
Fancy learning Latin? Well, you’re guaranteed to learn at least one word in the classical language by playing Faith: The Unholy Trinity: Mortis, or “death”, which flashes on screen every time you succumb. Facing off against legions of the damned armed with only a wooden crucifix and, well, your faith, it’s a given you’ll be succumbing quite a bit.
Dying a lot comes with the price of admission for developer Airdorf Games’ 8-bit horror odyssey, one that truly puts the 'cult' in cult status, which it has enjoyed since releasing on Steam and itch.io between 2017 and 2022. Now on the Nintendo Switch, fans of retro horror are in for a wholly unique entry in the genre that looks, sounds, and feels like nothing else.
Some may baulk at Faith’s visual style and question whether a game that looks as though it could run on a Commodore 64 could actually be scary. Lay that notion to rest, because few titles nail 'less is more' as devilishly well as this, leveraging desolate graphical minimalism with haunting rotoscoped cutscenes and distorted lo-fi sound design to chilling effect.

Faith unfolds amidst the 'Satanic Panic' of the 1980s, a period in the United States marked by hysteria and media sensationalism over broadly debunked cult activity. Players are put in the shoes of Father John Ward, a young priest left traumatised in the violent aftermath of a botched exorcism of Amy Martin, a demon-possessed 17-year-old girl.
The episodic trilogy runs for five to six hours and tracks Ward’s descent into a world of occult horror as he grapples with personal guilt and uncovers the true agenda of nefarious forces at play. Though aesthetically and mechanically consistent throughout, the chapters become notably lengthier and more sophisticated in design as the game progresses.
At its core, Faith is a game of exploration and survival. Father Ward is armed only with a cross, which serves both as a weapon and a tool for exorcising cursed objects. Players traverse haunted woods, abandoned homes, grimy sewers, and more, uncovering mostly text-based lore, solving puzzles, and confronting an array of hostile supernatural entities.

Boss fights throughout the trilogy can be particularly challenging, with little room for error given the fact that most enemies can kill Ward in one hit, forcing a restart at the last checkpoint or the beginning of a combat encounter. Enemy attack patterns are learned through trial and error, which can give way to frustrating repetition that briefly suspends the fear factor.
Combat consists of dodging and precisely positioning oneself to inflict damage. The rub is that Ward is far slower than his enemies and can neither move nor pivot directionally while holding up the cross to deal damage. Such restrained controls led to deaths that felt cheap, but the sheer strength of Faith’s atmosphere and storytelling were motivation to push through.
A particular highlight is the quality of the game’s writing as presented in various notes, letters, and newspaper clippings that are a reward for exploration or hidden within haunted items you find. These notes add context and increase Ward’s damage output. While we won't spoil specific story elements, trust us when we say the devil is in the details.

In one standout sequence, a seemingly typical newspaper article turns out to be anything but, resulting in a spectacular segue into one of the game’s many evocative cutscenes made using rotoscoping, a technique whereby live-action footage is traced frame-by-frame, resulting in fluid and lifelike movements imbued with uncanny realism.
Usually lasting no more than a few seconds, these cutscenes pair particularly well with the limited colour palette and blocky sprites of Faith’s retro-inspired visuals, which are evocative despite their simplicity. The presentation is masterfully tied together by cold synth loops, distorted bleeps, and computerised vox, along with bouts of unnerving silence.
Puzzle-solving adds another wrinkle to the gameplay, usually paired with cryptic riddles and clever environmental hints. Each of the three episodes has multiple endings, some of which require solving more hidden puzzles, discovering secret areas, and defeating optional bosses that are much tougher than the main story’s bosses.

So just how scary is it? While we’ve played games that are more likely to elicit jump scares or have our heartbeats racing with tension, Faith thoroughly succeeds in what it sets out to be. While there are a few moments that may jolt you and a generous amount of body horror and blood, it excels in creating a foreboding atmosphere.
Since the Unholy Trinity has been available elsewhere for some time, there are detailed walkthroughs online for completionists. The Switch version of the game includes extras to unlock, including backgrounds and additional game modes, though the various achievements present on the Steam version are not built into this port.
Faith runs flawlessly on Nintendo’s hybrid, though we did initially encounter a progression-halting bug in Chapter 3 that has since been patched in Version 1.5.0. Rumble support is used to great effect throughout the game to ramp up the tension, and we recommend headphones for full immersion. We made a point of only playing it at night with the lights off.
Conclusion
Among the slate of retro horror offerings, Faith: The Unholy Trinity sets itself apart with its distinct visual style and masterful presentation. While boss encounters can be gruelling and lead to frustration, that never diminished our desire to progress the story to its conclusion. With an abundance of lore to collect and multiple endings for each of its three chapters, all the replayability on offer makes it a perfect game to fire up around Halloween.
Comments 20
I had completely forgotten about this game! I was waiting for a review either way but this solidifies the deal. I’ll be getting this and somehow finding the time between Silent Hill 2 and Mario RPG to play it.
I’m debating going physical with it or just sticking to digital 🤔
UPDATE: went digital with the 10% launch discount. Can’t beat that with a vat of holy water or a boomerang cross…. Errr wait this isn’t Castlevania.
I've been playing over the past couple days. Love the haunting atmosphere. Definitely one of the freakiest horror games I've played in recent memory, in spite of it's lofi visuals. Testament to the excellent writing, visual and sound design.
the rotoscoped monster designs are HORRIFYING, i spent a good amount of time in these games on steam and they are absolutely excellent.
Thanks for the review, while this is definitely not for me I'm happy to hear it's overall great also on Switch for those interested!
By the way, I wonder if mortis is intentional or a slight mistake since it's the genitive singular instead of the usual nominative singular of mors, death - the genitive is the case that expresses possession/relation like of/'s in English (it's no case, pun intended, that it's in the expression rigor mortis, literally the "stiffness of death", from Latin but found also in English and other languages including Italian)...
Taking off points for Switch games not having achievements is a bit silly, especially at this point in the console's life cycle. It's expected by now.
Regardless, this game looks interesting and I might check it out when it goes on sale.
Yeah I've watched a playthrough of this, it looks really good, part 3 especially.
It's a fantastic little series and despite it's simple graphics, manages to be really scary. The rotoscoped cutscenes are fantastic and if you're interested you can fi d the reference footage on youtube. It's really interesting to see.
@pikku I reviewed this game, and just to feedback on that point, there's a lot of buzz among Faith fans around achievements like "Good Christian Boy" which are notoriously hard to obtain. I didn't dock the score because these achievements weren't included, I just meant that it would be cool if they had been, given how well they've gone down with the player base.
@nib0 Fair enough, it's a good point to mention. Achievements definitely do add something to the experience as a whole to games, and can certainlyfactor into my decision to purchase a game sometimes.
I do wish the Switch had implemented them like all other consoles and launchers at this point lol.
I was considering getting this one to play for spooky month but I already played Darkwood, Crow Country and Killer Frequency so this one may have to wait until next year or whenever I need another horror fix, moving on to a different genre for now. This game has always intrigued me though.
This was a day one buy for me. An absolute blast of a game to play and replay. Definitely worth the price of admission.
Remember, Gary loves you ❤️
Ok you’ve sold me on it, but the one hit kill stuff is gonna tick me off. 😂
Imma need a Game Genie
I wouldn’t rely on this game for a Latin lesson. The death screen should read mors, assuming that they want it to say “death” (even in debased Church Latin). Mortis is the genitive/possessive case and means “of death”. I don’t think it really makes sense to use it on its own like that, unless I’ve missed something!
You would expect it as part of a phrase, such as rigor mortis.
Is that really available in Europe? I haven't seen it in the eShop, at least in France.
@Dpishere is Darkwood any good? It's been on my wishlist forever but I just never pull the trigger on it.
@FredsBodyDouble Yes it is. I prefer the other two games I mentioned but Darkwood has a great atmosphere to it, lengthy too at around 20 hours for me to beat it.
General gameplay is gathering resources and exploring during the day so you have better odds of surviving the night, successfully doing so grants you extra resources to spend on traders for stuff like ammunition. After while you can get loaded on ammunition but you never feel like a one man army. Every night is tense even if nothing ever happens.
Into the queue it goes. Love the retro aesthetics and vintage visuals/sound.
@Dm9982 The game saves frequently so you just have to repeat little segments whenever you die, specially on encounters.
For anyone on the fence, I've been playing it and it's very enjoyable and creative. Definitely a good horror game for the season. I thought that the simple graphics might have prevented me from getting into it but that wasn't the case at all. My only complaint is that it's a bit short but for the price point I think that it's fair. It also has a ton of different outcomes so it's replayable.
@roy130390 Thanks for the info! It’s on my wishlist and I might snag it on pay day!
Show Comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...