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The good:

-The visuals are striking, and the way it uses rotoscoped animation is at times jaw dropping. Despite being inspired by the graphics of the Atari era, this game doesn't suffer the problem many of those games had when it came to understanding what you were looking at. In Faith, you'll know what you're looking at the vast majority of the time.

-The music takes a lot of old music, primarily religious and classical pieces, and gives them a retro, oftentimes sinister feel. There really isn't a bad track, and the original ambient pieces are especially effective. There were multiple times when the fear and tension was increased exponentially by the music.

-The sound design is mostly great. They're purposefully low-quality and video game-y, but don't ever sound silly or break your immersion.

-The story knows how to draw you in. While you likely won't form much of a personal attachment with any of the characters, the narrative itself is strong and makes you constantly want to find out what happens next. The premise of the 1980's American Satanic Scare provides the chapters tons of inspiration, from your classic exorcism gone wrong to druggie-filled sewers. (Though sadly, there are no cursed DND sets. 0/10 worst game ever.) There's a strong sense of escalation as you realize just how insidious this demonic influence really is. While a lot of the story is told through your cliche collectible diary entries, they're well written and presented in a more scattered way that forces you to connect the dots yourself if you want to fully understand what's going on.

The meh:

-The gameplay is a complete mixed bag. Some segments, like the flashlight section from Chapter II and the apartment complex in Chapter III, are genuinely terrifying and entertaining stuff. Others, like most of Chapter 1 and the Malphas section in Chapter III, can feel boring or frustrating. Your character moves at a snail's pace, which can kill the pacing. The puzzles are generally great, but the boss fights (of which there is a surprising amount of), tend to feel annoying or just plain dull. Sometimes the game is hilariously easy, while other times it's an obnoxious game of trial and error. The minimal save points can lead to moments where you'll lose anywhere from a couple of minutes to a half an hour's progress, and that just doesn't feel fun.

-The text-to-speech can sometimes really add to the uncanny feeling of scenes and enemies, but it can also backfire pretty spectacularly. The main character and the few people who actually want to help him also speak in this text-to-speech, which just feels wrong. I'd much rather they have simply given their dialogue with no accompanying voice than use software that can sound unfitting at best and silly at worst. This game actually, no joke, uses the Bonzai Buddy voice for what are supposed to be serious/creepy moments. If you want a moment to be serious, the last thing you should EVER do is use Bonzai Buddy of all things.

The bad:

-The game carries a lot of unlockables and secrets, which you'd think would make the game prime for replaying, right? Wrong. So, so, so wrong. Replaying any chapter is an exercise in misery. During the thrill of your first playthrough, the game's faults can be excused, but revisiting them forces the cracks to show. Your character is so. ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. Slow. And it makes replaying segments utterly tedious. The game has an unlockable feature known as turbo mode which increases the speed of the game, and while this in theory can help, it's important to realize this means EVERYTHING is faster. Including the enemies. Difficult encounters become utterly infuriating, and boss fights are like pulling teeth. Considering each chapter has multiple endings, dozens of collectable story-important notes, and a fair amount of secret content, it just sucks that actually going back and trying to experience all of this is such a horrible experience.

In conclusion: Faith is definitely worth your time and money, but it's important to understand that playing this game can at times be very, very rough. Also, if you value your sanity, don't try to unlock everything. It's miserable.

EDIT: So the developer has made some crucial changes, and I can confidently say they've greatly improved the overall experience. The addition of colors is small enough to keep the game's minimalist look intact, but makes a huge difference in the moment to moment gameplay. Being able to easily identify different enemy types based on their colors means the combat is much more readable. Red guys are melee chargers, green guys shoot pistols, etc. Now I can not only notice but also appreciate the enemy types and how they spice up the gameplay. I can not stress enough how much better the colors and redone sprites have made the experience.

The game overall feels much better to play and easier to understand, which allows me to better focus on the core gameplay. The tutorial is also a welcome addition that further helps players understand the mechanics. Auto aim feels very OP, but I do appreciate it as a way to allow players who otherwise wouldn't be able to keep up with the frenetic pace a way of enjoying it regardless.

Progression feels a bit rough, with not enough cash coming in to allow upgrades to be bought at anything above a snail's pace, but it's very nice being able to slowly get more powerful. It's a nice balance of player skill and in-game progression

However, I still don't feel this game is really worth 3.00 USD. It feels more like a proof of concept showing the developer's skill at making fast and fun twinstick shooter combat. The fundamentals are rock solid, but ultimately it just doesn't feel like a product worth paying for. If the developer were to use this combat system and implement it into a much larger game, I'd likely be down to pay for it. I understand this is probably the most subjective part of the whole review, and I'm sure there will be people out there who think it's well worth the three bucks, but this is just my opinion on the matter.

I hope the developer continues to improve their craft, because they're on the right track towards making something really special, whether that be an intensively updated and revised version of Quoin or a new game altogether. My previous review was a thumbs down, but I'm giving a thumbs up this time not only because of the improvements in the game, but because the developer cared enough to listen to feedback and use it to craft a better experience. I'll leave my original review below for context, but this here is my current thoughts on Quoin. Very interested to see what the dev does next.

ORIGINAL REVIEW

The combat feels nice and punchy. The music's good as well, though the sudden n-word in one of the tracks was a little jarring for a game this simplistic and cute. The main problem I have is that, in the pretty chaotic combat, it's a little hard to figure out what exactly is happening. All the enemies look just a little too similar, and it's not easy to tell what's an enemy drop and what's just effects from their death. It led to some frustrating deaths where I really wasn't sure what I was looking at.

Ultimately, this is a fun little game, but I can't recommend it because honestly it feels like it should be free. There's just not enough here to justify a price tag when it feels more like a Newgrounds game than a paid release.

Wow, the joke got old really fast.

This game is free and takes less than half an hour. Even if you end up not enjoying it, you lose nothing but a small amount of time by playing it. The only thing I can really say for someone looking to see if they should play this is that you should keep the game windowed and stay on the game's page in your library. That's it. This review is not for you. It's for the developer or developers.

This game clearly had quite a bit of thought and care put into it, which I admire a lot. Even the title contributes to the game's themes. After all, "Hyperreflexia" is a medical term that refers to when your body uncontrollably reacts to little or no stimuli, usually in the form of random twitching. "Reflexia" then, in this case, is a body reacting normally. A person acting and behaving like a person. It fits wonderfully with the final scene of the game and provides great thematic cohesion.

The art is also surprisingly striking despite how deliberately simple and even incomplete it can feel. Sometimes it feels like an uncanny storybook, while other times it reminds me of the album covers of the artist Sewerslvt with its deep colors, use of visual noise, and for lack of a better term, focal points of cute anime girls.

Really, I only have two minor gripes with this. The first is that at times it feels just a bit too vague. And not in a "ooh, I can't wait for the full version" way, but a "wait, I don't get it" way. For all I know, this is intentionally vague so it can be better established in the full version, but for now all we have is this, so I'm listing it as a negative. The second gripe is much more noticeable, and that's some of the fourth wall breaks. Most of the fourth wall breaks are done very well, but occasionally there will be one that just feels like it's there for the sake of being cheeky. This is almost exclusively comprised of the ones that go "this is just a game, isn't that funny and weird?" or "look, we're doing a VN trope, we're pointing it out." However, this is only a small number of the fourth wall breaks, and the rest are superb. Using achievements to communicate thoughts and feelings the characters are too uncomfortable to scared to share is seriously genius stuff, and things like changes to the menu never feel like they're trying to get a reaction from the player.

The game respected me as a player and didn't try any of the usual tricks this type of game employs because it understands those don't really work anymore. Even AAA games struggle with this - think of how many times in the last decade you've seen a game pull the "ooh you turned around and looked back and now the room is different!" trick and act like it's just as scary as the last 50 times you'd seen it in other games. The way that this understands and deftly avoids the cliches of the subversive fourth wall breaking indie game is such a breath of fresh air.

The game functioned almost perfectly on a technical standpoint, though I did notice that occasionally, clicking to reveal all the dialogue at once instead of waiting for the scroll would instead skip the entire bit of dialogue, usually in moments where the dialogue auto-advances. Menus and UI are a little too underdone and primitive, and I hope they get a good visual revamp in the full version.

Ultimately, I'm excited for the (presumably priced) full release, because this was a wonderful bite of content that shows the developer understands what they're doing. Great stuff!

I played quite a bit of this game, then stopped and said to myself "Well, I'll wait until the Pitt content comes out, that way there'll be a whole bunch of new content when I come back." And I think my time away broke me from the hold this game had on me, because coming back just made me think "Wow. This is terrible." I can't believe I'd developed Stockholm Syndrome for this game.

Also, that Pitt content that got announced ages ago? Turns out it's crap too. I played one of the missions and was faced with bullet sponge after bullet sponge. I eventually just stopped trying to move around during a fight and just stood there soaking up damage, because I had the stimpaks to survive it all. For reference, I did not do a lot of grinding in this game. Then the final boss literally stood in an open room and fired maybe six shots at me, spending the rest of the time just standing there, staring off into space as I dumped a nonstop stream of bullets into them for four minutes straight. Also, the writing is some prime edgelord garbage. When asked what he's going to do after the mission is over, a character seriously says "Don't ask a shadow where it's going. It slips into the night and comes out when it's needed." HOLY MOLY THAT'S BAD.

I appreciate the years of effort put into this game to make up for the launch, but at this point Fallout 76 needs to be taken to the back and shot.

It's not gonna blow your mind, but it's definitely not the trash fire people have likely led you to believe. Grab it on sale and you'll get your money's worth.

Honestly, this is so good that it makes me excited for a potential original IP from Subcreation.

Davey Wreden: Wanna see me write one of the greatest video game narratives ever?

Davey Wreden: Wanna see me do it again?

Have you played The Stanley Parable? This is more of that.
Have you not played The Stanley Parable? Then play this.

I/O gave this along with the other deadly sins DLCs for free as an apology for their completely botched Steam release of the game. And it's...fine. I like the concept of the missions, and they provide interesting enough twists on the standard formula. My favorite was definitely wrath, which has you performing a last stand in the mansion level, akin to the final act of Skyfall. And yes, the items you get are cool. But nothing about this is worth $5, let alone the $30 for the whole pack. If you got it for free like me, then there's really no harm in playing them, since you've already got them. But if you have to buy these, then either wait for a *steep* discount or just don't bother.