Unholy Reviews
With the exception of the rich environmental detail to be found in its sinister underworld setting, Unholy otherwise offers precious little to praise. It’s not scary enough to succeed as a horror story, its controls are too clumsy to provide a satisfying stealth experience, and its enemy and puzzle variety are too limited to make any part of the journey feel truly distinct. What begins as an intriguing incursion into a cult-ruled realm soon unravels into a repetitive slog stuck in the shoes of an unlikeable lead character. Unholy is never quite unplayable, but it’s certainly uninspired, unwieldy, and unlikely to hold your interest all the way to its completion.
Unholy, unfortunately, is a video game that just does not work. The plot is short and not very deep, focused on an uninteresting protagonist and told in poor quality movies.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Like The Medium, Unholy experiments with a two dimensions gameplay. The story lacks of depth and stealth looks like a forced feature for a psychological horror that relies on exploration and puzzle solving.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Unholy has a good foundation for a horror game, but little is followed through to a successful conclusion to rate the game as fun. Stealth doesn't work, the story doesn't draw you in, the atmosphere doesn't capture you, the main character doesn't interest you at all and it seems unnatural.
Review in Slovak | Read full review
It’s hard to recommend Unholy. Outside of the environmental design, the mechanics don’t do much to scare or otherwise engage the player, the story is flat and uninteresting, and the characters are about as wooden as their animations.
Unholy is a mish-mash of interesting but underdeveloped ideas, with an intriguing aesthetic style. There are scares to be had but they’re often undermined by clunky design and a somewhat goofy dramatic delivery. Unholy is one of those games that I’m painfully ambivalent about; I love and hate parts of it. I can see the promise of a brilliant horror game here, but like the Prophet’s false promise of an eternal paradise, it’s one that goes unfulfilled.
Unholy started on the right foot with a setup that wasn’t too far from contemporary horror movies, but you’ll be better off waiting for the release of Silent Hill 2 Remake. The predictable descent into madness wasn’t entirely successful, as the netherworld is little more than your average city in ruins and an excuse to add broken stealth elements into what could have been an accomplished narrative-driven mystery. This is a game that works better when it isn’t trying to tick boxes left and right, but once you step foot into the Eternal City, it drags at snail's pace and rewards you with recurrent death and frustration. A mother’s struggle it may be, but making it a player’s struggle as well isn’t exactly what horror games should do.
Unholy’s ending is yet another disappointment. The plot is simple, with a predictable ending in terms of story. The characters aren’t really likable enough to feel a sense of great sadness at any of their fates, and the whole ending section of the game is beyond disappointing. Not because, as it would be safe to assume, the combat is too weak to handle an end-game boss, but instead because the whole of the ending of the game is one uninterruptible cutscene with no input from the player.
Unfortunately, Unholy is not a well-directed game. The character animations during cutscenes are very often lifeless, and the camera angles do not compliment the overall story. I very much associated it with very low-budget movies, but in this case it is clear that the intention was definitely different. Developers had ambition, but unfortunately, it's clear that they lacked the skill and probably the budget to realize interesting ideas.
Review in Polish | Read full review