Que joguinho mequetrefe, se fosse curto até dava pra passar pano, mas ele se estende ao extremo, joguei 7 horas e não aguentava mais. A história eu sinceramente não faço ideia do que se trata, ela já se apresenta de forma desinteressante e com o passar do tempo eu já tava jogando no automático, o combate é bacaninha de início até ficar extremamente repetitivo, pesado e chato, os golpes não têm impacto, a gameplay é travada, o sistema dos campos de energia azul e vermelho são um inferno e só atrasam mais ainda a gameplay, os ângulos de câmera de Onimusha 2 são uma obra-prima perto desse jogo aqui, é simplesmente horripilante a câmera, além disso as cutscenes são extremamente expositivas e só servem pra mostrar os cenários, são poucas as cutscenes que realmente acontecem alguma coisa. No geral, esse jogo não vale a pena, eu não desejo pra ninguém isso aqui, ele parece um hack n' slash que deveria ter lançado no máximo até 2010 e que precisava ter no mínimo 1/3 da duração, a única coisa que eu posso elogiar é o gráfico que é bem legal e a estética que lembra Berserk/Claymore, mas até isso é um problema, já que fizeram cenários tão iguais que eu acabava me perdendo enquanto jogava mesmo o jogo sendo uma linha reta, sinceramente eu parabenizo os 12.0% que aguentaram zerar isso. Além de todos os problemas citados, esse jogo é mal otimizado e crashou umas 6 vezes, até corrompeu meu save e eu tive que baixar ele de volta na nuvem da Steam.
Well, this was rough. I honestly am so relieved I am finally done with this game because it is honestly one of the most excruciatingly tedious and drawn-out experiences I have played.
This is an action game that is inspired by the likes of DMC, Bayonetta, and the general vibe of early-mid 2000s ultra-linear pure action games. There are really only three categories of 'things' you do in this game: listen to dialogue, complete shitty platforming "puzzles" and of course combat. By far the best of these three is the first, my best and really main positive takeaway from this game was the two main characters, voice acting, the story, kind of. I didn't really 'get' the story (and didn't care enough to try to) so I can't speak exactly for what it was getting at, but for the most part it was pretty boring and even at the end I did not care for much of it except for the 'memories' that you experience, wherein you learn of the main two character's backstories, the only two really good things about the game. The voice acting honestly is quite impressive overall, I find Briar's voice actress to be wonderful and I would love to see her in future roles. The rest of the characters that appear are okay, I guess. Truly nothing special, which is a sentiment that I echo for basically everything about this game.
I'm not a big fan of Soulstice's combat overall, and I am certainly not a fan of the gameplay outside of the combat either. In-between the dreadfully repetitive combat sequences, you progress through the dreary and depressing world in the most linear way imaginable, one you rarely see from games these days. You have really no control over the camera, and instead move from room to room as the camera shifts to different angles, as if you're playing Silent Hill. This is ridiculous in a modern context and constantly leads to issues of moving the wrong way as you enter a new room. Depth-perception was my biggest issue with the static, strangely-angled camera. There are plenty of "platforming" sections of the game that are very obnoxious in their own right, but combined with the fact that you can hardly even tell how far away your jump is with no way to adjust your view, they can be downright painful.
Every single area in this game looks more or less the same, with essentially no exceptions. It is entirely acceptable graphically for a mid-level AA game, although I encountered huge amount of frame rate drops on Performance mode on the PS5, which I do not think should happen for a game of this graphical fidelity. The main issues with the visuals is that you are going to be staring at dark blue basically the entire game. Across all 25 painful chapters, EVERY single goddamn fucking area looks the same. Soulless repetition is a bit of a theme that this game carries throughout, which leads me to the combat.
I do not exactly hate the combat in a vacuum for Soulstice. Eventually, you end up with a total of seven different weapons, each with different roles that are "strong" versus different enemy types. The most glaring issue with Soulstice's combat sequences are simply how many of them there are and how excruciatingly similar one is compared to any other. During the last third or so of playing through this game I was basically begging it to stop, to the point where I lowered the difficulty—something I very rarely resort to—simply because I could not stand how bloated each enemy's health pool is on the game's Hard mode, only to find out it's basically the same on the Normal-equivalent. Apart from the most basic chapter 1 type enemies, everything in this game is an absurd health sponge. As you progress, you get more and more enemy types thrown at you, all similarly bland-looking, each with increasingly obnoxious attacks and larger health pools. The main gimmick of Soulstice's combat revolves around using Lute, Briar's (main character) sister, who is basically a ghost by her side, to project two different fields that allow you to damage certain enemies based on what their associated color, either blue for ghost-type enemies or red for crystalized, possessed enemies. The fields are only so big however, and if you keep them out too long without directly attacking an enemy associated with said field, Lute will 'overcharge' and disappear for a few seconds. Because this overcharge meter is tied to the 'parry' system of the game as well, be prepared to hear one of the five or six voice lines for Lute about to overcharge about 700 times in a full playthrough. In the second-half of the game, each combat counter generally consists of some half-assed amalgamation of strong enemies that have no interaction with each other whatsoever; it feels like at some point they gave up trying to make anything work together cohesively and decided to just throw as much bullshit at you as possible. The combat sequences are encounter-based, so you will walk for a bit, go into a closed-off area where you must defeat every enemy, get a grade on your performance, then move on. This creates some points where you go through one encounter and then 10 seconds later find another one, which is probably even worse than the last, just seconds apart. There were some glimmers where I felt like I was kind of enjoying the combat, moments where something would click and it felt alright, but these were few and far between. This game made me frustrated SO quickly. I would start another play session, get to my first combat encounter, and realize that I'm just going to be doing this for the next three hours. Dodging and 'parrying', which is really just pressing circle whenever you see the prompt (which sometimes parries but sometimes slows instead for more powerful enemies), does not really feel very intuitive, fluid, or satisfying whatsoever. There is very little about the combat that feels that intricately designed. Each weapon has its own moveset, including an attack that is supposed to launch you towards and enemy, but sometimes it just, doesn't work? Enemies also constantly are moving around and you aren't very naturally fast, and have to wait a second if you dodge three times in a row, so a lot of the combat is just running around trying to catch up to things flying around faster than you. The worst of this comes out in some of the game's bosses, which are maybe some of the worst I've ever seen in a game. Truly, apart from the final boss kind of, they are miserable. Each and every one is just awful, an amalgamation of every negative thing I've said here, all wrapped in a bow of awkwardly transitioning into a cutscene every tenth of their health.
Soulstice is not a good game. I respect the effort of the developers to put it together, and can at least say a couple nice things about the story and characters, but it is an absolute slog to get through and it is hard for me to imagine anyone not thinking so, particularly by the last third of the game. There is so much more I could complain about regarding this game, with countless many more minute details that were insanely frustrating. After completing it I feel still like there is a bad taste in my mouth that I am trying to get out by writing this.
There definitely is a group of people that would enjoy and get more out of this game than I would, and I will say that there are absolutely some redeeming qualities about it, the problem is that a lot of them are only barely such, and end up getting beaten to death from repetition by the end. I personally could not recommend anyone playing through Soulstice's 15-20 hours.
5/10
This is an action game that is inspired by the likes of DMC, Bayonetta, and the general vibe of early-mid 2000s ultra-linear pure action games. There are really only three categories of 'things' you do in this game: listen to dialogue, complete shitty platforming "puzzles" and of course combat. By far the best of these three is the first, my best and really main positive takeaway from this game was the two main characters, voice acting, the story, kind of. I didn't really 'get' the story (and didn't care enough to try to) so I can't speak exactly for what it was getting at, but for the most part it was pretty boring and even at the end I did not care for much of it except for the 'memories' that you experience, wherein you learn of the main two character's backstories, the only two really good things about the game. The voice acting honestly is quite impressive overall, I find Briar's voice actress to be wonderful and I would love to see her in future roles. The rest of the characters that appear are okay, I guess. Truly nothing special, which is a sentiment that I echo for basically everything about this game.
I'm not a big fan of Soulstice's combat overall, and I am certainly not a fan of the gameplay outside of the combat either. In-between the dreadfully repetitive combat sequences, you progress through the dreary and depressing world in the most linear way imaginable, one you rarely see from games these days. You have really no control over the camera, and instead move from room to room as the camera shifts to different angles, as if you're playing Silent Hill. This is ridiculous in a modern context and constantly leads to issues of moving the wrong way as you enter a new room. Depth-perception was my biggest issue with the static, strangely-angled camera. There are plenty of "platforming" sections of the game that are very obnoxious in their own right, but combined with the fact that you can hardly even tell how far away your jump is with no way to adjust your view, they can be downright painful.
Every single area in this game looks more or less the same, with essentially no exceptions. It is entirely acceptable graphically for a mid-level AA game, although I encountered huge amount of frame rate drops on Performance mode on the PS5, which I do not think should happen for a game of this graphical fidelity. The main issues with the visuals is that you are going to be staring at dark blue basically the entire game. Across all 25 painful chapters, EVERY single goddamn fucking area looks the same. Soulless repetition is a bit of a theme that this game carries throughout, which leads me to the combat.
I do not exactly hate the combat in a vacuum for Soulstice. Eventually, you end up with a total of seven different weapons, each with different roles that are "strong" versus different enemy types. The most glaring issue with Soulstice's combat sequences are simply how many of them there are and how excruciatingly similar one is compared to any other. During the last third or so of playing through this game I was basically begging it to stop, to the point where I lowered the difficulty—something I very rarely resort to—simply because I could not stand how bloated each enemy's health pool is on the game's Hard mode, only to find out it's basically the same on the Normal-equivalent. Apart from the most basic chapter 1 type enemies, everything in this game is an absurd health sponge. As you progress, you get more and more enemy types thrown at you, all similarly bland-looking, each with increasingly obnoxious attacks and larger health pools. The main gimmick of Soulstice's combat revolves around using Lute, Briar's (main character) sister, who is basically a ghost by her side, to project two different fields that allow you to damage certain enemies based on what their associated color, either blue for ghost-type enemies or red for crystalized, possessed enemies. The fields are only so big however, and if you keep them out too long without directly attacking an enemy associated with said field, Lute will 'overcharge' and disappear for a few seconds. Because this overcharge meter is tied to the 'parry' system of the game as well, be prepared to hear one of the five or six voice lines for Lute about to overcharge about 700 times in a full playthrough. In the second-half of the game, each combat counter generally consists of some half-assed amalgamation of strong enemies that have no interaction with each other whatsoever; it feels like at some point they gave up trying to make anything work together cohesively and decided to just throw as much bullshit at you as possible. The combat sequences are encounter-based, so you will walk for a bit, go into a closed-off area where you must defeat every enemy, get a grade on your performance, then move on. This creates some points where you go through one encounter and then 10 seconds later find another one, which is probably even worse than the last, just seconds apart. There were some glimmers where I felt like I was kind of enjoying the combat, moments where something would click and it felt alright, but these were few and far between. This game made me frustrated SO quickly. I would start another play session, get to my first combat encounter, and realize that I'm just going to be doing this for the next three hours. Dodging and 'parrying', which is really just pressing circle whenever you see the prompt (which sometimes parries but sometimes slows instead for more powerful enemies), does not really feel very intuitive, fluid, or satisfying whatsoever. There is very little about the combat that feels that intricately designed. Each weapon has its own moveset, including an attack that is supposed to launch you towards and enemy, but sometimes it just, doesn't work? Enemies also constantly are moving around and you aren't very naturally fast, and have to wait a second if you dodge three times in a row, so a lot of the combat is just running around trying to catch up to things flying around faster than you. The worst of this comes out in some of the game's bosses, which are maybe some of the worst I've ever seen in a game. Truly, apart from the final boss kind of, they are miserable. Each and every one is just awful, an amalgamation of every negative thing I've said here, all wrapped in a bow of awkwardly transitioning into a cutscene every tenth of their health.
Soulstice is not a good game. I respect the effort of the developers to put it together, and can at least say a couple nice things about the story and characters, but it is an absolute slog to get through and it is hard for me to imagine anyone not thinking so, particularly by the last third of the game. There is so much more I could complain about regarding this game, with countless many more minute details that were insanely frustrating. After completing it I feel still like there is a bad taste in my mouth that I am trying to get out by writing this.
There definitely is a group of people that would enjoy and get more out of this game than I would, and I will say that there are absolutely some redeeming qualities about it, the problem is that a lot of them are only barely such, and end up getting beaten to death from repetition by the end. I personally could not recommend anyone playing through Soulstice's 15-20 hours.
5/10
Soulstice is the first game made by developers Reply Game Studios and for a first effort it is a very impressive Devil May Cry styled character action game that has a nostalgic feeling to it which harkens back to the 360/PS3 days.
Soulstice is a nihilistic, dark fantasy tale heavily influenced by the manga/anime of Claymore and Berserk and tells the tragic story of Briar and Lute, two sisters that have had their souls joined together in a sacred ritual to be reborn as a hybrid warrior called a 'Chimera', Chimeras are super human warriors that fight for a holy order of knights against corrupted demonic creatures called 'Wraiths' which can corrupt a human with a single touch and come from another dimension through tears in space-time itself, Briar and Lute are sent on a mission to close one of these tears in one of the 3 sacred cities and that is where our story begins. The narrative is a bit slow and mostly sees our heroines traversing through a destroyed city trying to reach the center, but as they traverse this desolate city they unveil tragic truths about themselves and mysteries about the order they serve and the world around them, building into a truly epic finale which perfectly sets up a sequel as well. I was pleasantly surprised that the narrative and world were a lot more fleshed out than I expected from a game of this type, there's even an in-game codex with a bunch of lore to read up on for those interested.
While they might not be the deepest characters, I found Briar and Lute to be very charming with well developed character arcs and I was quite endeared to them and their bond by the end of the game and I know part of that is thanks to the wonderful voice performance Stefanie Joosten gives playing both characters. There are a handful of other characters throughout the 20hr adventure which are memorable and charming in their own way like the mentor figure Donovan, the mysterious merchant Layton and a few eccentric antagonists as well, however none of these characters get as much focus as our protagonists so they don't feel nearly as fleshed out.
The combat despite being rough around the edges takes clear influence from DMC, but has its own unique flair with the player essentially controlling 2 characters at once and 1 of those characters being tied to a unique counter system making the combat have a bit of a learning curve, but once you get it down it is very satisfying, the weapon variety and how you can swap through all the various weapons on the fly reminds me of DMC 4 and all the weapons from a standard greatsword to a whip and tonfas that turn into cannons are utilized well having specific enemy types they counter. There is a very dated color coded mechanic where Lute activates blue and red forcefields and you can only damage the enemy of the corresponding color to the forcefield currently active, some might hate this, but I enjoy it and it adds an extra level of strategy to the gameplay since if you have the forcefield up for too long Lute overheats leaving you defenseless for a few seconds, timing is the key and it feels very satisfying once you get the timing of everything down. Oh yeah there's also a super power Devil Trigger type mechanic because what DMC style game would be complete without that, right?
Another thing I want to note is that Soulstice also has a fantastic sense of progression. When you first start the game you only have your basic weapon and it can certainly be challenging, but as you complete stages and unlock new weapons and skills both the player and Briar and Lute feel like they're getting stronger and that fits so perfectly with the theme of synergy that the game has going on. When you face a boss early on and Briar and Lute are like 'We're not strong enough we can't do this!' and they have to run, but then you come to that same boss later and they say 'We're strong enough we can finally do this!' I also really felt that. Just thought it was something worth mentioning.
All in all while it can be rough around the edges and dated at times Reply Game Studios' Soulstice is a very fun action game with fast paced and stylish combat that's easy to pick up, but hard to master alongside a surprisingly well written narrative and fairly detailed world and though it might not re-invent the wheel and sticks to a tried and true formula, it certainly adds a few of its own special touches while doing so and for fans of stylish action games like DMC and Bayonetta that don't mind a bit of a budgeted indie title Soulstice is one of the best games to scratch that itch in years.
Soulstice is a nihilistic, dark fantasy tale heavily influenced by the manga/anime of Claymore and Berserk and tells the tragic story of Briar and Lute, two sisters that have had their souls joined together in a sacred ritual to be reborn as a hybrid warrior called a 'Chimera', Chimeras are super human warriors that fight for a holy order of knights against corrupted demonic creatures called 'Wraiths' which can corrupt a human with a single touch and come from another dimension through tears in space-time itself, Briar and Lute are sent on a mission to close one of these tears in one of the 3 sacred cities and that is where our story begins. The narrative is a bit slow and mostly sees our heroines traversing through a destroyed city trying to reach the center, but as they traverse this desolate city they unveil tragic truths about themselves and mysteries about the order they serve and the world around them, building into a truly epic finale which perfectly sets up a sequel as well. I was pleasantly surprised that the narrative and world were a lot more fleshed out than I expected from a game of this type, there's even an in-game codex with a bunch of lore to read up on for those interested.
While they might not be the deepest characters, I found Briar and Lute to be very charming with well developed character arcs and I was quite endeared to them and their bond by the end of the game and I know part of that is thanks to the wonderful voice performance Stefanie Joosten gives playing both characters. There are a handful of other characters throughout the 20hr adventure which are memorable and charming in their own way like the mentor figure Donovan, the mysterious merchant Layton and a few eccentric antagonists as well, however none of these characters get as much focus as our protagonists so they don't feel nearly as fleshed out.
The combat despite being rough around the edges takes clear influence from DMC, but has its own unique flair with the player essentially controlling 2 characters at once and 1 of those characters being tied to a unique counter system making the combat have a bit of a learning curve, but once you get it down it is very satisfying, the weapon variety and how you can swap through all the various weapons on the fly reminds me of DMC 4 and all the weapons from a standard greatsword to a whip and tonfas that turn into cannons are utilized well having specific enemy types they counter. There is a very dated color coded mechanic where Lute activates blue and red forcefields and you can only damage the enemy of the corresponding color to the forcefield currently active, some might hate this, but I enjoy it and it adds an extra level of strategy to the gameplay since if you have the forcefield up for too long Lute overheats leaving you defenseless for a few seconds, timing is the key and it feels very satisfying once you get the timing of everything down. Oh yeah there's also a super power Devil Trigger type mechanic because what DMC style game would be complete without that, right?
Another thing I want to note is that Soulstice also has a fantastic sense of progression. When you first start the game you only have your basic weapon and it can certainly be challenging, but as you complete stages and unlock new weapons and skills both the player and Briar and Lute feel like they're getting stronger and that fits so perfectly with the theme of synergy that the game has going on. When you face a boss early on and Briar and Lute are like 'We're not strong enough we can't do this!' and they have to run, but then you come to that same boss later and they say 'We're strong enough we can finally do this!' I also really felt that. Just thought it was something worth mentioning.
All in all while it can be rough around the edges and dated at times Reply Game Studios' Soulstice is a very fun action game with fast paced and stylish combat that's easy to pick up, but hard to master alongside a surprisingly well written narrative and fairly detailed world and though it might not re-invent the wheel and sticks to a tried and true formula, it certainly adds a few of its own special touches while doing so and for fans of stylish action games like DMC and Bayonetta that don't mind a bit of a budgeted indie title Soulstice is one of the best games to scratch that itch in years.
What a fucking letdown
The game has epic boss fights in late game and it ends with a cliffhanger, maybe we could see a sequel but if we consider ratings it won’t be any time soon
Eis que os desenvolvedores do jogo são fãs de Devil May Cry e Berserk, assim fazendo um jogo unindo as duas obras.
Coincidentemente, essas duas obras são uma das minhas favoritas também, então... tecnicamente, jogar Soulstice seria unir o útil ao agradável. E o resultado?
Assim....
NÃO FOI NADA AGRADÁVEL......
MAS NEM UM POUQUINHO AGRADÁVEL.
Eu já esperava que Soulstice não fosse nada demais, mas que fosse pelo menos divertido de jogar. Sempre que eu olhava os trailers de gameplay, me passava uma lembrança da época do PS2, onde tinha aqueles jogos que surfavam na onda de Devil May Cry e God of War, aqueles bem cópias mesmo, só que com nomes diferentes, mas pelo menos... eram divertidos (que eu me lembre eram divertidos). E vendo Soulstice, me passou a relembrar esse sentimento, então pensei: "UAI, POR QUE NÂO JOGAR, NÃO É MESMO? NÃO DEVE SER TÃO RUIM"
Mas é bem ruim sim....
Começando pela duração do jogo, já que ele tem ai mais ou menos, de 16 a 18 horas de jogo (ele tem 25 capítulos no total), e OKAY é uma duração razoável pro gênero, o problema é a falta de ritmo que o jogo tem e a execução/dinamismo das fases. A maioria dos cenários são extremamente repetitivos e geralmente você passa uns dois a três capítulos no mesmo cenário, sem mudança alguma, com hordas de inimigos que não acaba e chega a cansar de enfrentar.
Na verdade, o termo "cansaço" é o que define bastante minha trajetória com Soulstice, talvez por isso que eu demorei tanto pra zerar. Os inimigos são extremamente chatos de enfrentar, a trilha sonora é esquecível, a história é simples e existe, mas ao mesmo tempo é ignorável (até porque a maioria dos grandes "PLOTS" do jogo, é completamente previsível e a narrativa se estende até demais pra tentar explicar algo), os puzzles são sempre os mesmos, as boss fights são extremamente fáceis, e os personagens da trama também não se ajudam (é sério, todos são esquecíveis pra mim, inclusive as protagonistas).
O jogo se estende demais pra uma história que nem tem muito pra o que oferecer, e ainda deixa um puta de um gancho no final (um gancho bem ruim inclusive) para uma continuação.
Poucas coisas se salvaram no jogo pra mim, como a ambientação, que realmente lembra muito Berserk e seu tema de Dark Fantasy, e o combate que é divertidinho e funciona pra um Hack and Slash, tem uma boa variedade de combos que da pra fazer.
Foi uma grande decepção pra mim, achei que seria algo legal e divertido, mas no final só me fez ficar cansado com o passar dos capítulos.
Coincidentemente, essas duas obras são uma das minhas favoritas também, então... tecnicamente, jogar Soulstice seria unir o útil ao agradável. E o resultado?
Assim....
NÃO FOI NADA AGRADÁVEL......
MAS NEM UM POUQUINHO AGRADÁVEL.
Eu já esperava que Soulstice não fosse nada demais, mas que fosse pelo menos divertido de jogar. Sempre que eu olhava os trailers de gameplay, me passava uma lembrança da época do PS2, onde tinha aqueles jogos que surfavam na onda de Devil May Cry e God of War, aqueles bem cópias mesmo, só que com nomes diferentes, mas pelo menos... eram divertidos (que eu me lembre eram divertidos). E vendo Soulstice, me passou a relembrar esse sentimento, então pensei: "UAI, POR QUE NÂO JOGAR, NÃO É MESMO? NÃO DEVE SER TÃO RUIM"
Mas é bem ruim sim....
Começando pela duração do jogo, já que ele tem ai mais ou menos, de 16 a 18 horas de jogo (ele tem 25 capítulos no total), e OKAY é uma duração razoável pro gênero, o problema é a falta de ritmo que o jogo tem e a execução/dinamismo das fases. A maioria dos cenários são extremamente repetitivos e geralmente você passa uns dois a três capítulos no mesmo cenário, sem mudança alguma, com hordas de inimigos que não acaba e chega a cansar de enfrentar.
Na verdade, o termo "cansaço" é o que define bastante minha trajetória com Soulstice, talvez por isso que eu demorei tanto pra zerar. Os inimigos são extremamente chatos de enfrentar, a trilha sonora é esquecível, a história é simples e existe, mas ao mesmo tempo é ignorável (até porque a maioria dos grandes "PLOTS" do jogo, é completamente previsível e a narrativa se estende até demais pra tentar explicar algo), os puzzles são sempre os mesmos, as boss fights são extremamente fáceis, e os personagens da trama também não se ajudam (é sério, todos são esquecíveis pra mim, inclusive as protagonistas).
O jogo se estende demais pra uma história que nem tem muito pra o que oferecer, e ainda deixa um puta de um gancho no final (um gancho bem ruim inclusive) para uma continuação.
Poucas coisas se salvaram no jogo pra mim, como a ambientação, que realmente lembra muito Berserk e seu tema de Dark Fantasy, e o combate que é divertidinho e funciona pra um Hack and Slash, tem uma boa variedade de combos que da pra fazer.
Foi uma grande decepção pra mim, achei que seria algo legal e divertido, mas no final só me fez ficar cansado com o passar dos capítulos.
I liked this a lot! The characters are flat and the world is boring, but the combat is a lot of fun and I could honestly see myself spending time in the challenge levels, considering I just beat the last DMC game on my list, it's good to know there's more in this vein out there for me to enjoy.
Also Briar my beloved, I don't even care that you're just a cookie cutter character your design is very cool and I love you, please return my calls.
Also Briar my beloved, I don't even care that you're just a cookie cutter character your design is very cool and I love you, please return my calls.
No meio de uma seca de novos jogos Hack'n Slash fui me aventurar pela internet e encontrei um trailer deste game que é feito pela Reply Game Studios, um estúdio italiano se não estou enganado.
Já de cara é nítida as inspirações, tem um pouco de tudo, mas também não que seja sem identidade. Elas vem de Devil May Cry (cenas e combate), God of War (câmera), Bayonetta (pontuação), Claymore (história similar), Berserk e talvez outras coisas mais.
A história do game pra quem conhece o mangá ou assistiu o anime Claymore vai ligar os pontos de similaridade num instante, aqui temos pessoas que são transformadas em super-soldados com uma espada gigante pra combater monstros e derivados por uma Seita Religiosa.
A história é boa, mas bem simples, tenta se aprofundar em alguns momentos, mas nada que desperte meu interesse pra conhecer mais desse universo.
A gameplay é boa, mas com ressalvas. O combate é divertido com uma boa variedade de armas, golpes e mecânicas, mas o problema aparece quando você percebe que não foi tão bem implementado.
Não tem muitas formas de cancelar animação pra poder encaixar em outro golpe. Os inimigos são jogados pra longe o tempo todo e você tem que ir lá atrás dele de novo e de novo.
Pra combar golpes legais e diferentes é impossível já que você tem que esperar a animação acabar pra iniciar outro e as vezes rola até um delay pra poder começar a dar outro golpe. Fora que uma mecânica do game te OBRIGA a utilizar um poder (vermelho ou azul) pra poder dar dano no inimigo, ISSO É UM SACO, UMA PÉSSIMA IDEIA! Já em DmC Devil May Cry isso apareceu e geral reclamou tanto que na Definitive Edition ele consertaram isso.
A fantasma que te acompanha dá hit nos inimigos automaticamente e você só tem "função" com ela quando é pra dar slow down no inimigo ou quando é pra repelir um ataque, isso é legal, mas eu gostaria de ter mais controle dos golpes dela do que ficar só nesse repelir ataque.
Outra coisa que achei meio triste no combate é a transformação, eu gostaria de poder ativa-la quando eu quiser, mas aqui eu tenho que ter um nível de combo alto pra poder ter uma "sincronização" entre as duas e aí sim poder usar a transformação que dura alguns SEGUNDOS.
Agora falando dos gráficos, eles são bons, o jogo é muito bonito com detalhes legais e uma direção de arte decente, mas tem um porém. Eu joguei no Xbox Series S e meu amigo, há vários momentos em que a textura demorava pra carregar ou simplesmente não queria. Eu passei uma missão inteira em que nenhuma textura da fase inteira, INCLUSIVE DA CENA FINAL DO GAME, carregou.
Como eu disse antes, o jogo tem bons gráficos e bons detalhes, mas o cenário infelizmente é muito cansativo e repetitivo, nessa questão o jogo se divide em três partes, a cidade, que é tudo medieval com castelos e calabouços que tomam uns 60% do jogo, o mesmo cenário só que com neve e gelo pra todo lado que toma uns 30% do jogo e por fim o último cenário que realmente tem diferenças nítidas, mas só ocupa 10% do game, logo ali no final.
Foi bem frustrante a questão das texturas, mas a maior decepção foi o desempenho que esse jogo tem, há momentos que senti o jogo bater uns 10fps. Deve estar melhor nos consoles mais potentes, mas aqui no monstrinho a situação é triste, uma péssima otimização dos devs.
A trilha sonora é bem básica e genérica, nada memorável e a trilha de combate é bem qualquer coisa.
A animações são de primeira, já que o gráfico tem um estilo cartoon as animações tem aqueles frames rápidos, mas fluidos, é bem legal e combinou muito bem com o jogo.
Nota-se que eu rasguei de reclamações sobre os problemas do game, mas ainda assim é um jogo decente, ele é divertido e vale a pena pegar ele numa promoção.
Recomendo pra quem curte jogos do gênero. Esse jogo tem identidade e eu gostaria muito de uma sequência, eu duvido que vá ter uma, mas se rolar eu com certeza não iria deixar de aproveitar.
Já de cara é nítida as inspirações, tem um pouco de tudo, mas também não que seja sem identidade. Elas vem de Devil May Cry (cenas e combate), God of War (câmera), Bayonetta (pontuação), Claymore (história similar), Berserk e talvez outras coisas mais.
A história do game pra quem conhece o mangá ou assistiu o anime Claymore vai ligar os pontos de similaridade num instante, aqui temos pessoas que são transformadas em super-soldados com uma espada gigante pra combater monstros e derivados por uma Seita Religiosa.
A história é boa, mas bem simples, tenta se aprofundar em alguns momentos, mas nada que desperte meu interesse pra conhecer mais desse universo.
A gameplay é boa, mas com ressalvas. O combate é divertido com uma boa variedade de armas, golpes e mecânicas, mas o problema aparece quando você percebe que não foi tão bem implementado.
Não tem muitas formas de cancelar animação pra poder encaixar em outro golpe. Os inimigos são jogados pra longe o tempo todo e você tem que ir lá atrás dele de novo e de novo.
Pra combar golpes legais e diferentes é impossível já que você tem que esperar a animação acabar pra iniciar outro e as vezes rola até um delay pra poder começar a dar outro golpe. Fora que uma mecânica do game te OBRIGA a utilizar um poder (vermelho ou azul) pra poder dar dano no inimigo, ISSO É UM SACO, UMA PÉSSIMA IDEIA! Já em DmC Devil May Cry isso apareceu e geral reclamou tanto que na Definitive Edition ele consertaram isso.
A fantasma que te acompanha dá hit nos inimigos automaticamente e você só tem "função" com ela quando é pra dar slow down no inimigo ou quando é pra repelir um ataque, isso é legal, mas eu gostaria de ter mais controle dos golpes dela do que ficar só nesse repelir ataque.
Outra coisa que achei meio triste no combate é a transformação, eu gostaria de poder ativa-la quando eu quiser, mas aqui eu tenho que ter um nível de combo alto pra poder ter uma "sincronização" entre as duas e aí sim poder usar a transformação que dura alguns SEGUNDOS.
Agora falando dos gráficos, eles são bons, o jogo é muito bonito com detalhes legais e uma direção de arte decente, mas tem um porém. Eu joguei no Xbox Series S e meu amigo, há vários momentos em que a textura demorava pra carregar ou simplesmente não queria. Eu passei uma missão inteira em que nenhuma textura da fase inteira, INCLUSIVE DA CENA FINAL DO GAME, carregou.
Como eu disse antes, o jogo tem bons gráficos e bons detalhes, mas o cenário infelizmente é muito cansativo e repetitivo, nessa questão o jogo se divide em três partes, a cidade, que é tudo medieval com castelos e calabouços que tomam uns 60% do jogo, o mesmo cenário só que com neve e gelo pra todo lado que toma uns 30% do jogo e por fim o último cenário que realmente tem diferenças nítidas, mas só ocupa 10% do game, logo ali no final.
Foi bem frustrante a questão das texturas, mas a maior decepção foi o desempenho que esse jogo tem, há momentos que senti o jogo bater uns 10fps. Deve estar melhor nos consoles mais potentes, mas aqui no monstrinho a situação é triste, uma péssima otimização dos devs.
A trilha sonora é bem básica e genérica, nada memorável e a trilha de combate é bem qualquer coisa.
A animações são de primeira, já que o gráfico tem um estilo cartoon as animações tem aqueles frames rápidos, mas fluidos, é bem legal e combinou muito bem com o jogo.
Nota-se que eu rasguei de reclamações sobre os problemas do game, mas ainda assim é um jogo decente, ele é divertido e vale a pena pegar ele numa promoção.
Recomendo pra quem curte jogos do gênero. Esse jogo tem identidade e eu gostaria muito de uma sequência, eu duvido que vá ter uma, mas se rolar eu com certeza não iria deixar de aproveitar.
The game captures the essence of the games it draws inspiration from on the PS3 and Xbox360 (which also revolves around DMC). There's nothing difficult, no bossfight is difficult, and the ones with "special enemies" are extremely equal. The story drags on to the point that at one point you no longer care about knowing what happened, you just want it to end quickly. The game tries to make you get closer to the characters, but fails as most of it is unbearable. Another thing that the game fails a lot is the presentation of new enemies, which are constant, enemies with different powers, but which just take longer to die.
Hack n Slash bacaninha, mas a gameplay começou a ficar muito complexa para o meu cérebro de macaco e eu dropei
it's so close to being good but it's annoyingly stiff and the color coded enemy stuff reaches an annoying breaking point once they introduce mines to the color coding.
This game is currently in the Humble Choice for March 2024, and this is part of my coverage of the bundle. If you are interested in the game and it's before April 2nd, 2024, consider picking up the game as part of the current monthly bundle.
Bayonetta while missing the charm.
Soulstice is designed as an action game. There are long levels separated into arenas. There’s a scoring system designed for replayability and a ton of mechanics that need to be tried and mastered. While playing Soulstice there were a lot of games that came to mind. Metal Gear Revengeance, God of War, Devil May Cry, Bayonetta, and even Darksiders. And Soulstice feels like it’s standing on the shoulders of greatness with its combat system.
However Soulstice is missing something important compared to all those games, it’s not one simple thing, but more a style, a presentation, a defining animation, or a character personality that works here. Solstice just feels like it’s lacking an important part of the DNA of this genre, and it’s noticeable.
Pick this up if you like the action-adventure hack and slash, like Devil May Cry, but understand this is a B-tier effort. There are also a lot of different mechanics at play here, perhaps too many but also it allows players to get engrossed in the combat system.
If you enjoyed this review or want to know what I think of other games in the bundle, check out the full review on or subscribe to my Youtube channel: https://youtu.be/PX2c6Gm5Jbg
Bayonetta while missing the charm.
Soulstice is designed as an action game. There are long levels separated into arenas. There’s a scoring system designed for replayability and a ton of mechanics that need to be tried and mastered. While playing Soulstice there were a lot of games that came to mind. Metal Gear Revengeance, God of War, Devil May Cry, Bayonetta, and even Darksiders. And Soulstice feels like it’s standing on the shoulders of greatness with its combat system.
However Soulstice is missing something important compared to all those games, it’s not one simple thing, but more a style, a presentation, a defining animation, or a character personality that works here. Solstice just feels like it’s lacking an important part of the DNA of this genre, and it’s noticeable.
Pick this up if you like the action-adventure hack and slash, like Devil May Cry, but understand this is a B-tier effort. There are also a lot of different mechanics at play here, perhaps too many but also it allows players to get engrossed in the combat system.
If you enjoyed this review or want to know what I think of other games in the bundle, check out the full review on or subscribe to my Youtube channel: https://youtu.be/PX2c6Gm5Jbg
First, a tip for AMD GPU users: use -dx12 as a launch option. It will give you abysmal shader stutters at times, but it will straight up double your framerate.
Anyway, I actually love this game but it has two big flaws. But first, what I enjoyed... I actually love the game's aesthetic, seeing Briar go sicko mode was what even made me interested to begin with. Plus I'm a sucker for the use of blue+orange color palettes, which the game uses pretty much most of the duration.
Also shoutout to Stephanie Joosten who apparently voiced both of the protagonists and she aced that shit. All of the main characters have pretty good voice acting tbh, but some of the throwaway characters are funny bad.
The story surprised me in how enjoyable it is, same with its characters. It's nothing ultra unique or anything, but I feel like it's cool as fuck and well done. It's my type of edgy, basically.
Moment to moment gameplay is great, and this is like the second time I've seen color-coded enemies actually be used well in an action game. Unlike something like DmC, you're not having to switch to different weapons, you just need to manage Lute's (the shade) fields and project the right ones for the enemy you're facing. You also have to manage Lute to counter enemy attacks to protect Briar (the actual attacker), which seems super simple at first but gets pretty overwhelming later on with how much shit goes on.
I loved the boss fights as well, though I didn't find most of them too tough. I died a couple times to the last three, but mostly because I adamantly try to not use items of any kind and I was on Knight difficulty.
Music is a nice mix of EDM and orchestra that really works for me. Thank FUCK this game didn't fall into the trap of using straight-up generic ass soundtrack orchestra garbage. That said, as great as the music is to fit the mood, it's not particularly stand out either...
But now, let's talk about my big two flaws. The first one is just the game's length.
I love the game but GODDAMN man it could've been half as long. It's 25 whole chapters and it took me around 25 hours to beat too. Some chapters are all story, others are just a boss fight, and others are like no story and long ass stages. I feel like character action (or stylish action or whatever the fuck you want to call it) games work best when they're relatively succint and incentivize you to replay with upgrades in higher difficulties. You can probably beat most of the DMC series in the time it takes to beat this one game. As such, I highly doubt I'll be replaying on a higher difficulty, which is a goddamn shame because you unlock new shit up until the very finale.
Can't say they don't at least try to spice things up the whole run, considering the new mechanics and weapons you get... but the stages are all visually samey. So in the end, the game really feels like its overstays its welcome. The finale goes hard as fuck tho.
My other big flaw is just the camera. I won't be pissing and moaning about the static angles out of combat because those never bothered me and I had no issues with the platforming at any point. However, camera mid combat sometimes shit itself so goddamn hard that I can't get a read of ANYTHING that's going on, especially if you use the lock on. Fiddling with the camera while dealing with the abilities of both Briar and Lute is too much at times.
Anyway, it's absolutely amazing and hilarious that the game ends with TWO entire sequel hooks. It made me think of Kingdom Hearts for some reason. I really enjoyed the game for what it is, so I'll be there if Soulstice 2 gets announced, but I just hope they know to trim the fat for their next game.
Anyway, I actually love this game but it has two big flaws. But first, what I enjoyed... I actually love the game's aesthetic, seeing Briar go sicko mode was what even made me interested to begin with. Plus I'm a sucker for the use of blue+orange color palettes, which the game uses pretty much most of the duration.
Also shoutout to Stephanie Joosten who apparently voiced both of the protagonists and she aced that shit. All of the main characters have pretty good voice acting tbh, but some of the throwaway characters are funny bad.
The story surprised me in how enjoyable it is, same with its characters. It's nothing ultra unique or anything, but I feel like it's cool as fuck and well done. It's my type of edgy, basically.
Moment to moment gameplay is great, and this is like the second time I've seen color-coded enemies actually be used well in an action game. Unlike something like DmC, you're not having to switch to different weapons, you just need to manage Lute's (the shade) fields and project the right ones for the enemy you're facing. You also have to manage Lute to counter enemy attacks to protect Briar (the actual attacker), which seems super simple at first but gets pretty overwhelming later on with how much shit goes on.
I loved the boss fights as well, though I didn't find most of them too tough. I died a couple times to the last three, but mostly because I adamantly try to not use items of any kind and I was on Knight difficulty.
Music is a nice mix of EDM and orchestra that really works for me. Thank FUCK this game didn't fall into the trap of using straight-up generic ass soundtrack orchestra garbage. That said, as great as the music is to fit the mood, it's not particularly stand out either...
But now, let's talk about my big two flaws. The first one is just the game's length.
I love the game but GODDAMN man it could've been half as long. It's 25 whole chapters and it took me around 25 hours to beat too. Some chapters are all story, others are just a boss fight, and others are like no story and long ass stages. I feel like character action (or stylish action or whatever the fuck you want to call it) games work best when they're relatively succint and incentivize you to replay with upgrades in higher difficulties. You can probably beat most of the DMC series in the time it takes to beat this one game. As such, I highly doubt I'll be replaying on a higher difficulty, which is a goddamn shame because you unlock new shit up until the very finale.
Can't say they don't at least try to spice things up the whole run, considering the new mechanics and weapons you get... but the stages are all visually samey. So in the end, the game really feels like its overstays its welcome. The finale goes hard as fuck tho.
My other big flaw is just the camera. I won't be pissing and moaning about the static angles out of combat because those never bothered me and I had no issues with the platforming at any point. However, camera mid combat sometimes shit itself so goddamn hard that I can't get a read of ANYTHING that's going on, especially if you use the lock on. Fiddling with the camera while dealing with the abilities of both Briar and Lute is too much at times.
Anyway, it's absolutely amazing and hilarious that the game ends with TWO entire sequel hooks. It made me think of Kingdom Hearts for some reason. I really enjoyed the game for what it is, so I'll be there if Soulstice 2 gets announced, but I just hope they know to trim the fat for their next game.
The kind of game that deserves a vastly improved sequel that improves on all its problems.
A boss in the game is very difficult. I don't remember his name exactly, but it was something like camera angles
Picked up this game with Gotham Knights last year during Black Friday and thought this was some souls like type of game, but came to find out it was a DMC clone which in my opinion was a sigh of relief considering that I have several soulslikes already to get to in my gigantic backlog.
Loved the designs of the characters and the bleak world they made for the environments until everything in the game nearly looked so similar with not much variety. The first half of the game for the most part was just screaming out mediocrity as I was on the verge of feeling like I made a mistake until the story started to get more interesting. Seeing the Berserk and Claymore heavy inspirations also made me more interested and the fact I absolutely loved Lute she was such a great character, pretty cool sister dynamic there.
The rapture form was like a typical type of rage mode, but the cool part was the different finishers you can do based on which of Lutes skills you decide to purchase and can change from time to time, also Lute in combat was so damn helpful too not like other AI that don't do much, she was there helping and saving me in dangerous fights from time to time which helped a lot since I decided to play the game on a harder difficulty. The berserk mode was such a cool concept and I really like how it was your kind of anime-style going insane and nearly uncontrollable unless you master it, which in turn had major consequences and could actually kill you.
Some bigger fights with the elite enemies can feel like a chore as you can't fight the way you want and have to constantly switch these two ethereal rifts to damage certain enemies. Its a conflicting beast as the more you learn the abilities and weapons switching it can be really fun, but sometimes it can be frustrating at times. The amount of depth the combat system has is unique and some fights can destroy you and cause you to use all consumables based on your mistakes which increase the initiative to not screw up as much and try different weapons and combos since some work better against certain enemy types compared to others.
One of the coolest powerups you get is like Devil trigger, but unfortunately for story reasons you do not receive it until the last few chapters in the game. Story has some cliche types of situations, but also its on spin with the world building and setting it creates with an unexpected ending that leaves on a cliff-hanger. I feel like they have something really special here and a good bit of things to improve on. I would love to play the sequel if it gets made, but a good chunk of things could use some work like making some fights more engaging and more diverse locations to look at and not so much blue everything. This game certainly won't be for everyone, but for the most part I came out liking it more in the end. The Soulstice does have some "Soul" in it that's for sure.
I really should get to watching Claymore one of these days..
Loved the designs of the characters and the bleak world they made for the environments until everything in the game nearly looked so similar with not much variety. The first half of the game for the most part was just screaming out mediocrity as I was on the verge of feeling like I made a mistake until the story started to get more interesting. Seeing the Berserk and Claymore heavy inspirations also made me more interested and the fact I absolutely loved Lute she was such a great character, pretty cool sister dynamic there.
The rapture form was like a typical type of rage mode, but the cool part was the different finishers you can do based on which of Lutes skills you decide to purchase and can change from time to time, also Lute in combat was so damn helpful too not like other AI that don't do much, she was there helping and saving me in dangerous fights from time to time which helped a lot since I decided to play the game on a harder difficulty. The berserk mode was such a cool concept and I really like how it was your kind of anime-style going insane and nearly uncontrollable unless you master it, which in turn had major consequences and could actually kill you.
Some bigger fights with the elite enemies can feel like a chore as you can't fight the way you want and have to constantly switch these two ethereal rifts to damage certain enemies. Its a conflicting beast as the more you learn the abilities and weapons switching it can be really fun, but sometimes it can be frustrating at times. The amount of depth the combat system has is unique and some fights can destroy you and cause you to use all consumables based on your mistakes which increase the initiative to not screw up as much and try different weapons and combos since some work better against certain enemy types compared to others.
One of the coolest powerups you get is like Devil trigger, but unfortunately for story reasons you do not receive it until the last few chapters in the game. Story has some cliche types of situations, but also its on spin with the world building and setting it creates with an unexpected ending that leaves on a cliff-hanger. I feel like they have something really special here and a good bit of things to improve on. I would love to play the sequel if it gets made, but a good chunk of things could use some work like making some fights more engaging and more diverse locations to look at and not so much blue everything. This game certainly won't be for everyone, but for the most part I came out liking it more in the end. The Soulstice does have some "Soul" in it that's for sure.
I really should get to watching Claymore one of these days..
Just got the Platinum after around 47 hours and 5 playthroughs, I guess it's time to drop my thoughts. I was originally interested in this because I'm a massive simp for Stefanie Joosten and wanted to see what she was doing after MGS, and it delivered in many ways and not so much in others.
First some negatives: I'm aware these are common criticisms and I don't want to sound like I'm just repeating what others say, but I agree with a lot of them. The pacing of levels, ESPECIALLY on a first time through, is very inconsistent. A few missions definitely could have been trimmed down, particularly during the second third of the game. While the game does take place in one castle/city within one night, there still could have been more of a variety in the visuals (hopefully this gets improved in a future sequel). The lock-on felt VERY inconsistent, much of the time it locks onto the nearest enemy, but other times it targeted random mook #2109 instead of elite enemy that I actually wanted to lock onto, and flicking between targets sometimes felt inconsistent as well. On higher difficulties, the remixed enemy setups don't feel like the DMC standard it aims for, many of the layouts lack synergy (extremely ironic since synergy attacks are a central part of combat, lol). I don't feel this is a huge downside, but enemy encounter variety could have used a few more unique types as well. The camera being an homage to DMC1's fixed camera wasn't too bad during traversal segments, outside of a handful of moments, but the camera can be rough if you're cornered by a bunch of big enemies.
As for what I liked? The combat, once you unlock everything, is EXTREMELY fun and satisfying and scratches the DMC itch. It's been compared to the DmC reboot and I feel it does things better than the reboot did, namely the color-coded enemies don't forced you into using specific weapons. The weapons flow pretty seemlessly into each other during combo branching points, there's even cool stuff you can do that isn't explicitly explained, like cancelling a full pause combo into rapture state. While enemy weaknesses to certain weapons didn't play as big a part as I expected outside of a few specific enemy types, but I didn't mind since I was having fun styling on them.
The aesthetic and art style of the game is pretty neat, it feel edgy in a throwback-to-00s-action-games way so it appealed to me. The story wasn't particularly unique, but it was interesting enough to keep me watching. Stefanie Joosten voicing both Briar and Lute deserves a special mention, since it shows her doing distinct voices for the two of them. The score was another great part of the game, it combines the standard orchestral sounds you'd hear in action games with dubstep-oriented synthesizers and drums.
The bosses are more good than bad. A few end up coming back as stronger enemies, but none of them are particularly bad. The major transcended bosses are great though. Donovan makes for a cool Vergil-esque mirror match, Jared and Jadon taking the form of a giant head is pretty creative, transcended Donovan is my favorite fight in the game (he reminds me tons of Urizen in DMC5). The final boss was kind of a bummer my first time through, then I learned a way to melt her lifebar and enjoyed it thoroughly.
I might be rating the game too much here, but I can't help that I had so much fun here. One of my personal favorite games of the last few years, and knowing that Reply Games aspires to make action games like Platinum is really endearing. Whether they follow up with Soulstice 2 or a new game altogether, I hope they take the lessons from here and work on the fixing the downsides to make something super cool. I'm aware this game won't be for everyone and the flaws might bother others a lot more than it did me, but I had a blast with this.
8/10
First some negatives: I'm aware these are common criticisms and I don't want to sound like I'm just repeating what others say, but I agree with a lot of them. The pacing of levels, ESPECIALLY on a first time through, is very inconsistent. A few missions definitely could have been trimmed down, particularly during the second third of the game. While the game does take place in one castle/city within one night, there still could have been more of a variety in the visuals (hopefully this gets improved in a future sequel). The lock-on felt VERY inconsistent, much of the time it locks onto the nearest enemy, but other times it targeted random mook #2109 instead of elite enemy that I actually wanted to lock onto, and flicking between targets sometimes felt inconsistent as well. On higher difficulties, the remixed enemy setups don't feel like the DMC standard it aims for, many of the layouts lack synergy (extremely ironic since synergy attacks are a central part of combat, lol). I don't feel this is a huge downside, but enemy encounter variety could have used a few more unique types as well. The camera being an homage to DMC1's fixed camera wasn't too bad during traversal segments, outside of a handful of moments, but the camera can be rough if you're cornered by a bunch of big enemies.
As for what I liked? The combat, once you unlock everything, is EXTREMELY fun and satisfying and scratches the DMC itch. It's been compared to the DmC reboot and I feel it does things better than the reboot did, namely the color-coded enemies don't forced you into using specific weapons. The weapons flow pretty seemlessly into each other during combo branching points, there's even cool stuff you can do that isn't explicitly explained, like cancelling a full pause combo into rapture state. While enemy weaknesses to certain weapons didn't play as big a part as I expected outside of a few specific enemy types, but I didn't mind since I was having fun styling on them.
The aesthetic and art style of the game is pretty neat, it feel edgy in a throwback-to-00s-action-games way so it appealed to me. The story wasn't particularly unique, but it was interesting enough to keep me watching. Stefanie Joosten voicing both Briar and Lute deserves a special mention, since it shows her doing distinct voices for the two of them. The score was another great part of the game, it combines the standard orchestral sounds you'd hear in action games with dubstep-oriented synthesizers and drums.
The bosses are more good than bad. A few end up coming back as stronger enemies, but none of them are particularly bad. The major transcended bosses are great though. Donovan makes for a cool Vergil-esque mirror match, Jared and Jadon taking the form of a giant head is pretty creative, transcended Donovan is my favorite fight in the game (he reminds me tons of Urizen in DMC5). The final boss was kind of a bummer my first time through, then I learned a way to melt her lifebar and enjoyed it thoroughly.
I might be rating the game too much here, but I can't help that I had so much fun here. One of my personal favorite games of the last few years, and knowing that Reply Games aspires to make action games like Platinum is really endearing. Whether they follow up with Soulstice 2 or a new game altogether, I hope they take the lessons from here and work on the fixing the downsides to make something super cool. I'm aware this game won't be for everyone and the flaws might bother others a lot more than it did me, but I had a blast with this.
8/10
Mediocre 2000's DMC-likes and GOW-likes are back baby.
Took a slight detour from Sora's adventures in Disney worlds to check out this game that apparently takes a lot of inspiration from Devil May Cry, Bayonetta and old God of War, three franchises invoked that would more than turn my head in the direction of the source. The spectacle/stylish/character action genre desperately needs more games and bigger names today that aren't the dominant first two names that define the genre. And God of War is busy doing less interesting things now and on a break, not to mention Platinum is imploding on itself at this rate. Regardless, I checked this out today and...yeah.
So this really does feel like DMC, the design philosophies are flying all over the place: the hyper zoom in at the conclusion of fights, the almost exact same button combos but the controls are downright mad here, basic weapon variety/switching, a devil trigger that most games have shoe horned in today, and other details. It's cool to have some familiarity and it's not bad to take some ideas from the action giants as they are bursting with a lot of great ones, yet the execution of all of this is very messy and rough around the edges.
As Briar, you fight enemies with a long sword while also having your ghost sister Lute help by countering attacks when prompted by the circle button when enemies are about to attack. One major issue I noticed from this is the inconsistency in which counter attacks are executed as sometimes enemies become frozen, sometimes their attacks are interrupted, or sometimes their attack actually gets parried/countered back. Even after hours of doing this, the system never really seemed to work that well and countering felt more of hassle to do while attacking and I ended up doing more attacking and then just dodging to avoid this issue. The fights themselves were fine but became very repetitive even with the later weapon choices opened up down the road. I don't hate the combat, but it lacks polish and constantly feels off as hitting enemies and parrying never felt fluid or smooth and fighting just became miserable as time went on. Briar is so ungodly sluggish with a piss poor stinger and lock on, and lacking other quick movement options, alongside the very slow moving enemies too. This game also does the very cool but actually terrible thing of color coding enemies that you can only attack if Lute is projecting a red aura or a blue aura, but only for a limited amount of time before she quickly becomes overwhelmed. The basic combat itself is competent, but never really rises into anything unique or original, and wore out its welcome quickly.
Levels and gameplay outside of battling is similarly very dismal. The environments are real grayish and drab looking, living up to the "soulslike" name plastered on the game, and follows a completely linear route with no path diversions or difference in environmental design to bring life to the world. I guess you could say there are puzzles but they are all braindead. There's platforming yes, and it is both dull and so awkward given the camera moves in different angles while progressing and cannot be moved in a sizeable way to determine how far or close you are to platforms. It tries to take the approach of the God of War trilogy with the camera/perspective, but instead making it painful and missing so much style and composition to emphasize the scale and detail of the levels. These levels are so damn long too, almost Sonic Unleashed levels of horror with 20-30 minute treks through dreary, uninspired, hazy, goopy stages.
I've been real negative but at least Lute and Briar are decent characters with competent voice acting performances. There's really not much to them and they're about as deep and interesting as a puddle like the overall story is here, but they made the journey less mind numbing I guess. The graphics look okay for a indie action game. Uh, not sure I can really say anything else positive about this game though.
Soulstice is not an absolute trainwreck and I honestly want to see the developers of this make a sequel that builds up significantly from the very bare bones and generic stuff here. The game here is dreadfully bland, but it does capture that early aughts edgy and "cool" charm that many action games of the time lived and breathed. This game could definitely work for people craving some character action fun outside of the big names and who don't take too much issue with the combat and world, but I couldn't do it and there isn't a ton of things redeeming to even bring me back to playing this. Soulstice makes the Darksiders games look like masterpieces and I might even return to the first game I put down in January and finish it before moving to the second entry, well all of this after Kingdom Hearts 3 at least. The gummi ships are calling me.
Took a slight detour from Sora's adventures in Disney worlds to check out this game that apparently takes a lot of inspiration from Devil May Cry, Bayonetta and old God of War, three franchises invoked that would more than turn my head in the direction of the source. The spectacle/stylish/character action genre desperately needs more games and bigger names today that aren't the dominant first two names that define the genre. And God of War is busy doing less interesting things now and on a break, not to mention Platinum is imploding on itself at this rate. Regardless, I checked this out today and...yeah.
So this really does feel like DMC, the design philosophies are flying all over the place: the hyper zoom in at the conclusion of fights, the almost exact same button combos but the controls are downright mad here, basic weapon variety/switching, a devil trigger that most games have shoe horned in today, and other details. It's cool to have some familiarity and it's not bad to take some ideas from the action giants as they are bursting with a lot of great ones, yet the execution of all of this is very messy and rough around the edges.
As Briar, you fight enemies with a long sword while also having your ghost sister Lute help by countering attacks when prompted by the circle button when enemies are about to attack. One major issue I noticed from this is the inconsistency in which counter attacks are executed as sometimes enemies become frozen, sometimes their attacks are interrupted, or sometimes their attack actually gets parried/countered back. Even after hours of doing this, the system never really seemed to work that well and countering felt more of hassle to do while attacking and I ended up doing more attacking and then just dodging to avoid this issue. The fights themselves were fine but became very repetitive even with the later weapon choices opened up down the road. I don't hate the combat, but it lacks polish and constantly feels off as hitting enemies and parrying never felt fluid or smooth and fighting just became miserable as time went on. Briar is so ungodly sluggish with a piss poor stinger and lock on, and lacking other quick movement options, alongside the very slow moving enemies too. This game also does the very cool but actually terrible thing of color coding enemies that you can only attack if Lute is projecting a red aura or a blue aura, but only for a limited amount of time before she quickly becomes overwhelmed. The basic combat itself is competent, but never really rises into anything unique or original, and wore out its welcome quickly.
Levels and gameplay outside of battling is similarly very dismal. The environments are real grayish and drab looking, living up to the "soulslike" name plastered on the game, and follows a completely linear route with no path diversions or difference in environmental design to bring life to the world. I guess you could say there are puzzles but they are all braindead. There's platforming yes, and it is both dull and so awkward given the camera moves in different angles while progressing and cannot be moved in a sizeable way to determine how far or close you are to platforms. It tries to take the approach of the God of War trilogy with the camera/perspective, but instead making it painful and missing so much style and composition to emphasize the scale and detail of the levels. These levels are so damn long too, almost Sonic Unleashed levels of horror with 20-30 minute treks through dreary, uninspired, hazy, goopy stages.
I've been real negative but at least Lute and Briar are decent characters with competent voice acting performances. There's really not much to them and they're about as deep and interesting as a puddle like the overall story is here, but they made the journey less mind numbing I guess. The graphics look okay for a indie action game. Uh, not sure I can really say anything else positive about this game though.
Soulstice is not an absolute trainwreck and I honestly want to see the developers of this make a sequel that builds up significantly from the very bare bones and generic stuff here. The game here is dreadfully bland, but it does capture that early aughts edgy and "cool" charm that many action games of the time lived and breathed. This game could definitely work for people craving some character action fun outside of the big names and who don't take too much issue with the combat and world, but I couldn't do it and there isn't a ton of things redeeming to even bring me back to playing this. Soulstice makes the Darksiders games look like masterpieces and I might even return to the first game I put down in January and finish it before moving to the second entry, well all of this after Kingdom Hearts 3 at least. The gummi ships are calling me.
With an already huge backlog and many more better games to play, as a sucker for hack n slash games, I just have to play everything in the genre that comes out, doesn't matter if it's mediocre, so that's precisely why I first gave Soulstice a try, played 5 chapters, and abandoned it, it wasn't THAT good.
That was until the game's style and unique visuals dragged me back in, and I decided to finish it.
While it had its ups and downs, I'm definitely happy I finished it after all.
I'll start with the main point, the combat.
The combat is... good? The combo and weapons system is very similar to DmC: Devil May Cry, as you can start a string with a weapon and finish it with another, the weapons are cool overall, the one that stands out the most is the last weapon you get, tonfas that also act as guns.
All the weapons also have the "synergy attacks", which you can unleash after you've maxed out the Unity meter (think of it as DMC's style system, you need to do different combos and not get damaged), these attacks are good with cool animations, later on you'll get access to the Rapture State and Berserk, which are two of the coolest aspects of the entire game, the "Devil Triggers" if you will.
Now the game isn't without issues obviously, it commits the sin of color coded enemies and some other minor things, I don't understand why they went for the color code system as it clearly didn't work in DmC: Devil May Cry, and it doesn't work very well here, although you'll unlock some upgrades in the endgame which will improve it significantly, but at that point the damage is already done and you've likely suffered enough, all that said though, it's something I'm willing to look past as I had my fair share of fun with the combat system, it has some truly great moments.
Now while I started this game because it's a hack n slash, I was surprised myself because the thing I stayed for was actually the story.
The story starts out pretty good, but it's nothing special early on, after like 8 chapters it picks up, and it's really good after that, the protagonists Briar and Lute specially as they had good character arcs and great voice acting, by the end I was totally caring for them and enjoyed their dialogues and screen time more than I thought I would.
Another strong aspect of this game are the boss fights, there are quite a number of them, and they're all great both story-wise and gameplay-wise.
All of the positives plus the unique visuals and style made me ignore all the game's flaws and have a really good time.
I recommend Soulstice to hack n slash fans, but you have to be patient and play at least 8 chapters before making your mind.
That was until the game's style and unique visuals dragged me back in, and I decided to finish it.
While it had its ups and downs, I'm definitely happy I finished it after all.
I'll start with the main point, the combat.
The combat is... good? The combo and weapons system is very similar to DmC: Devil May Cry, as you can start a string with a weapon and finish it with another, the weapons are cool overall, the one that stands out the most is the last weapon you get, tonfas that also act as guns.
All the weapons also have the "synergy attacks", which you can unleash after you've maxed out the Unity meter (think of it as DMC's style system, you need to do different combos and not get damaged), these attacks are good with cool animations, later on you'll get access to the Rapture State and Berserk, which are two of the coolest aspects of the entire game, the "Devil Triggers" if you will.
Now the game isn't without issues obviously, it commits the sin of color coded enemies and some other minor things, I don't understand why they went for the color code system as it clearly didn't work in DmC: Devil May Cry, and it doesn't work very well here, although you'll unlock some upgrades in the endgame which will improve it significantly, but at that point the damage is already done and you've likely suffered enough, all that said though, it's something I'm willing to look past as I had my fair share of fun with the combat system, it has some truly great moments.
Now while I started this game because it's a hack n slash, I was surprised myself because the thing I stayed for was actually the story.
The story starts out pretty good, but it's nothing special early on, after like 8 chapters it picks up, and it's really good after that, the protagonists Briar and Lute specially as they had good character arcs and great voice acting, by the end I was totally caring for them and enjoyed their dialogues and screen time more than I thought I would.
Another strong aspect of this game are the boss fights, there are quite a number of them, and they're all great both story-wise and gameplay-wise.
All of the positives plus the unique visuals and style made me ignore all the game's flaws and have a really good time.
I recommend Soulstice to hack n slash fans, but you have to be patient and play at least 8 chapters before making your mind.
It's so disappointing to have "Berserk style slapped onto DMC" be such a wet fart of a thing.
I'm not gonnae sit here and pretend to be some character action master, I'm decent at DMC/Bayo etc, but the combat is trying so hard and just not getting there. Fights feel messy. The lock-on is piss poor and will regularly have you looking at an enemy on the opposite side of the room to the one you're currently juggling. The entire UI is white, weapons cause white flashes on impact, and the prompt for a counter-attack is also white. It gets totally lost in itself. You end up trying to do combos but are expected to hit (O) every 2-3 seconds which just feels like more work.
The inconsistency of the counter-attack also fucks you up. Sometimes it blocks an enemy, other times it parries or throws a projectile to interrupt their animation, it can even freeze them mid-attack meaning they will still unfreeze a second later and continue that swing, usually hitting you with it. You have no control over which of these counters the button performs. Maybe some people like that this kinda keeps you on your toes, but I fuckin' hated it.
The story and characters are sadly about as deep as a puddle. Real generic stuff against an extremely samey backdrop. I was 7 chapters deep out of 25 and just didn't have it in me to trudge the same grey dark bridge again with burning houses nearby. I truly peaced out when it dropped me into the sewers.
Models look quite cool, and there's some sweet animations, particularly when you enter this game's equivalent of devil trigger, but some just ok combat with a clear Berserk tribute aesthetic simply isn't enough.
I'm not gonnae sit here and pretend to be some character action master, I'm decent at DMC/Bayo etc, but the combat is trying so hard and just not getting there. Fights feel messy. The lock-on is piss poor and will regularly have you looking at an enemy on the opposite side of the room to the one you're currently juggling. The entire UI is white, weapons cause white flashes on impact, and the prompt for a counter-attack is also white. It gets totally lost in itself. You end up trying to do combos but are expected to hit (O) every 2-3 seconds which just feels like more work.
The inconsistency of the counter-attack also fucks you up. Sometimes it blocks an enemy, other times it parries or throws a projectile to interrupt their animation, it can even freeze them mid-attack meaning they will still unfreeze a second later and continue that swing, usually hitting you with it. You have no control over which of these counters the button performs. Maybe some people like that this kinda keeps you on your toes, but I fuckin' hated it.
The story and characters are sadly about as deep as a puddle. Real generic stuff against an extremely samey backdrop. I was 7 chapters deep out of 25 and just didn't have it in me to trudge the same grey dark bridge again with burning houses nearby. I truly peaced out when it dropped me into the sewers.
Models look quite cool, and there's some sweet animations, particularly when you enter this game's equivalent of devil trigger, but some just ok combat with a clear Berserk tribute aesthetic simply isn't enough.
This game feels straight out of the early 2000s from it's heavy Berserk and Claymore influence to it's DMC and GoW inspiration, Soulstice I think holds up to a the PS2 classics. However, that's almost to it's detriment. It's game design feels very old and dated, but for me, that's where it's charm lies. This is a really solid groundwork for what could be heavily improved upon in a sequel. One of my favourite games I played this year and one I will grind through to get all platinum on all stages.
I love this game so god damn much
If I had to criticize this game a bit, I think it's bosses and challenges can be a bit cheap, and I think it's environment can get very bland and forgettable, even if it's story is not.
I love this game so god damn much
If I had to criticize this game a bit, I think it's bosses and challenges can be a bit cheap, and I think it's environment can get very bland and forgettable, even if it's story is not.
Se você gosta de Berserk e/ou Devil May Cry, pode jogar sem medo. A narrativa é meio fraca, mas o jogo é brabo e carrega bem a essência das obras na qual se inspirou!
Eu juro que tentei gostar de soulstice, mas a sua gameplay é muito pesada e cansativa pra um hack n Slash, sem contar que sua otimização da PC é... De qualidade duvidosa.
Assim como Tormented Souls foi uma grande homenagem aos Survival Horrors clássicos, Soulstice é para quem amava os hack and slash clássicos do PS2, talvez só deveria ser um pouco mais curto, mas não tira o brilho do jogo.
Amazing hack and slash with great ideas and a lot of potential, the ending hints to a potential sequel/dlc, I hope they have the opportunity to make Soulstice 2 and improve on top of what they already built.
É um hack n' slash bem legalzinho, a história é bem interessante e as mecânicas me lembram bastante o Devil May Cry da Shoppee, então é interessante.
Que jogo lindo. Não dava nada mas que grande surpresa.
Claro que o jogo bebe da fonte devil my cry, mas vale muito a pena.
É um colirio aos olhos.
Vale a pena.
Claro que o jogo bebe da fonte devil my cry, mas vale muito a pena.
É um colirio aos olhos.
Vale a pena.
This game made me hate playing video games. It disrespects all of its inspirations with how bad the final product is...
I wanted to write pages of pages of a very detailed negative review about it but it literally is not worth my time to do it after playing this game who-knows-how-long hours... Just fuck off!
I wanted to write pages of pages of a very detailed negative review about it but it literally is not worth my time to do it after playing this game who-knows-how-long hours... Just fuck off!
devil may clone. ele tem a exata qualidade de um jogo tie in dos anos 2000 e maior parte das mecânicas são basicamente iguais a qualquer hack n slash genérico do ps3 e xbox 360, o que seria até mais tolerável se o jogo não fosse muito mais longo do que deveria e arrastado PRA CARALHO
As far as DMC-likes can go it could have been far worse. The story was terrible, however.