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I have never built a game nor written a story for one, so I recognize that the words I pile into here are worthless keystrokes in comparison to the monumental effort that developers put forth into building something they hope I like. If you read this, even if your game wasn't my cup of tea, thanks for your hard work and for having the strength to try.
I am very much open to suggestions in the Survival Horror, Metroidvania, couch co-op, and Soulsborne genres.
I have never built a game nor written a story for one, so I recognize that the words I pile into here are worthless keystrokes in comparison to the monumental effort that developers put forth into building something they hope I like. If you read this, even if your game wasn't my cup of tea, thanks for your hard work and for having the strength to try.
I am very much open to suggestions in the Survival Horror, Metroidvania, couch co-op, and Soulsborne genres.
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Parasite Eve 2 has all the ingredients I like in a game, but just like Waldorf Salad, somebody had to go and cover everything in mayonnaise and ruin it
I was surprised that I enjoyed the first entry as much as I did, so I was hoping that streak could continue with the sequel. There are plenty of features that I find impressive. PE2 has a very dynamic, cinematic feel to it that sets it apart as a PlayStation 1 game. Awesome FMV sequences, especially towards the end. I do like the variety of enemies, locales, and weapons and I found most of the characters likeable enough.
I hate that this feels like it couldn't decide whether it wanted to be a full-on RPG or a survival horror game. I wish they had leaned all the way into one category or another, because all the blend does is hurt. I typically love fixed camera angles, inventory management, and ammo conservation, but the locations aren't static enough to justify such limited inventory space or non-linked item chests. You pick up WAY too many different kinds of ammo or one-time use items to make the shortage of space make sense. The boss fights and quantity of normal enemies are made much harder than they have to be by the camera perspective. And if they were going the other way, into survival horror, then it shouldn't be so easy to be stun-locked by bullet sponge enemies.
I had a reasonable amount of fun, but I do think my frustrations outweighed it. Between my disappointment to not have any side characters return from the first game, too much backtracking, and one constant irritant or another, I doubt I'll return.
I was surprised that I enjoyed the first entry as much as I did, so I was hoping that streak could continue with the sequel. There are plenty of features that I find impressive. PE2 has a very dynamic, cinematic feel to it that sets it apart as a PlayStation 1 game. Awesome FMV sequences, especially towards the end. I do like the variety of enemies, locales, and weapons and I found most of the characters likeable enough.
I hate that this feels like it couldn't decide whether it wanted to be a full-on RPG or a survival horror game. I wish they had leaned all the way into one category or another, because all the blend does is hurt. I typically love fixed camera angles, inventory management, and ammo conservation, but the locations aren't static enough to justify such limited inventory space or non-linked item chests. You pick up WAY too many different kinds of ammo or one-time use items to make the shortage of space make sense. The boss fights and quantity of normal enemies are made much harder than they have to be by the camera perspective. And if they were going the other way, into survival horror, then it shouldn't be so easy to be stun-locked by bullet sponge enemies.
I had a reasonable amount of fun, but I do think my frustrations outweighed it. Between my disappointment to not have any side characters return from the first game, too much backtracking, and one constant irritant or another, I doubt I'll return.
The fact that a port, sequel, remaster, or remake does not exist is a terrible tragedy.
I love the narrative structure of the story. Centering around Alexandra Roivas in her grandfather's puzzle-filled, Metroidvania-style mansion, you gradually unlock new parts of the building and new chapters to play.
There's only 4-5 settings, but multiple revisits with different protagonists. They cleverly wrap around eachother throughout time, even encountering previous characters. The puzzle-solving works in tandem with your spellcraft a lot of the time, doubling up as tutorial. Discovering new spells is almost always useful and sequence-breaking to find more early is immensely satisfying.
Of course what everyone remembers is the sanity meter. It's such a brilliant idea that I wish had freer copyright limitations so I could see it implemented in new titles. The hallucinations, feints, and red herrings you and your hero encounter are always entertaining and baffling. My favorite is when a fly starts crawling across your HUD.
There are some shortcomings. The hacking combat and simplistic shooting wears a little thin. I also hate that they added a mechanic where your character runs out of breath after jogging for a while. The fatter characters run out nearly immediately and it really taxes the patience.
Fantastic voice-acting, sound design, and writing. It's not afraid to take bold twists and seep crawling, ancient, arcane fear into your psyche. It's not perfect, but I do love it.
I love the narrative structure of the story. Centering around Alexandra Roivas in her grandfather's puzzle-filled, Metroidvania-style mansion, you gradually unlock new parts of the building and new chapters to play.
There's only 4-5 settings, but multiple revisits with different protagonists. They cleverly wrap around eachother throughout time, even encountering previous characters. The puzzle-solving works in tandem with your spellcraft a lot of the time, doubling up as tutorial. Discovering new spells is almost always useful and sequence-breaking to find more early is immensely satisfying.
Of course what everyone remembers is the sanity meter. It's such a brilliant idea that I wish had freer copyright limitations so I could see it implemented in new titles. The hallucinations, feints, and red herrings you and your hero encounter are always entertaining and baffling. My favorite is when a fly starts crawling across your HUD.
There are some shortcomings. The hacking combat and simplistic shooting wears a little thin. I also hate that they added a mechanic where your character runs out of breath after jogging for a while. The fatter characters run out nearly immediately and it really taxes the patience.
Fantastic voice-acting, sound design, and writing. It's not afraid to take bold twists and seep crawling, ancient, arcane fear into your psyche. It's not perfect, but I do love it.
This review contains spoilers
Replete with scenes of explicit violence and gore, Tormented Souls has enough harrowing horror and brain-busting puzzles to satisfy any survival-horror fan. With fantastic level design, a well-written story, and an overwhelming amount of love for its predecessors, Tormented Souls displays intelligence and competence in it's design.
It's far from perfect, though. I thought an old, gothic Hospital was a fantastic location for a survival-horror game (as proven by RE and Silent Hill). All of the backgrounds and scenery were spot-on and creeping around the dark, decaying halls was immersive and genuinely scary. Though I'd say the sublevels got a bit tiresome. Labyrinthian sewers and winding halls of pipes and concrete got confusing and disorienting. I'm sure it was meant to be somewhat, but it wasn't as fun or interesting.
Not a huge fan of the combat. For reference, it is very similar to what you would expect from late-90s/early-00's horror games. Auto-aim, shoot, and finish off with a melee weapon to conserve ammo. However, while it's contemporaries allow you the option of intelligent maneuvering to dodge enemies altogether, I soon discovered that applying the same tactics here were far more costly. Even the most basic of enemies are quick-steppers with wide hitboxes (and possess annoying projectiles with ridiculous range), but that wasn't the problem. The input delay and cooldown on all player commands takes SO long. You could plug an enemy with the nail gun a healthy three times and during the time it takes to strike with the melee weapon, end the animation, and begin again, the enemy has already gotten up and swiped you. There is some stun with each shot, but not so it really counts. You can't get a stunning head shot and then quickly dodge around the enemy to the next area. The enemy stun animation has finished before you even get the next shot off, so enemies are constantly gaining ground on you. Due to this, the wisest course of action was always to bite the bullet and put down an enemy whenever I came across them, which I found less thrilling than clever dodges. I just wish I had the option. Most annoying of all, on the rare occasions that you DO manage to get by an enemy, God forbid you have to go back in the room because they camp the doorways you just came through. And, once again, animation start-up is so slow that you are going to take a hit before you get your weapon up or you can utilize the backstep move.
The puzzles are frustrating mix of brilliance and completely obtuse, left-field bullshit. I'm ashamed to admit it, but I had to consult an online guide multiple times to figure out what the hell I was supposed to be doing. There were times I caved out of impatience when I should of persisted, but there were also occasions where I would have never have figured out what they wanted. This was due to some serious backtracking to barely-memorable areas or noticing subtle or esoteric details in the environment. Like walking around a table counter-clockwise multiple times with the lights off or examining an item closely for what felt like unnecessary and trivial modifications. One puzzle was straight up broken. You had to turn a safe lock clockwise, counterclockwise, clockwise, as always, right? But if you didn't have the cursor in the exact, right spot on the teeny edge of the button, it would go clockwise despite the icon changing to indicate the opposite. Very frustrating. I'd say this was about 30% of the puzzles, but I absolutely loved the rest. The developers really seem to trust in your intelligence and observation skills and there is very little handholding here. It made figuring out a tough one supremely satisfying.
I have to admit that I really enjoyed the story. I won't spoil anything, but they definitely utilized familiar dark-light world mechanics in a really smart way. I thought the "twist" of the story was really obvious in the first eight seconds of the game, but the devil is in the details. Sure, you might be able to see the ending coming, but the journey there is absolutely worth it. You won't fall in love with the characters, but you will experience satisfying plant-and-payoff and you are able to make decisions to affect the ending in a meaningful way.
All-in-all, Tormented Souls is a mostly-successful tribute to it's macabre progenitors. As a huge fan of the genre, I wasn't disappointed.
It's far from perfect, though. I thought an old, gothic Hospital was a fantastic location for a survival-horror game (as proven by RE and Silent Hill). All of the backgrounds and scenery were spot-on and creeping around the dark, decaying halls was immersive and genuinely scary. Though I'd say the sublevels got a bit tiresome. Labyrinthian sewers and winding halls of pipes and concrete got confusing and disorienting. I'm sure it was meant to be somewhat, but it wasn't as fun or interesting.
Not a huge fan of the combat. For reference, it is very similar to what you would expect from late-90s/early-00's horror games. Auto-aim, shoot, and finish off with a melee weapon to conserve ammo. However, while it's contemporaries allow you the option of intelligent maneuvering to dodge enemies altogether, I soon discovered that applying the same tactics here were far more costly. Even the most basic of enemies are quick-steppers with wide hitboxes (and possess annoying projectiles with ridiculous range), but that wasn't the problem. The input delay and cooldown on all player commands takes SO long. You could plug an enemy with the nail gun a healthy three times and during the time it takes to strike with the melee weapon, end the animation, and begin again, the enemy has already gotten up and swiped you. There is some stun with each shot, but not so it really counts. You can't get a stunning head shot and then quickly dodge around the enemy to the next area. The enemy stun animation has finished before you even get the next shot off, so enemies are constantly gaining ground on you. Due to this, the wisest course of action was always to bite the bullet and put down an enemy whenever I came across them, which I found less thrilling than clever dodges. I just wish I had the option. Most annoying of all, on the rare occasions that you DO manage to get by an enemy, God forbid you have to go back in the room because they camp the doorways you just came through. And, once again, animation start-up is so slow that you are going to take a hit before you get your weapon up or you can utilize the backstep move.
The puzzles are frustrating mix of brilliance and completely obtuse, left-field bullshit. I'm ashamed to admit it, but I had to consult an online guide multiple times to figure out what the hell I was supposed to be doing. There were times I caved out of impatience when I should of persisted, but there were also occasions where I would have never have figured out what they wanted. This was due to some serious backtracking to barely-memorable areas or noticing subtle or esoteric details in the environment. Like walking around a table counter-clockwise multiple times with the lights off or examining an item closely for what felt like unnecessary and trivial modifications. One puzzle was straight up broken. You had to turn a safe lock clockwise, counterclockwise, clockwise, as always, right? But if you didn't have the cursor in the exact, right spot on the teeny edge of the button, it would go clockwise despite the icon changing to indicate the opposite. Very frustrating. I'd say this was about 30% of the puzzles, but I absolutely loved the rest. The developers really seem to trust in your intelligence and observation skills and there is very little handholding here. It made figuring out a tough one supremely satisfying.
I have to admit that I really enjoyed the story. I won't spoil anything, but they definitely utilized familiar dark-light world mechanics in a really smart way. I thought the "twist" of the story was really obvious in the first eight seconds of the game, but the devil is in the details. Sure, you might be able to see the ending coming, but the journey there is absolutely worth it. You won't fall in love with the characters, but you will experience satisfying plant-and-payoff and you are able to make decisions to affect the ending in a meaningful way.
All-in-all, Tormented Souls is a mostly-successful tribute to it's macabre progenitors. As a huge fan of the genre, I wasn't disappointed.