The Last Faith: Review

This game was reviewed on PC.

Reviewed by:  Nikola Hristov

2D Soulslikes have become an increasingly popular genre of games because of the success of titles such as Hollow Knight. The Last Faith is an interesting little adventure that seems to be inspired by a few of FromSoft's titles but the Metroidvania aspects of games such as Blasphemous 2. Now, anyone could guess that this is not going to be the next mainstream title – but is it worth your time otherwise?

To start things off, The Last Faith's atmosphere is great and reminded me a lot of Bloodborne. The Victorian setting and horror-inspired monsters, as well as the hunter clothing for the player are in my eyes direct references to that, which is awesome. The weapons and enemies are also mainly blades, guns and blood-starved beasts – just like the PS4 exclusive. The game also tries to replicate the complicated lore and deep environmental storytelling of Souls games, but unfortunately fails to do so – which resulted in me losing my interest and not being associated to any of the characters, even the bosses.

Which brings me to the gameplay. As a 2D Hack and Slash there's nothing here that hasn't been done before – several unique weapons, mainly swords which scale with specific stats of your choice, guns such as pistols and mini-guns and of course – magic. However, the balancing is way off here and melee combat is not only more fun but also straight up stronger than even trying to bother with ranged options – which means most players will completely ignore spells and firearms. As you progress through the levels of the game, you'll meet many of the Victorian-inspired beasts that you'll have to slay in order to undo some of the apocalyptic damage that's already happened to your world. Although most enemies aren't that hard to beat, the game did have a few specific difficulty spikes, but not in a good way. It wasn't opponents that made my life hard, it was traps – just like every Souls title out there.

Unlike FromSoft's games though, The Last Faith completely fails to deliver meaningful boss encounters. If I had to describe them all quickly – they would be cool-looking and scary, but not unique or memorable. Yes, knights and undead bone dragons are cool, but that's not enough for me to attach to any of these fights the way Souls game achieve that feeling.

In terms of performance there isn't much to say here. Being a simple 2D game, each of the mechanics (which there aren't that many of) works as intended. The game doesn't look astounding, but it does feature that creepy Victorian London charm that the developers were looking for.

Overall, I'm not that impressed with the title, but not necessarily disappointed either. If you've played Blasphemous 2 or Hollow Knight, this is just a straight downgrade from them, which is a shame considering the dope Bloodborne atmosphere the game has achieved. That being said, if you forget to compare it to other (arguably better) titles, you can find a good time here – hacking and slashing with a flaming sword, shooting blood-starved beasts and taking down massive creatures.

Reviewed by: Nikola Hristov