History VideoGame / Faith

[[redirect:VideoGame/FaithTheUnholyTrinity

[[redirect:VideoGame/FaithTheUnholyTrinity]]

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/faith_7.png]]
[[caption-width-right:350:The power of Christ compels you.]]
->''September 21, 1987.\\
It's been one year since I first went inside that house.\\
I have to finish what I started.\\
...What I am about to do has not been approved by the Vatican.''
-->--'''John Ward'''

''[[https://airdorf.itch.io/faith FAITH]]'' is a free {{Retraux}} indie horror game about DemonicPossession and HollywoodExorcism.

Connecticut, 1986. Amy, the daughter of the Martin family, has been acting strangely, and her parents fear that she might be possessed by a demon. To save her, they turn to the Catholic Church, who send a pair of exorcists, Father Allred and John Ward, to investigate the case, and if necessary, exorcise Amy.

[[NoodleIncident It ends badly.]]

One year later, Ward, the SoleSurvivor, returns to the house. His goal: to put an end to the horror he failed to stop. What might otherwise be a simple exorcism, however, becomes a life-threatening nightmare, and Ward must search for answers while braving the wrath of a demonic presence, all to save a single soul... or so it seems...

A sequel, ''[[https://airdorf.itch.io/faith2 FAITH: Chapter II]]'', was released in February 2019. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXInQXodLOk Trailer.]] A third Chapter is confirmed to be in development, with a demo being released Halloween 2019.

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!!The game provides examples of:

* TheEighties: Takes place on the one year anniversary of a 1986 botched exorcism.
* AmbiguousEnding: The MultipleEndings suggest a couple of different resolutions to the story. [[spoiler:Is Amy actually possessed by a demon and is the player actually a priest, or are they both just mental cases who belong in either prison, or an asylum?]]
* AntiFrustrationFeatures:
** The game autosaves just about every time you make progress.
** In the final segment of the game, if you [[spoiler: waste the one bullet you were given with the rifle (by not shooting one of the five valid targets), the loaded rifle will respawn in the Martins' living room where you first found it.]]
** Version 1.1 added a visible pentagram in the attic during the boss fight with Amy's demon to make it easier to predict her movement pattern and get out of the way.
* ArtShift: Many cutscenes are ''beautifully'' rotoscoped, which contrasts unsettlingly with the rest of the game's second-gen appearance.
* AsTheGoodBookSays: The instruction screen quotes Psalm 116:9 (“I will walk before the LORD in the land of the living”) when teaching you how to move, and James 4:7 (“Resist the devil, and he will flee from you”) when teaching you how to cast out spirits with your cross. Psalm 91 is also repeated in many endings from ''Chapter I'', and said in full in a ''Chapter II'' boss fight. Darkly invoked in ''Chapter II'', in which a message from the Satanist leader Gary mockingly paraphrases Matthew 7:21: "Verily, not everyone who says LUCIFER, LUCIFER will inherit His kingdom."
* BadassBoast: Father Garcia in the prologue of ''Chapter II'' after Michael escapes from his exorcism.
--> '''Father Garcia''': You can't hide from God, hijo. You shall drink the wrath of the Almighty.
* BadassPreacher: John Ward is a priest [[spoiler:(maybe)]] that doesn't take shit from any demons. He still goes down in one attack, and his only “weapon” is a cross used to banish spirits [[spoiler:until you get a rifle with one bullet left in the final part of the game]], but he makes pretty good use of what he has, and is at least spiritually-attuned enough to [[spoiler:recognize the real Amy when she attempts to confuse him with duplicates in the first round of their fight]].
** Father Garcia from Chapter II has shades of this near the final boss fight, when he reassures John with complete certainty that the two of them can banish the BigBad of the game. [[EscortMission Whether he is right or wrong depends on the player]].
* BittersweetEnding [=/=] DownerEnding: The endings.
** [[spoiler:If you kill Amy, you're arrested for murder. If you shoot the shadow in the woods, you're killed by Michael. If you shoot that fox corpse on the pentagram, you're jumped by the local satanic cult. [[GainaxEnding If you kill a deer, nature strikes back.]] In fact, the best ending is to give up your pursuit of Amy after the incomplete exorcism, and shoot Michael when he attacks you as you try to leave. And even then, the hosts of both demons are dead or dying, the demons never expelled from them.]]
** All three endings of Chapter II arguably qualify. [[spoiler:Best case scenario, John is still haunted by his failure to exorcise Amy, and can only hope that her death leads her to Heaven; meanwhile, Amy's siblings are being targeted next, and John needs to hurry to spare them the same fate. If you couldn't protect Father Garcia during the FinalBoss, John's final speech and self-reflection will be a ''lot'' less hopeful, and a red figure is shown tailing him...]]
*** [[spoiler:...but none of that compares to the secret third ending, in which John completes three Satanic rituals (drawing a pentagram with blood [[EyeScream from his eye]]), [[WouldHurtAChild luring an innocent child to a demonic confessor in a haunted church]], and murdering two innocent bystanders while temporarily turned into a demon.) As a result, after "winning" the game and it's revealed that it was AllJustADream... John goes into his backyard and finds the cult and Malphas waiting for him, inducting him into their ranks, complete with John spouting TearsOfBlood.]]
* BlackSpeech: Michael appears to spout this, although unlike most examples, all you need is a good ear to decipher what he's saying. It's only ''slightly'' more distorted than the rest of the game's text-to-speech dialogue. Later games show that this is a trait of DemonicPossession.
* BlueIsHeroic: John is just a blue humanoid sprite with a little white pixel on his neck to represent a clergy collar.
* BodyHorror: The crawling demon that attacks you in the first game's overworld is [[spoiler:actually a human. After a year of being both possessed and locked in a basement for exorcism, he has lost all his hair, grown deathly pale, and has developed rickets.]]
* BonusBoss: [[spoiler: If you abuse the infinitely respawning gun to shoot the mirror in the southwest room three times, you can go through the mirror and fight... something. Afterwards, you get an additional letter to read revealing why John has been away for so long.]]
* CanisLatinicus: "Pandemonium regnat" doesn't actually mean anything in Latin--"pandemonium" was coined by John Milton in ''Literature/ParadiseLost'' as a name for Hell's capital city, from the Greek "pan" meaning "all" and the Latin "daemonium" meaning "demon". As such, it could be interpreted as either "the demons reign", "Hell reigns", or "chaos reigns". Given the accuracy of the Latin in the first game, this was probably chosen deliberately for its ambiguity. Also, the verb "regnat" should be first.
* {{Chupacabra}}: Although he's not actually a chupacabra, Michael, the primary enemy of the forest section, resembles one due to [[spoiler: the length and extremity of his demonic possession. [[WasOnceAMan He's been transformed into a pallid, nightmarish humanoid on all fours]] that tries to rip John and the wildlife to shreds.]] [[spoiler: If John shoots him, the newspapers relate the locals taking his corpse for that of a chupacabra]].
* ColorMotif: Since the game is running with an Atari art style, the three most prominent characters are colored differently from the green of the forest and the orange of the house: John is blue with a single white pixel representing his clerical collar, Michael is sickly-white with red eyes, and Amy is a dark purple.
* CrisisOfFaith: According to John in ''Chapter II'', he "turned [his] back on the church, and broke [his] vows with God" between Amy's first exorcism and the events of Chapter I. He has had a change of heart and come back to God, whether it be out of guilt or genuine belief.
* CuttingOffTheBranches: ''Chapter II'' confirms [[spoiler:the GoldenEnding, where Amy is left for dead and Michael is splattered by a truck,]] to be the canon ending of the first chapter. [[spoiler:[[AllJustADream Maybe.]]]]
* DangerTakesABackseat: In one of the endings, which you get if you [[spoiler:shoot the shadow, Michael hides in your backseat and jumps you on your drive home.]]
* DemonicPossession: Amy Martin is a victim of one, and the player controls an exorcist trying to handle it. [[spoiler: ''Chapter II'' confirms that Michael is also a victim of possession, whose body has been demon-ridden for so long that he's no longer recognizable as having ever been human.]]
** In the Chapter III demo [[spoiler: John must be possessed by a demon at least once]].
* DevelopersForesight: Exorcising Amy enough times on the second floor will have the player comment about a door opening. If this is done on the first floor, or in the basement, they will instead comment they heard it from upstairs. Do it at the attic door, and Amy will float to the door, opening it with no comment.
* DontGoInTheWoods: John has to trudge through a desolate forest in the middle of the night to get to his destination. Said forest is haunted by another possessed victim resembling a {{Chupacabra}}.
* DreamingOfThingsToCome: [[spoiler:The entirety of ''Chapter II'', outside of the very beginning with Father Garcia and the very end.]] [[spoiler:[[OrWasItADream Except in the ending where John joins the Satanists.]]]]
* EarnYourBadEnding: Getting the worst ending in ''Chapter II'' is way more involved than the others. See GuideDangIt below.
* EasterEgg: Pausing whenever Michael is present will trigger a rotoscope animation featuring him.
* EatTheDog: Michael takes this trope literally in the opening of ''Chapter II''; after he escapes from his exorcism, Father Garcia finds him eating an indistinct corpse, its eye still in his mouth. Once Michael runs out through the window, the corpse's body can be seen in full, indicating that it belongs to a dog that resided in the house.
* EscortMission: The final BossFight of Chapter II is this, where the GoodEnding requires the player protect Father Garcia as he attempts to [[TurnUndead drive away]] the demon in the shape of the nun. The boss can be fought if Garcia dies, but this leads to a BadEnding.
* EyeScream: John gets the brunt of this in ''Chapter II''. In order to create a pentagram in the forest, John [[spoiler:stabs himself in the eye with a key and uses the blood to draw lines, and in one of the endings, he bleeds from both eyes after being taken by the red-robed cult.]]
* FacialHorror: Towards the end of ''Chapter I'', [[spoiler:when you encounter Amy in the attic, you find she has a gaping bloody hole where her face should be. During the third round of the boss fight, the demon possessing her sticks its arm out through the hole]].
** In the demo for Chapter III, [[spoiler: you get a trippy visual of a demon staring John in the face, before his face seems to [[{{Squick}} melt]] as he is seemingly possessed by the demon also possessing Amy. Later, every time he is possessed during the BossFight, his face seemingly explodes inside out]]. [[{{Understatement}} It's quite gory]].
* FilkSong: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkJj1d6kH50 Have Faith]], courtesy of Music/{{Aviators}}.
* {{Foreshadowing}}: You can see a spirit behind you in a mirror in the house, but you cannot exorcise it. [[spoiler:When you get the rifle, fully breaking said mirror starts a SecretBoss fight.]]
* {{Gorn}}: There are some gruesome things in these games. The fact that said things are rendered as a smattering of indistinct red pixels arguably only makes it worse.
* GratuitousLatin: The menus are full of largely accurate Latin: menu options are written in Latin until you scroll over them, and collected items are listed with their Latin names. For example, the “Extras” option on the main menu is “Additicia” (literally “alongside”), John's cross and the key to the Martins' house are labeled “crux” and “clavis,” respectively, and if you're killed during gameplay, the game over screen displays "mortis".
* GratuitousSpanish: There are a few Spanish words mixed into the dialogue during the prologue of ''Chapter II'' with Father Garcia.
* GreaterScopeVillain: A few notes mention a man named Gary who seems to be the leader of the cult.
* GuideDangIt:
** The only way to learn what John was up to after Amy's failed first exorcism is to [[spoiler:abuse the gun's respawn mechanic to shoot the mirror three times and fight a BonusBoss]].
** The secret [[spoiler:third]] ending in ''Chapter II''. [[spoiler:You have to complete all three of the secret Satanic rituals before reaching the final area: after the EyeScream scene, but before opening the gate, backtrack south and draw a pentagram between five rocks with your blood; if successful, a new demon will appear and need to be driven off. Next, lure the child to the church in the woods, and take him to the confessional, like the demonic confessor demanded you to; a demonic hand will snatch him, then you. Drive off the extra boss fight, then continue on. Finally, when John is turned into a monster, after approaching the underpass but WITHOUT going under it (thus returning John to normal), backtrack, and the path will have changed to open up a new ledge to the top of it; from here, quickly chase down and kill the man and woman, while avoiding being killed by the truck.]] If you did all these steps right, then in the final section of the tunnels, [[spoiler:the path that's normally blocked off will be open, and at the top is an inverted cross with a red note at the base congratulating John for his success. Afterwards, finish the game normally, and you'll get the "Initiation" ending.]] And along the way, once again, you'll be treated to extra lore about John's time following the first exorcism.
* HellIsThatNoise: The game's crude, low-quality text-to-speech dialogue works ''fantastic'' for the atmosphere, as it makes the human characters come off as abnormal and eerie, and makes the monsters' babbling sound ''much'' closer to BlackSpeech. The crunchy sound effects help too.
* TheHeroDies: In several endings of ''Chapter I'', [[spoiler:John is killed by Michael, a Satanic cult, or a pissed-off deer]].
* HollywoodSatanism: There's plenty of demonic rituals and pentagrams and all that jazz littered about. [[spoiler:You're also jumped by a Satanic, red-robed cult in one of the endings.]] Developer Airdorf Games has stated on Twitter one of his many inspirations for the game was 1980's "Satanic Panic."
* IKnowYoureInThereSomewhereFight: John's motivation for exorcizing Amy, and therefore the subsequent boss battle, of the first game.
* MindScrew: ''Thrives'' off it, especially in the second game.
** One of the best-executed examples is a note approximately halfway through the second game, which appears to be an excerpt from a newspaper talking about a set of recent murders, before the writing turns a bit... morbid. [[spoiler:Then it addresses John directly... [[FromBadToWorse then it gets REALLY bad.]]]]
* MultipleEndings: A whopping five in the first chapter, surprising for such a modest game. [[spoiler:If you kill Amy, it turns out it was all a schizophrenic episode and you're locked away for murder (or you really did kill a possessed girl and the schizophrenia is how the church covers it up). If you kill Michael, you simply drive away, complete (although ''Chapter II'' confirms that you killed a possessed boy.) If you kill the shadow, Michael kills you. If you kill a deer, the deer kill you right back. If you shoot that fox carcass in a pentagram, a Satanic cult jumps you.]]
** ''Chapter II'' has three: the normal ending, the bad ending [[spoiler:if Father Garcia dies during the final boss but you defeat the boss anyway]], and the secret, ''really bad'' ending [[spoiler:that has John Ward inducted into the Satanic cult.]]
** Even the demo for Chapter III has two endings, the standard one after defeating the boss at the end, or a BadEnding where [[spoiler: during the fight, you (intentionally or accidentally) kill Lisa while possessed by the demon BodySurfing between her and you, which leaves it to continue possessing John, [[WhamLine who simply apologizes and blames]] TheDevil [[WhamLine for killing her while speaking in a heavily distorted tone of voice]]]].
* NoodleIncident: The previous exorcism is never gone into detail, but it was ''bad''.
** Airdorf loves this. ''Chapter II'' is full of notes that give ''just'' enough backstory on the various locales and demons to paint a picture of what ''might'' have happened, while leaving plenty unspoken.
* NothingIsScarier: The game really leaves quite the impression thanks to the soul-rending paranoia it induces in the quieter sections, where you're just waiting for something to pop out.
* NunsAreSpooky: The [[spoiler:final boss]] of ''Chapter II'' is a nun who, according to local folklore, tortured children. [[spoiler:Or at least, is something taking the shape of that nun.]]
* PublicDomainSoundtrack: The menu screen plays a rendition of the hymn "Near the Cross", and the outdoor section plays Beethoven's ''Moonlight Sonata''.
* PurpleIsPowerful: Purple is associated with DemonicPossession here.
* {{Retraux}}: This 2017 game looks straight out of the Atari era, as is intended.
* SelfMadeOrphan: In the original exorcism, Amy killed both of her parents thanks to DemonicPossession. [[spoiler:Maybe.]]
* ShoutOut:
** One of Michael's BlackSpeech lines is "I have the body of a pig", a reference to an infamous hoax from 2007 where a paranormal investigation crew record audio of a later photographed creature saying that very phrase.
** In one screen you come across the body of a fox inside a pentagram. Interacting with it prompts a voice to say [[Film/{{Antichrist}} "CHAOS REIGNS."]]
*** The phrase appears again in ''Chapter II'' if you happen to run into a particular enemy. It's also one possible translation for the recurring CanisLatinicus phrase "pandemonium regnat".
** Despite the extremely low-res graphics, all but a few of the toys (the ones that just look like action figures) in the twins' bedroom are recognizable brand-name toys: A Simon, an Etch-a-Sketch, a Fisher-Price phone and vacuum cleaner, a Speak-and-Spell, and a View-Master.
** The ending in which you shoot the deer notes that you were only able to retrieve 25 pounds of meat from it, a reference to a similar (and frustrating) limitation in ''VideoGame/OregonTrail''.
* TomatoInTheMirror: [[spoiler:John may actually be an insane priest imitator who hunted down a teenage mental patient thinking she was possessed.]] [[spoiler:Maybe.]]
* WhamLine:
** From the very start of the first game.
--> ''What I am about to do has not been approved by the Vatican''
** From the end of the Chapter III demo, we get the following as [[spoiler: a red-robed figure reveals itself to John before he leaves the room where he fought the demon possessing him and Lisa]]:
--> ''Hello John. It is good to finally meet you.''
** From the [[spoiler: BadEnding to the same demo]], not so much the line as the presence of the same distortion effect as other demon-possessed humans in the second part:
--> '''[[spoiler: John]]:''' ''I'm sorry, [[spoiler: Lisa]],'' '''''[[VoiceOfTheLegion THE DEVIL MADE ME DO IT]]'''''.
----
-->[-MORTIS-]

* BlackSpeech: Michael appears to spout this, although unlike most examples, all you need is a good ear to decipher what he's saying. It's only ''slightly'' more distorted than the rest of the game's text-to-speech dialogue.

** Father Garcia from Chapter II has shades of this near the final boss fight, when he reassures John with complete certainty that the two of them can banish the BigBad of the game. [[EscortMission Whether he is right or wrong depends on the player]].