History VideoGame / FaithTheUnholyTrinity

* ItsAWonderfulFailure: * While the first two chapters did have bad endings, the bad ending of the third chapter really rubs your face in how badly and thoroughly John Ward failed. If you don't even attempt to stop the cultists (Justified in-story as John's complete loss of faith), you wake up during the [[spoiler:Profane Sabbath when everything has literally [[HellOnEarth gone to hell.]]]] It gets much worse once John ends up in the ruins of the Martin House, where [[WhereItAllBegan everything started]] (And [[MyGreatestFailure went wrong]]) for John. You move through the decrepit house while John narrates how much of a failure he is, and how everything is [[ItsAllMyFault his fault]] while incredibly somber music plays. At the end, instead of displaying "MORTIS" like it does for most deaths, [[spoiler:the game ends with "DAMNATIO MEMORIAE."]]

* MindScrew: 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.]]]]

* CreatorCameo: Of sorts. The truck [[spoiler:that kills Michael in ''Chapter I'']] has "AIRDORF" written on it. Airdorf Games are the developers of the game. The truck shows up again in Chapter II as an easter egg[[spoiler:, this time running over John if the player decides to make him backtrack and kill innocent civilians]]. And again in Chapter III during the lead up to the birth clinic segment [[spoiler:which can kill John if he is unfortunate enough to be in front of it]].

** In Chapter II, there's an entire segment set in a series of dark tunnels. Trying to blindly navigate your way through them will just get you killed by monsters. You need to find a flashlight -- driving off the demon guarding it -- before you can proceed. [[spoiler:And there are still monsters lurking in the dark you'll need to watch for, as well.]]

*** There is a segment in the apartments where John must temporarily discard his crucifix to proceed. A camera is found shortly thereafter, and then the lights go out. The flash of the camera is the only way to navigate the pitch-dark building until you find the crucifix again in the basement. [[spoiler:And, naturally, there are monsters lurking in the dark that will chase you]] when you flash the camera...
*** Inside Moloch's navel, John proceeds through a hallway where the lights go out behind him as he passes. Further on, there is a darkened forest brimming with bird-head demons with broken necks, that can only be seen by the light of a lantern John finds.
* DealWithTheDevil: Obviously, what with the Satanic cult trying to bring on the end times and all. Specifically, however, [[spoiler:it is heavily implied that John was tricked by Satan into abandoning Amy to Hell's clutches after the demon possessing her murders her parents and Father Allred. The vision of "God" he sees preys on his fear and cowardice to prevent him from completing the exorcism, only willing to grant him safe passage out of the house if he verbally forsakes Amy's soul.]]

** In the very first game, [[spoiler:Michael Davies]], is [[DeathOfPersonality essentially dead]] by the time you encounter them as their body has been [[DemonicPossession used as physical vessel by a demon,]] which is [[BodyHorror why they now have a really grotesque look.]]
** One of the steps that you must do to EarnYourBadEnding in Chapter II is to offer an innocent child to the [[spoiler:red figure in the confessional booth.]]
** As it turns out, this has been happening ''long before'' the events in the game, both the ones that John experiences ([[AllJustADream sorta]]) firsthand and the flashbacks we are treated to, since the Cult of the Second Death has been practicing a ritual in the form of offering newborns [[spoiler:to the portal to Hell that they [[FacialHorror carve into a vessel's face.]]]] It's for this ritual that the cult runs a childbirth assistance clinic in order to gain access to newborns.
** It's PlayedWith in the case of the Martin twins, Amy's younger brothers. They [[UncertainDoom seem to have disappeared after the exorcism performed on their sister]] and [[WhatHappenedToTheMouse no mention is made of their fate in Chapter I.]] Then in Chapter III, Father Garcia says that he's been unable to find them even after searching and trying to track them down extensively. [[spoiler:But as it turns out, the twins were actually a TragicStillbirth that Cindy Martin suffered and to cope with it, she pretended that they were still alive.]]

** 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]].

* GodWasMyCoPilot: [[spoiler:During the climax of Chapter III, on the GoldenEnding route, a white silhouette that John calls "God" appears when he begs for help. During the final boss, he is able to survive multiple but limited hits, implied to be a blessing from God. It's likely that God was always with John, considering the power of his cross, but his CrisisOfFaith blinded him.]]
** Subverted in that [[spoiler:the White Silhouette is strongly implied to not be God, but rather a or The Devil, granting John his freedom from the Martin house at the cost of Amy's soul, and John's sanity.]]
* GoneHorriblyWrong: From the few details we get of the attempted exorcism of Amy, it was an absolute disaster. One of the notes has blanked-out text that goes into a bit more detail: [[spoiler:Amy killed Father Allred with her bare hands, and strangled her parents ''with their own intestines''.]] In ''Chapter III'', you get to see it, and it turns out that Father Allred had everything in hand [[spoiler:until Amy's parents came down to the basement in response to her screams. John has to escort them back upstairs, and then everything falls apart.]]

* HopelessSuitor: Tiffany did everything she could to win Gary's love, including willingly undergoing the Second Death ritual[[note]]It's implied that [[spoiler:her willingness ''ruined'' the ritual, making her the Rejected Vessel instead of a portal to Hell. Unwillingness is a ''requirement'' for the Second Death]][[/note]]. Not only did her gestures go ignored, but Gary flat-out thanks John for killing her after her boss battle.

* IfIDoNotReturn: John's letter to Molly in ''Chapter I'' ends like this, with him wanting her to know that he loves her, should anything happened to him in his quest to exorcise Amy.

** Probably one of the more effective ones is in ''Chapter III'''s hotel, where [[spoiler:you've lost your cross and only have a camera with flashes to guide your way through the lights going out. It's almost inevitable that the demon possessing the hotel is going to briefly appear in all of its [[SarcasmMode rotoscoped glory]] across your screen briefly after you've flashed the camera too many times. This comes with a DelayedReaction of a sound cue to boot.]]

** Right after defeating the second phase of the final boss, [[spoiler:Gary, Malphas, and Miriam]] all convene on each other and fade away, seemingly dying there and then. Out of nowhere the game gives you a goofy AWinnerIsYou screen ("CONGRATULATION") complete with fireworks--[[spoiler:before the TrueFinalBoss, Super Miriam, manifests with a digitized JumpScare snarl.]] ''Game on.''

* NoGearLevel: There is a part of Chapter III that combines this with BlackoutBasement. Where in order to advance John needs to let go of all his current possessions, including his cross, essentially leaving him defenseless against the demons.

** [[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.]]

* PoweredByAForsakenChild: [[spoiler: Powered by ''a lot'' of them, turns out, since the Second Death ritual involves cutting a person's face out to make a portal to Hell and then feeding babies into the portal until a demon pops out. Specifically, Amy is only 17 when the cult targets her for this ritual, and John and Father Garcia spend much of the game trying to prevent her younger brothers, who are 6-7 years old, from meeting a similar fate. Sister Bell murders nearly a dozen children over the course of her influence over the orphanage, and the cult is generally not above inflicting the ritual on small children.]]
** Taken to an extreme by [[spoiler:Tiffany. The Second Death ritual requires 7 newborn babies to be passed through the hole in the face, but Tiffany, who was rejected by Gary, decided that she could still succeed if she used ''seven times seventy-seven'' (539!) babies. Which she did. When you fight her boss battle, she'll release an insane amount of souls to reflect the sheer number of babies she consumed.]]

* ProductionThrowback: In the school in the Chapter III demo, drawing referencing Airdorf's games ''SUMMER NIGHT'' made for the ''VideoGame/DreadXCollection'' and ''Earl's Day Off'' can be seen on a wall.
* PublicDomainSoundtrack: The menu screen plays a rendition of the hymn "Near the Cross," and the outdoor section plays Beethoven's ''Moonlight Sonata''. ''Chapter II'' plays Music/ErikSatie's ''Gnossienne No. 3'' in the first half before entering the church, while ''Chapter III'' plays Chopin's ''Revolutionary Etude" once you finally confront Gary.

* RedemptionQuest: The entire trilogy is essentially revealed to be one for John Ward himself; after [[spoiler:failing to finish the botched exorcism and fleeing in terror (condemning Amy to her fate), he lost his [[TitleDrop Faith]] and became wracked with guilt and nightmares. The games see him overcome his fears and doubts to not only attempt to save Amy's soul, but also confront the source of the demonic evil that targeted her. While the outcome is dependent on the ending obtained, in the best ending he succeeds, redeeming Amy's soul, seeing [[BigBad Gary]] cast into hell, and either joining Father Garcia on a demon-hunting crusade or settling down with Lisa for some much-deserved peace and quiet.]]
* RedHerring: In Chapter III, in the school basement, there is a puzzle involving the positioning of chairs and three demon masks. The masks control the chairs, but are in a different room, requiring the player to go back and forth between the mask room and chair room to solve the puzzle. [[spoiler:The masks don't do anything. Going back and forth enough times will trigger a JumpScare where Gary injects John with... something, which will then change the layout of the basement; the player never returns to the chair or mask rooms and thus never needs to solve their puzzle.]]

** If you try to touch fire at any point, it will lead to a quick death as [[ControllableHelplessness you control a fast-moving, flaming John before he falls over dead]]. However, [[spoiler:defeating the TrueFinalBoss in ''Chapter III'' requires you do this to set fire to the boss while it's vulnerable by touching it while you're on fire. Although miraculously, in this instance [[ArtisticLicensePhysics you'll extinguish yourself by doing this]], but then it ''is'' effectively a religious battle rather than solely a physical one.]]
** You must also do this to achieve the [[spoiler:secret ending in the ''Chapter II'' demo, setting a scarecrow on fire this time. It's not as obvious, as the burning car and the scarecrow are two screens apart, so the timing is a lot tighter. Also, unlike in ''Chapter III'', [[EarnYourBadEnding John doesn't survive this one.]] [[DemonicPossession Maybe.]]]]

* ToothyBird: Malphas in Chapter III appears to be a humanoid bird-like demon, missing his upper part of the beak while the bottom part (and interior of his mouth) is lined with sharp teeth.

* UnexpectedGameplayChange: The core mechanics, your slow movements and exorcising with the cross are all the same, but the closure and FinalBoss to ''Chapter III'' [[spoiler:invoke more of a BulletHell shoot-em-up game as Gary throws patterns of attacks your way.]] If you're on the path for the GoldenEnding, [[spoiler:the TrueFinalBoss might as well be a near-literal bullet hell that fills the screen with attacks, and only an EleventhHourSuperpower of not dying (immediately) from the attacks by God's blessings gives John a chance.]]

* WeaksauceWeakness: While scriptures get brought out for more serious threats, generally anything demonic can be warded off with a mere cross. Or at least the crosses that priests like John and Garcia wield. This can exorcise certain beings so hard that they outright die. [[spoiler:Still have to shoot Michael the old-fashioned way, however, who is too far gone and far too physical to be put down through exorcism.]]

* WhamShot: The Bad ending of chapter 3 begins with John waking up in his bed as usual...[[spoiler:except the crucifix on the wall is inverted, indicating there is no hope left as the Profane Sabbath has been completed]].

** Taken to the extreme once you [[spoiler:ask Gary what the Second Death is...and learn it basically entails casting newborns through the mutilated face of a sacrificial victim ''into Hell itself'']].

* AnswerToPrayers: The final flashback in ''Chapter III'' has then-amateur exorcist John Ward, having escaped the Martin household and the demon-possessed Amy, pray to God for help. God ([[spoiler:or at least a figure who claims to be God, but is implied to [[DevilInDisguise actually be the UNSPEAKABLE]]]]) answers and personally speaks to John, who expresses his fear and desire to save himself even if he has to leave poor Amy behind. God gently cautions that he is acting in cowardice, but otherwise helps him leave. In the final phase of the TrueFinalBoss, [[spoiler:God (definitely the real one this time) empowers John to fight Super Miriam, allowing him to take ten hits instead of the usual {{one|HitPointWonder}}]].

* MarathonLevel: The aptly-named Marathon Mode is ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin, being a back-to-back run of all three chapters that has to be completed in a single sitting. Quitting the game or dying will wipe your save, so it also doubles as a {{Permadeath}} mode.

* AnswerToPrayers: The final flashback in ''Chapter III'' has then-amateur exorcist John Ward, having escaped the Martin household and the demon-possessed Amy, pray to God for help. God ([[spoiler:or at least a figure who claims to be God]]) answers and personally speaks to John, who expresses his fear and desire to save himself even if he has to leave poor Amy behind. God gently cautions that he is acting in cowardice, but otherwise helps him leave. In the final phase of the TrueFinalBoss, [[spoiler:God empowers John to fight Super Miriam, allowing him to take ten hits instead of the usual {{one|HitPointWonder}}]].