How powerful are the Phantasms in “Dust Mutation 2”? It raises the bar for games of the same Metroidvania genre

Compared with veteran Metroidvanias like Hollow Knight and Blasphemous, my first impression of The Last Faith 2 is that its strengths and weaknesses are pushed to extremes. It’s not a sequel that just adds a few maps and bosses; instead, it uses a “Phantom” mechanic to directly rewrite the underlying logic of combat and exploration.

Starting with the worldbuilding and art, many people would simply lump it into the “gross flesh-and-blood” style. But if you compare it horizontally with the oppressive religious atmosphere of Blasphemous 2 or the cold industrial vibe of Salt and Sanctuary, this game feels more like a massive living art museum sculpted by a “Shaper.” The Temple of Hands has the symmetry and solemnity of classical statues, the Mudfall area is like a naturalistic torrent of flowing mud, and the Faceless Mountains are almost minimalistic to the point of abstraction, using only large color blocks and silhouettes to create a sense of oppression. Overall, it leans more toward “art exhibition” than “slaughterhouse.”

In terms of gameplay, if the first game felt more like a 2D Soulslike shell over a Metroidvania skeleton, The Last Faith 2 clearly swings back toward the Metroidvania side. Character growth is still standard Soulslike: Vitality, Strength, and Dexterity determine HP and weapon requirements. But compared with the first game’s rigidity where “you can’t even wield a weapon without the required stats,” this time equipment stacks a lot of additional effects, giving different builds clear distinctions—Strength builds bully enemies up close, Dexterity builds rely on movement and Phantom switching for rhythm, while hybrid builds lean on passive effects to stack statuses. It’s much more multidimensional than the previous game, where weapons were “different looks, same function” in an awkward way.

The biggest cut is in the stamina system, and this is crucial to the experience across all platforms. In the first game, both attacking and dodging drained stamina like crazy, and once the bar was empty you basically turned into a training dummy, which was suffocating on a controller in particular. For punishing mistakes in execution, Hollow Knight uses cast time and damage as penalties instead of “locking” you in place. In the sequel, running out of stamina only causes you to lose your damage buff; movement and rolling are unaffected. Overall, it returns to the traditional Metroidvania feel of “tight pacing without hard breaks,” and it feels much smoother on keyboard and mouse, controller, and even handhelds.

Combat difficulty clearly compromises toward a broader audience this time. If you’ve suffered through the White Palace in Hollow Knight and cleared the DLC of Elden Ring, you’ll most likely find the boss pacing in The Last Faith 2 on the softer side. The early game’s nastiest fight is the “Greatblade Evangelist,” who not only has mobs jumping in but also a bomb-throwing NPC on higher ground that stuns both you and enemies indiscriminately. This kind of “third-party interference” feels more like bad design than genuine difficulty. Aside from that fight though, most bosses test your Phantom setups and positioning more than your raw mechanical limits.

What truly elevates this game is the “Phantom” system, which even the developers themselves define as the core innovation. The so‑called “Absorb” in the first game was essentially a parry, which made almost every combat solution revolve around deflecting—interrupting, healing, and bypassing traps all depended on that one move, and late game felt like grinding the same problem set. In the sequel, parry is split off into its own skill, and the real “Absorb” becomes swallowing an enemy to unlock a set of Phantom skills you can actively switch between. You can briefly transform into that monster, borrowing its attack patterns or movement capabilities. This design simultaneously opens up combat approaches and map-based puzzles.

On the exploration side, the changes brought by Phantoms are even bigger than in combat. If you compare it with the traditional “get a new skill → open new paths” loop of something like Ori 2, The Last Faith 2 works more like “encounter a new enemy → figure out how to absorb it → fully probe this section of the map in the process.” The most off‑putting thing about the first game was the beacon system: save points were everywhere, but if you hadn’t found the warp beacons, the map stayed pitch black and you had to keep a mental sketch while backtracking repeatedly. And without finding beacons, you couldn’t fast travel or upgrade gear. This design turned exploration into a chore. The sequel doesn’t completely scrap the beacon mechanic, but it uses Phantom rewards to offset that feeling of torment. Your first reaction on entering a new area shifts from “Is there a beacon?” to “What ability can I absorb here?”

If you compare it to other new Metroidvania releases this year, The Last Faith 2 isn’t a game that brute‑forces attention with sheer difficulty or content volume. It’s more like tightening the series’ most distinctive bolt: the flesh‑sculpture environments are still one of a kind, and the core idea of devouring enemies and transforming your form finally lives up to its promise. Taken as a whole, The Last Faith 2 is undeniably a mature and clear‑headed evolution, and it’s the most complete “Soulslike × Metroidvania” compromise I’ve played so far.

To close with a quick buying suggestion: if you’re purely into platformer action and only care about snappy feel, The Last Faith 2 runs a notch slower than Hollow Knight. But if you also enjoy Soulslike-style builds and cautious probing, and found the first game too awkwardly designed, then the new Phantom system and stamina changes make this one a safe bet. If you like bizarre aesthetics and don’t mind chewing through the same map repeatedly to uncover hidden threads, this can be treated as a must‑play of the year. If you just want a relaxed playthrough and a story, you’ll need to accept some backtracking and a moderate mechanical skill barrier.