Note: May contain light spoilers, but nothing that I think will entirely spoil your experience, though.

Introduction
It feels good to return to the world of Soul Sunder. But things are quite different - this is a darker tinge of what we're used to. Whilst seeming a tad slow paced and plodding to begin with, due to the large amounts of exposition that needed to take place, it warms up in the second half with the brilliant characterization, and culminates on an exciting finale.

Story
What else should I expect from a Red Nova game but a solid storyline? The story did not disappoint. The characters are more engaging than ever. The game does take a while to start, but it kicks off after the initial exposition phase, and we start getting into the real feelings of the characters. This happens when we enter the forest.

Commandant Vanessa is blond with blue armour and she believes "it would be nice to believe in the potential of people again". She's like, the classic good guy that you're not supposed to like because they're cowardly. Then you've got redhead Paladin Amalie, my fave character in the game. She's so lovely... red hair, brown skin, elfish ears. She is a Manna, and she believes in the idea that "people can change".

Aeyr has grey hair, historically seen as the Problem Recruit. He's got a bunch of backstory I don't want to reveal to the general reader, but I think he's generally badass.



Mia is, as others have stated I'm pretty sure, in my opinion the weakest character. I don't see her motivation other than to be the love interest. To be honest, I would have much rather preferred Amalie as the love interest. Mia is just too cutesy and lovey dovey and like a little girl... I'm not into that anymore, I'm not 16 anymore. I like my women strong. Not that she's not physically strong, I just like headstrong women like Amalie. It might be a personal preference, but I feel she's got a deeper set of motivations, also.

As for the plot itself, it is a slow burn but it ends up incredibly engaging and finishes with a soaring cliffhanger. Aeyr starts off in a very scary dream, wakes up, and has to go to the Proving, where something rather sad and coincidental happens, causing a series of events which places him in an unfortunate position of being hated. Not that he ever wasn't in the first place.

Despite the exposition taking a while to actually get warmed up, all of it is very well implied rather than explicitly told. It's typical Red Nova "show don't tell" narrative brilliance. It ain't heavy-handed. It just takes a while to warm up, that's all.

Red Nova's trademark cynicism shines through again. There's a line where Paladin Amalie states to Aeyr that she protected him because she believes that the innocent should be protected without reason... something Aeyr couldn't believe. Red Nova simply can't give his characters entirely pure motivations. They have to come from a place of human vulnerability and need for personal gain. That's what makes them identifiable.

There is a fair share of humour, too, especially from the forest onwards. It's well done and lightens the mood a little bit, to make those player punches hit harder later on... and there are player punches. Ouch.

Slight spoilers ahead maybe, so close your eyes if you're squeamish... there is an extreme player punch near the end. I know an earlier reviewer complained that this story was too negative but... well... tragedies are negative and I can't say I can call that good criticism with a straight face. I have the same pet peeve against people who hate "unlikable" characters, just because they do immoral things or behave in a way that isn't morally upright. I'm like, get ova it, sons. To be "too negative" is a subtractive idea. There's far more depressing stories than this. If anything, the negativity is weighed evenly with the positivity to make a cool cocktail of interestingness...

DEFINITE SPOILER ALERT, SKIP THIS SENTENCE IF YOU WANT TO STAY UNSPOILED...

I liked that Aeyr didn't feel the need to confess anything to the priest, ever. :)

My favourite moment was the shock reveal at the end of the journey in the way back to the castle, at the exit of the forest. This mouth was agape.

All in all, the plot is really good and engaging and I love the characters. I'm not sure I felt the same about Soul Sunder so early in the game, so this might even surpass that in excellence. I hope so!



Gameplay
It is surprisingly solid, even more so than Soul Sunder's sophisticated battle system. Prayer of the Faithless' mechanics are even more well planned and thought out. It feels like a much leaner, stronger beast. The addition of the maximum 3 moves per turn limit forces the player to use strategy. Elemental weaknesses and strengths, character stances and the guard/SP balance are utilized phenomenally.

You're launched right into the fray, and in battle, you have a choice of Attack, Drive, Focus and Items. Focus regains SP. Jumping isn't communicated to you, but it's implied. Jumping is intuitive, if only feeling a little unnecessary and gimmicky. Another user mentioned a slight delay after each save, which I thought was a nitpick, but later on I found it noticeable and a little annoying.

It takes a little while for the game to warm up, both story-wise and gameplay-wise. There's a lot of exposition of story and gameplay mechanics which needs to happen within the first 30mins-1hr, but after that it picks up considerably. Once you hit the forest, there's fantastic gameplay choices from the get go. But up until then things are fairly linear and could get quite boring for the initial player. At least the story is interesting enough to hold your attention.



The choice of which party member to attack with, and the obvious reactions to the decisions you make that relay to you what kind of effect your actions have on the enemy, allow for a massive amount of strategy. Like Soul Sunder, the heavy inclusion of SP into the battle equation that goes beyond a mere "currency for skills" is essential. It's even pushed as more important in this game than Soul Sunder, accounting for the armour of each person in this game, too.

It also pays to watch how much SP the enemy has, and the "scan" skill (which is not used, but is implicit whenever you target an enemy) will give you tons of information on how to target an enemy before you do it.

One issue I found was that it was almost too easy to escape. It felt like I could cheat my way out of any battle. I also wasn't sure whether the right strategy was to dodge battles like in Soul Sunder or to face them all head on... I figure you can grind later on? I'm not sure.

I love that there's lots of little items hidden in rocks and such, and that the pickup HUD is really unobtrusive. I liked using repeat Sheath/Unsheath from Mia's POV to slay large numbers of enemies, which actually got overpowered after a while, especially with very many enemies involved. There were instances where I was facing 4 bees, and all I'd have to use was Mara's Sheath/Unsheath to kill them all. I think this was on the way up the mountain.

Things like Miasma Charge and Amalie's cancelling "Piercing Light" skill add more strategy to battles. They all add layers. It's fantastic. What I love about this game is that strategy plays a huge part.

Graphics
Mapping was quite great. The portraits sometimes seem wonky but they're generally very distinct to the style. I liked that there were a lot of full portraits with many emotes. At first I thought the Hellspawn looked silly, but then later on it looked menacing... probably because the way that it was introduced made it more menacing, though.

My favourite map was the dream version of the castle, and how everything was beautifully fragmented. Loved finally visiting the actual castle and going "OH. SO THIS WAS THE PLACE WE DREAMED ABOUT". It was a cool moment.

Audio
I figured I'd lump in here that for someone who I recall once professing that he was tone deaf and didn't know how to pick songs. But the songs that were picked seem perfect, and they're epic and well-suited to each scene.



Presentation
A few presentation touches I wanted to mention. Statues give tips. This is kind of a trope in RPGs, but in Red Nova's games especially I've found that he makes people and signs in-game to tell the rules. It's a nice implicit way of setting the rules, and he usually disguises it so that it feels like these could be actual items that would be found in-game, instead of a sign just saying "PRESS X TO JUMP" or something. I find that clever.

The game generally makes unimportant elements uninteractable, such as average houses and other things that don't deserve to be explored. I liked this decision.

Just looting people's houses is lols because it's so easy... not even any examination animation or nothing. The unobtrusiveness of the item pickup HUD lends nicely to the flow of map movement.

Conclusion
Prayer of the Faithless is a fascinating and exciting new entry to the series. Gameplay is improved overall, the story is new yet exciting, and the characters are engaging. I thoroughly recommend Prayer of the Faithless even if you haven't played Soul Sunder, because it isn't required to have played that in order to enjoy this game. But knowing that they took place in the same universe lets you fill in certain gaps in the story. I loved the gameplay in this game. Very well-balanced. I have nothing massive to complain about in this game. It's an exciting new journey in a world I am a great fan of.

I am thoroughly anticipating this game's next demo release.