2 
0 Last week we covered the news that Duality Games’ horror game Unholy was soon to be released on console. Today I’m back to review the game! Unholy is a dark, twisted-adventure set around a Prophet who promises eternal happiness. As previously mentioned, it arrives tomorrow, Friday 13th for the PlayStation 5.
It’s usually too good to be true.
Unholy’s story is about a mother who is attempting to save her son Gabriel’s soul after a dark ritual goes wrong. She is aided by an elderly woman who offers her a way to help save her child, but at what cost?
Gameplay
Unholy has players navigating between two realms to find clues in order to save your son’s soul. These worlds are post-Soviet Eastern European town and the dark, grotesque world of Unholy, ruled by a merciless caste of priests. Each world has their own puzzles to traverse.
The gameplay is quite liner with some minor exploring. You won’t get lost but if you’re anything like me, you will get confused on specific segments. These segments usually have enemies to deal with alongside environmental puzzles. I found that as I was getting attacked, my character would walk slower. Meaning sometimes it was better to let the enemies kill me rather than try to solve the puzzle and escape.
You won’t be defenceless, however, in Unholy you will get a slingshot that gets a couple different ammo types. A cool thing about the ammo is that it is based on emotions. This is particularly impactful in the hellish Unholy world where emotions have bigger ramifications. Although I do find it a shame this mechanic is only used for the ammo. The common ammo type is Shock (yes, the emotion) that will power generators and be used to blow up barrels. Another is Desire that will aid in luring enemies away. This one helped me out a lot!
Unholy does allow you to hide from enemies, but I found this method pointless, as they will just stay near you. Meaning you enter a never-ending stalemate! During my playthrough a more effective tactic was to simply kill the enemies with barrels. I tried to use my slingshot but this didn’t actually kill any of them. No matter how much my emotions wanted it to.
Upgrades & Masks.
You’ll find mementos while exploring, and upon finding them, you will obtain a skill point. There are statues for you to unlock skills at, but I didn’t find them that great honestly. Some of these skills are sliding, additional ammo space, and a wider radius for one of the ammo types called Sorrow.
Masks are another item in Unholy that you will need to progress. But these are story related so I wouldn’t worry about missing them. One mask I collected was definitely more useful than the other. This was called The Sister and it allowed me to walk through poisonous gas. While The Servant lets you see objects but I didn’t find it as useful since everything glows anyway.
Graphics & Audio
Unfortunately, Unholy suffers from various visual issues. While I will give you the environments look pretty decent, that’s about where it ended. Character models aren’t very detailed, and have a smooth, almost clay like appearance. Their facial animations are lifeless and only seem to blink once finishing a sentence. Whilst this may be a style choice, the lip synching being off most of the time cannot have the same excuse. The cinematics are occasionally blurry. If not, the textures take a few moments to render into the scene. The biggest and most glaring concern, however, is the frame rates.
Whilst I usually care little about frame rates, the constant drops and chugging present in the game is staggering and impossible to ignore. Often it made the game difficult to play. Particularly when wearing masks. Despite this being a key game feature, masks made the issue persistently worse. Ultimately the mask’s gameplay became a fuzzy chore. The visual effect of wearing masks is also far too saturated in colour, adding to the difficulty of navigating with them.
Considering the average visuals the game presents, the sheer amount of frame issues seems odd. It doesn’t look by any stretch graphically demanding and shouldn’t reflect in frames being this poor.
Longevity
The game spans over ten chapters, with a good few of them being relatively short. If you’re interested in 100% Unholy for the platinum trophy, you might need an additional play through.
Final Thoughts
I didn’t end up finishing the game due to too many crashes and poor optimization. However, I reached chapter seven, although it was a gruelling journey. Unholy’s story isn’t very complex and is easy to understand. Notes you find tend to repeat the same gibberish. I liked the concept of your ammo being emotions, but I wish they played a bigger part in the overall game. For example, affecting the moods of creatures or having elemental effects to use in the environment. I was genuinely surprised emotions did not play a bigger part in general, since the game itself says emotions can warp/change the world.
Unholy could have got a silver award with a release week patch to fix a lot of it’s issues, but until then it’s a Thumb Culture Bronze Award from me.
Disclaimer: A code was received in order to write this review.
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