off his talent as a sprite artist, able to stake out this incredible sense of atmosphere MOSTLY through visuals that push how evocative you can be with the most minimalist sprites possible to represent at turns complex and esoteric shit. The second cool thing is the one this game is famous for and that’s the way it punctuates the big moments with these shotgun blasts of beautiful, intense, frightening, explicit fully animated rotoscoped cutaway shots, breaking the established graphical style to REALLY sell those ah fuck oh jesus oh piss moments. It works! It’s fucking sick bro!
It’s not just the graphics either, music sets a good tone but Airdorf is wise with when to cut it out entirely in the second phase of the game, or when you’re coming up on an important moment in selecting one of your five endings (all of which are some shade of funny or clever, and which immediately reload you to the decision point again, painlessly encouraging a full sweep of the game’s content). Sound effects are sparse but explosive, an unearthly hum reverberates through the most haunted moments, and all of the speech, be it human or uhhh less so, comes from the iconic SAM voice synthesizer so that when you blast a demon in the face with a prayer to buy yourself one more panicked screen of respite and he screeches “I GO UNWILLINGLY” in a computerized howl it is as unnerving as it is often unintelligible.
If there’s one complaint I have with the game, and it really is just one complaint, it’s that it has like, a Boss Fight at the end of it lol. Well actually it has two boss fights if you pay enough attention to ferret out a secret one towards the end but they are both pretty awful, and in a game where you always die in one hit no matter what I think it’s a really enormous mistake to suddenly incorporate a long, long fight that relies heavily on learned patterns and twitch reflexes. The really excellent and scary animation that plays before it repeats every time you have to start over, so not only does the tension completely go out of the actual game but those fantastic explosions of climactic terror that those animations represent are also cheapened when I had to sit through one of them like ten times.
That one moment isn’t great but it is ultimately one moment that took up maybe ten minutes of the hour or so it took to get through this bad boy? So certainly not a deal breaker on the experience. Given how much of a specific skill set goes into these it’s no wonder it took so long for sequels to come out, and given the nature of the indie space it’s no wonder they slipped right by me, but I’m glad I’ve found them again. I can only hope that the next two follow the better instincts of a game that is ultimately pretty restrained for the space it’s playing at. I think there are versions of this that open themselves more fully to schlock and bombast but if that comes along with more TERRIBLE FIGHTS, well, lol I’ll find out won’t I.
the game is fine just wish the dev would shut up can't stand his ass on twitter
Pretty successful. No matter how good it was though, the scariest thing about it was the HUGO'S HOUSE OF HORRORS flashbacks walking around the house gave me.
Also, the priest's collar on the player character needs to be one pixel lower. Looks like a tooth.
Also, the priest's collar on the player character needs to be one pixel lower. Looks like a tooth.
GARY LOVES ME
GARY LOVES ME
GARY LOVES ME
GARY LOVES ME
GARY LOVES ME
Edit: GARY DOESN'T LOVE ME :(
GARY LOVES ME
GARY LOVES ME
GARY LOVES ME
GARY LOVES ME
Edit: GARY DOESN'T LOVE ME :(
This review contains spoilers
I have a lot of very mixed feelings about this game. On one hand, it does a set of things very well, and if those things are what you're looking for or would find interesting, this game will likely be absolutely perfect for you. I have never played, and likely will never again play, a game that can capture the essence of an "atari-style horror game" quite like this. On the other hand, it leads to what I found to be a mechanically underwhelming and boring experience, on the gameplay side of things.
For the sake of clarity, I got ending 1 of 5, Murderer, in Chapter 1, and ending 1 of 3, “A new purpose”, in Chapter 3. I do not find the story engaging enough to subject myself to more time spent with the gameplay of this game, so if I do learn about the “true endings” or other optional endings/secrets, I will be watching someone else do it.
For starters, the positives.
1 - I absolutely adore the visual design of the cutscenes in this game. I recently learned these were created via the creator functionally mocapping himself and then inserting the additional details (hand coming out of Amy’s face, making himself look like the monster in the woods, etc) later, and it shows. They also mesh incredibly well with the general visual style, which I like for the specific reason that it’s uniquely disarming. You look at it and you see a silly looking, very classic style of visual design, and it allows a false sense of security to set in, before that’s immediately shattered in the woods in Chapter 1. The game does a whole lot with very little and absolutely kills it when it does, the way it swaps from “literal Atari game” to “freakish pixelated horror” is typically jarring but in an obviously intentional way, and I did love that.
2- I appreciate the use of music (and SOMETIMES silence, as opposed to modern horror games that think silent = scary and not silent = not scary) as a way to build atmosphere. Too few modern horror-esque games are willing to do this, and instead prefer a method of silence to build tension. This method is valid in certain places, but I much prefer the classic Resident Evil style, with varying tracks for different areas and “safe area” music. A PERFECT example of this within Faith is the elevator in Chapter 3, having that as a contrast to the main apartment area to step in, cool down, and collect yourself, while considering where to go/where you’ve been feels great. It’s a perfect choice and it adds greatly to the pacing of the apartment, which is a large part of where the story really ramps up. Speaking of the story…
3 - I think the story was really enjoyable and engaging, especially as it unfolded after Chapter 1. Chapter 1, while it is a solid introduction, does not do a lot to tie itself to anything that follows, however, the following chapters work to tie themselves to C1, somewhat reworking things to fit around the narrative of John revisiting the Martin house to exorcize Amy and complete the ritual he failed to complete when Father Allred was killed. The recurrence of John’s nightmares, as well as the increasing severity, adds to the building sense of dread in C3 as the Profane Sabbath approaches, while also providing a functional excuse for John to end back up at his home before receiving further orders from Father Garcia. In my eyes, Chapter 3 is easily the best, most engaging, and most intense chapter for story and world building. The final march to Gary, the talk John can have with him, Father Garcia rescuing John as he barely defeats Gary for the first time, all were genuinely good moments, and I found myself growing to genuinely find investment in John as a person before the end of the game, compared to how I saw him at the beginning, which was “a weird little blue guy”.
Now for the bad. My issues with the game fit into two overarching categories, but they tie together. I generally dislike the overall feel of the game, and I generally did not enjoy most of the puzzles or bosses, with the bosses literally always causing negative feelings and general displeasure with the exception of Gary.
Starting with the overall game feel. This is a very personal thing and to be clear, I think it does what it’s actually trying to do well, I just find that I don’t enjoy it. I enjoy games with fluid, smooth movement and combat and such, and this game is… not that. Like I’ve said in this review, it feels like an Atari game, and I respect that, but I just don’t enjoy it. You have 8 axes of movement and a single speed, and a single button action. The game is very simplistic, and that’s not necessarily an issue, but again, I dislike how it feels.
Now, my issue with the bosses extends directly from my issue with the gameplay. The process of taking out a boss is… incredibly tedious, to say the least. You walk around their very obvious attacks and hold up your crucifix when possible, and that’s basically it, because the game doesn’t have enough buttons for there to be any more to it. Amy, the weird dude (?) at the end of C2, and Gary are all like this, as well as every other demon in the game, but Gary has the decency to knock John on his ass and force you to crawl back to your cross, but he doesn’t one-shot you like EVERYTHING ELSE. Extending from this, puzzles are a simple issue. They tend to be mediocrely communicated to the player (especially in chapter 1 and 2, 3 was better about this) but they mostly boil down to walking to a place in a specific way, or walking over an item and then putting it in the right socket on a statue or something. Again, this comes back to mechanical simplicity, but I just found it unreasonably tedious if it ever took me more than 30 seconds to figure out a puzzle.
Overall, especially on sale, I think FAITH is a game well worth the time it took me to complete it. I overall enjoyed it, the cutscenes and story were a lot of fun, the music is cutesy in that very retro way but also helps to build tone and atmosphere, and despite my issues with gameplay and bosses and such, I still found myself pushing forward because I wanted to see the resolution to John’s fight to take down Gary and his absolutely absurd cult.
For the sake of clarity, I got ending 1 of 5, Murderer, in Chapter 1, and ending 1 of 3, “A new purpose”, in Chapter 3. I do not find the story engaging enough to subject myself to more time spent with the gameplay of this game, so if I do learn about the “true endings” or other optional endings/secrets, I will be watching someone else do it.
For starters, the positives.
1 - I absolutely adore the visual design of the cutscenes in this game. I recently learned these were created via the creator functionally mocapping himself and then inserting the additional details (hand coming out of Amy’s face, making himself look like the monster in the woods, etc) later, and it shows. They also mesh incredibly well with the general visual style, which I like for the specific reason that it’s uniquely disarming. You look at it and you see a silly looking, very classic style of visual design, and it allows a false sense of security to set in, before that’s immediately shattered in the woods in Chapter 1. The game does a whole lot with very little and absolutely kills it when it does, the way it swaps from “literal Atari game” to “freakish pixelated horror” is typically jarring but in an obviously intentional way, and I did love that.
2- I appreciate the use of music (and SOMETIMES silence, as opposed to modern horror games that think silent = scary and not silent = not scary) as a way to build atmosphere. Too few modern horror-esque games are willing to do this, and instead prefer a method of silence to build tension. This method is valid in certain places, but I much prefer the classic Resident Evil style, with varying tracks for different areas and “safe area” music. A PERFECT example of this within Faith is the elevator in Chapter 3, having that as a contrast to the main apartment area to step in, cool down, and collect yourself, while considering where to go/where you’ve been feels great. It’s a perfect choice and it adds greatly to the pacing of the apartment, which is a large part of where the story really ramps up. Speaking of the story…
3 - I think the story was really enjoyable and engaging, especially as it unfolded after Chapter 1. Chapter 1, while it is a solid introduction, does not do a lot to tie itself to anything that follows, however, the following chapters work to tie themselves to C1, somewhat reworking things to fit around the narrative of John revisiting the Martin house to exorcize Amy and complete the ritual he failed to complete when Father Allred was killed. The recurrence of John’s nightmares, as well as the increasing severity, adds to the building sense of dread in C3 as the Profane Sabbath approaches, while also providing a functional excuse for John to end back up at his home before receiving further orders from Father Garcia. In my eyes, Chapter 3 is easily the best, most engaging, and most intense chapter for story and world building. The final march to Gary, the talk John can have with him, Father Garcia rescuing John as he barely defeats Gary for the first time, all were genuinely good moments, and I found myself growing to genuinely find investment in John as a person before the end of the game, compared to how I saw him at the beginning, which was “a weird little blue guy”.
Now for the bad. My issues with the game fit into two overarching categories, but they tie together. I generally dislike the overall feel of the game, and I generally did not enjoy most of the puzzles or bosses, with the bosses literally always causing negative feelings and general displeasure with the exception of Gary.
Starting with the overall game feel. This is a very personal thing and to be clear, I think it does what it’s actually trying to do well, I just find that I don’t enjoy it. I enjoy games with fluid, smooth movement and combat and such, and this game is… not that. Like I’ve said in this review, it feels like an Atari game, and I respect that, but I just don’t enjoy it. You have 8 axes of movement and a single speed, and a single button action. The game is very simplistic, and that’s not necessarily an issue, but again, I dislike how it feels.
Now, my issue with the bosses extends directly from my issue with the gameplay. The process of taking out a boss is… incredibly tedious, to say the least. You walk around their very obvious attacks and hold up your crucifix when possible, and that’s basically it, because the game doesn’t have enough buttons for there to be any more to it. Amy, the weird dude (?) at the end of C2, and Gary are all like this, as well as every other demon in the game, but Gary has the decency to knock John on his ass and force you to crawl back to your cross, but he doesn’t one-shot you like EVERYTHING ELSE. Extending from this, puzzles are a simple issue. They tend to be mediocrely communicated to the player (especially in chapter 1 and 2, 3 was better about this) but they mostly boil down to walking to a place in a specific way, or walking over an item and then putting it in the right socket on a statue or something. Again, this comes back to mechanical simplicity, but I just found it unreasonably tedious if it ever took me more than 30 seconds to figure out a puzzle.
Overall, especially on sale, I think FAITH is a game well worth the time it took me to complete it. I overall enjoyed it, the cutscenes and story were a lot of fun, the music is cutesy in that very retro way but also helps to build tone and atmosphere, and despite my issues with gameplay and bosses and such, I still found myself pushing forward because I wanted to see the resolution to John’s fight to take down Gary and his absolutely absurd cult.
- m𐀏r✞is
I don't know how or why, but even with Atari-like graphics, Faith scared the hell out of me! I don't know how many times I screamed in fright playing this game. It's a true masterclass in thriller and horror games. The plot is amazing, the characters are incredible, the art direction is basic yet extraordinary, the cutscenes are both frightening and astonishing. This game has a strong identity, knows exactly what it wants to offer players, and perfectly fulfills those goals. It's one of the best indie survival horror games ever!
I don't know how or why, but even with Atari-like graphics, Faith scared the hell out of me! I don't know how many times I screamed in fright playing this game. It's a true masterclass in thriller and horror games. The plot is amazing, the characters are incredible, the art direction is basic yet extraordinary, the cutscenes are both frightening and astonishing. This game has a strong identity, knows exactly what it wants to offer players, and perfectly fulfills those goals. It's one of the best indie survival horror games ever!
"i can only have faith that i did the right thing"
Deus te odeia
Deus te odeia
the satanic panic is a great period to set a horror game in, and FAITH takes full advantage of that
A fairly simple horror game that manages to establish a creepy atmosphere in spite of that. It can get a little obtuse at times, but it's still an hour well spent for horror enthusiasts
i love this game, once u get a hand on controlling john it gets a bit easier but the lore... oh the lore. marking it as mastered because i got all collectibles, endings, and did the optional mirror boss!
Literally everything about this game rules until it decides it actually wants to be a video game
I really love the Atari-like visual aesthetic of this game. A mostly black screen with a few distinct pixelated colors popping out really leaves an impact. It almost gives off the impression of a game you’d find on an abandoned cartridge.
It was surprisingly unsettling, and never managed to let that sense of dread falter.
The biggest fault I could remember were the weirdly lengthy exposition text dumps.
Everything else was pretty neat.
It was surprisingly unsettling, and never managed to let that sense of dread falter.
The biggest fault I could remember were the weirdly lengthy exposition text dumps.
Everything else was pretty neat.
mortis
- MORTIS
- Very fun horror game in the style of old school Atari 2600 consoles.
- Plot is good and the writing is decent and it is engaging enough so that you want to know what happens next, with a lot of it being just underneath the surface of what the game actually tells you.
- Very fun horror game in the style of old school Atari 2600 consoles.
- Plot is good and the writing is decent and it is engaging enough so that you want to know what happens next, with a lot of it being just underneath the surface of what the game actually tells you.
This one’s maybe the most likely to a. be replayed and b. potentially move up in the midst of doing so — I’ll confess that maybe my feelings were impacted a bit since this was near the end of a marathon I was doing and I was feeling fairly exhausted. Either way, though, this was decent! I love the Commodore-64 aesthetic and how it combines with more modern techniques (in gaming, at least) like the rotoscoping during cutscenes — it really sells the unnatural feeling of the enemies you go up against and really helps contribute to the horror atmosphere. I also like the kind of… Goldilocks balance they have between committing to the technical limitations/difficulty of the era while not actively making it feel worse than it was back then: a lot of these throwback games tend to miss this balance and make the difficult mechanics of the time feel even worse, so it’s nice to see something that goes for this and feels… accurate, yet not unfair. I did have a major problem with signposting and knowing what I had to do — I needed to be backseated going through the whole thing and felt so aimless and tired when I wasn’t — but aside from that this was solid and decently fun. Maybe now that I know what I’m meant to do and maybe if this doesn’t come off the back of 6+ hours of other games I’ll have a bit of a better time with this when I eventually go to play the other two chapters. 6/10 for now.