18.1 hours played
Written 28 days ago
Crazy good classic survival horror.
I intended to play this game a couple years ago, but my computer at the time was a prebuilt POS that did not play nice with the Unity engine, so I had to wait until it was replaced (and it was, in fact, the first game I hopped into once my new rig was completed!) After all this time, I can say without a doubt that this was worth the wait.
This game punches well above its weight. The level design, art direction, and overall presentation are not just masterful, it at times exceeds the classic Resident Evil/Silent Hill games, and even feels like a lost evolution in the overall survival horror genre. The atmosphere is something else. A great amount of time was put into building and maintaining tension throughout this game that I hadn't been second guessing decisions this hard since the days when the classic Silent Hill games were still brand new to me! There's several moments that I wish I could list off right here, right now, and even a specific optional section (which, to me, truly set this game apart from the rest), but I am leaving this review as vague as possible as a plea for you to discover them yourself.
My only real complaint with this game is certain parts of its dialog, and whether or not it was done as an homage to the classics of its genre or as an unfortunate aspect of the game being made by a small team in a country with a different primary language than my own, I promise that every other aspect of this game more than picks up any slack left by it.
A lot of less successful (for a reason!) survival horror games use a terrible "genre twist" around their second act/latter half where instead of retaining the slow burn as the stakes elevate they become bad action games. This fortunately didn't happen in this game. No matter how many new tools you pick up, you are almost always going to feel low on something. This game mimicked a slow, desperate descent into hell from start to end, and I loved it.
The next Tormented Souls game is supposed to come out by the end of the year, and i've enjoyed this game so much that the sequel has gone from a game "i'd keep my eye on" to one I am playing on day one. I am beyond excited for what this team has in store, and I hope you will be too by the time you've hit the results screen.