It’s very hard for me to review Faith in a way that informs non-players on whether or not they should buy it. I think that anything I say coming from that place is going to be lacking. Instead, I think it’s more proper to review Faith in a way that shares my thoughts of the game with players who already finished it. Ironically, this sort of one-sided dialogue is the best thing I can offer non-players as my sell of the game (though don’t worry: I’ll avoid spoilers).

Faith sells itself, in its synopsis, and at its opening, to be a game about an investigation, by a priest haunted by his guilt and inner demons. That much is the status quo that most players accept. But honestly? The game absolutely betrays that synopsis and renders it irrelevant, and that’s a good thing.

Faith is not about a man wrestling with guilt. Faith is about a man wrestling with Evil.

What makes Faith truly unique is not the mix between Retro-8-Bit and realism in animation. What truly makes Faith unique is how they portray demons. The demons of Faith are not just scary monsters with claws and fangs that can tear you apart. They’re dirty. Filthy. Sinful defilers. Filled with hate that is both supernatural, yet feels alarmingly personal. Even a non-Christian (and even an atheist) will feel the depths of defilement in not just what the demons do in this game, but how they are expressed and shown. John isn’t wrestling with guilt, no matter what the game tells you. If you look at what he does throughout the game, or at the very least, where the game takes you in his shoes, it’s a wrestle against just how bad and depraved things can truly get.

Every demon that appears on screen doesn’t scare you. It doesn’t make you jump and scream. It just makes you lose your innocence a bit more. The demons in this game are such depraved defilers, such hateful predators in every sense of the word, that every time they torment a victim, every time one is as much as touched by them, you wonder if they can actually ever be made whole again. You feel the permanence of that stain, not in the sense that “these beings are powerful”, but in the sense of “that was such filth, I’m not sure anyone can possibly be alright after this”.

A lot of what I say isn’t explicitly stated or shown in an NSFW way, but it is felt through the very design of the game and its demons. I confess that this is something that always made me wonder about Faith: “The demons aren’t particularly powerful. They aren’t Balrogs. But why do they feel as big of a deal as a Balrog?” And then, what I said earlier, is precisely what hit me: Because every encounter with a demon just utterly and genuinely dims everything good in this world for the player, a bit more.

This, to me, is what makes Faith a true religious horror game: It isn’t just superficial elements like having priests and crosses and bibles. It’s this portrayal and constant encounter with not just demons and big monsters, but with sin itself. Evil itself.

Yes, other dark games and pieces of media portray evil and defilement all the time, but Faith, shown not only from the perspective of one of the “good guys”, but someone who has the task of actually cleansing this Evil directly? Unlike those other games where what you tell yourself as a protagonist is “we must live on and survive”, in Faith, what you tell yourself is “….where do I even begin….?”

Faith doesn’t make you meet evil. It doesn’t help you accept it. It doesn’t tell you to survive despite it. It doesn’t numb you to it. It painfully makes you wrestle with it, over and over and over, with a painfully sober mind. A painfully well-wishing mind. It’s your duty, after all; You’re a priest. Unlike other dark games, you’re physically unable to give in to the darkness. Your job is to hold onto a normal, good, innocent world. And Faith’s demons will make your fingers bleed.

It's been a while since I beat this game but I couldn't get it off my mind. The story itself is pretty intriguing and kept me hooked from begining to end. The gameplay is limited, at times too much, I got killed a few times due to enemies spawning right next to me. But what really impressed me is how much the game actually evokes fear, not despite its graphics, but because of them. Even with its purposefully simplistic presentation, this is a game that will make you tense all the way through. Impressive and supperb work, not only I recommend this game but I'll also keep an eye out for future releases from this developer

Father Garcia is literally me