Summary

Tormented Souls is a survival horror game released in 2021. It was developed by Dual Effect & Abstract Digital and was published by PQube Ltd. It is a retro-styled game, clearly hearkening back to Resident Evil. In it you play as Caroline Walker, who is investigating the disappearance of two young girls in a mansion that is simultaneously also a hospital. Had to get all the classic horror inspirations in there, I see.

This game was recommended by Kole of Watch Out for Fireballs! on their episode of Signalis when they were talking about the recent resurgence of retro survival horror stuff. As a long-time listener of Kole and Gary, I've come to trust their opinions on games very much, so I wanted to see what this was all about. That and I also had a hankering for some classic horror games. Had been considering doing a Silent Hill or a Resident Evil (probably will still do a Silent Hill at some point in the relatively near future btw).

Review

Tormented Souls was interesting. I wanted to play it largely because I was in the mood for some horror and hadn't really done any retro horror on the channel yet. Even though I myself have no particular nostalgia for that era. So it was interesting seeing the good and the bad of Tormented Souls without rose-colored glasses. It was fun, though I think it suffers from all the problems inherent to the subgenre. Not surprising with how closely it follows the patterns established by Resident Evil and other similar games. Voice acting was wild, still am not sure if it was intentionally that way or not. I didn't much care for the final boss, felt overly silly. I would have dropped it personally and resolved it in a cutscene. I thought the puzzles were largely sane, though I did find myself thinking "Why on Earth is this place set up this way?" I would've appreciated a little more integration between some of the puzzles and the story. Why must one enter a specific code into a cash register to get it to open? That is only known by one guy and must otherwise be decoded by others? Just a patina of silliness throughout that took me out of things a bit. Never overly bad, but just some things that I found some difficulty looking past.

I also don't know how I feel about the time travel elements. I thought the bit with the eye was clever and enjoyed that, but it did get me thinking about what sort of rules we're working by. I'm not that nit-picky of a person. My rule with time travel is it just needs to feel right. Rather than needing to be totally consistent with some arbitrarily decided on rules the author has constructed. Because this is a fictional thing we're talking about after all. But it did come to mind. How are we taking Anna out of the past but also my eye is already gone by the beginning of the game? Can time be changed or no? Because I woulda just woke myself up instead of taking the eye. Again, I normally would've wallpapered past this, but I think it comes down to what you're actually needing to do. It's quite a lot, so it makes my mind look for alternatives. Just my two cents.

Links

Playlist https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXbBIoFOxaQtVAuSG_SsGA5bZK5d7Ycrf