Not quite the typical zombies but far from reinventing the wheel. The enemies you’ll face across the mansion’s halls, dingy attics and basements are but mutilated human experiments, largely with the torso up being all that remains. Perhaps that’s another thing in Tormented Souls’ favour – even the story is eerily reminiscent of early horror games.

As you make your way through the mansion, slowly uncovering the horrors within, I couldn’t help but feel I’ve played this story through before. I’ll set expectations right away – don’t expect a very momentous or memorable horror story. With awful monstrosities in the hall right outside, it’s up to her and her alone to find out what’s going and make it out alive.

Getting knocked out from who knows what, Caroline awakens naked in a bathtub, missing an eye. Her search to find both the sender and the subject of the photos takes her to an eerie mansion. Tormented Souls throws players into the role of Caroline Walker, an individual that receives a mysterious photo of twins in the post. After rolling credits, it’s clear it does well in recapturing a majority of those early quirks, even if the price of admission includes all the not-so-good stuff as well. Tormented Souls is the latest example of this, boasting heavy survival elements. Naturally, there’s been a number of games inspired by the original magic this horror entry created over the years. It works well as long as you realize this, but most probably won’t.It’s been 25 years since the original Resident Evil was released. The developers were going for a very specific style, and part of that is a certain level of plasticity in character models and deliberately terrible narration. There’s a reason this system isn’t commonplace, and it’s going to be one of the toughest barriers to entry that new players will face.įinally, the game’s voice acting and graphics aren’t polished or hyper-realistic. While we enjoy the save mechanic, which requires you to use tape reels found around the mansion, we can tell that many people won’t. We also experienced one instance where an enemy trapped us against an object and killed us, losing an hour or so of progress. At no point does the game explain this, and it’s extremely frustrating the first time it happens. Standing in the dark for too long causes you to die. The same clunkiness is found in the inventory management system, though this is likely intentional and has a certain charm. For example, the fixed camera angles don’t account for the controls, meaning you can end up spinning and switching between views without knowing what’s going on. While Tormented Souls is brilliant because it leans on classic survival horror tropes, it also suffers because of them. What’s not so good? Screenshot by Gamepur This is a game you’ll want to finish in one sitting, and that doesn’t come around often.

Whether you’re checking corners for enemies or finding random items that you’re certain will come in handy later for a puzzle, there’s no point at which you feel comfortable stopping. The game manages to keep the levels of dread high enough that opening any door feels stressful. The star of the show is definitely the puzzle-solving and atmosphere. It’s an extra layer of horror, but it does get tiresome after a while. In addition, enemies are sneaky and will try to trick you into thinking they’re dead before getting a few quick slashes in. You’ve got to press several buttons before you find what you need, and even then, you might end up missing a shot. Thanks to some beautiful pre-rendered backgrounds though, the scenery looks good from all angles, even while you’re darting around confusedly.Įach encounter is made more stressful by the clunky inventory system. Fixed camera angles are a brilliant touch, though they’re just as awkward as they’ve ever been. The game’s story isn’t fantastic, but it’s more set dressing for the game’s real meat, the combat, puzzle-solving, and inventory management.Įnemies are slow and noisy, and you’ve got to decide whether it’s worth killing them or trying to get around them in almost every room. If you don’t like being scared by games or solving obscure puzzles, this probably isn’t for you. There’s a lot that we thought was quite good in Tormented Souls, but purely from the view of a survival horror fan. While it might derivative of Resident Evil or Silent Hill, it actually takes the best of both worlds and brings them together to create something any survival horror fan can enjoy. It’s a spooky game in which you explore a deserted mansion that’s been used as a hospital, and everything is exactly as it seems. Tormented Souls is a new survival horror game that takes inspiration from the right places.

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