What represents to you the most valuable part of survival horror as a genre of video game? Most modern games have decided it's the action, with tense gunplay and over the shoulder cameras. Some, most notably rose-engine with the recent Signalis, have emphasized the exploration aspects, creating a sort of miniature Metroid style of play with tense inventory management, looping environments, and limited resources. Chilean developer Dual Effect decided that their horror game, Tormented Souls, is a puzzle game first and foremost.
This game has no limited inventory, and the fixed camera means old school lock-on is utilized for gunplay. It commits hard to these old school tropes, with beautiful backgrounds that closely resemble GameCube era Resident Evil, inventory reloading, and a nearly useless map. But committing to these things showed me, at least, that these are not gimmicks - they hold up even today, and still make for an enjoyable game. Some of the puzzles are far too obtuse to be easily solved, but most of them can be accomplished without a guide with a bit of head scratching. If anything, I just wish the map marked when you had everything in a room, like the RE2 remake - this would help signpost when you had everything you needed to solve a puzzle. Other things I hope they fix in any future games would be the excessive backtracking (a few more shortcuts would have made this perfect!) and maybe a sortable inventory. Also, this is my own fault, but I didn't realize you could equip a crowbar as a melee weapon until a significant way through the game, and I weep for the ammo I lost finishing off floored enemies - a ground stomp or some sort of heads up about the crowbar would have been excellent.
In some ways, I like this a lot more than other modern attempts at survival horror. It is a very flawed game, so my score is being heavily impacted by "reviewer's tilt" - basically, I like this way more than I should on paper.
Also, the story is terrible, which I guess you could see as a problem, but I personally adored. It's survival horror, a terrible story with bad voice acting is perfect - I had a great time with it. What's less good is the main characters model and outfit, which I found to be exploitative in a lame and unfun way, and not really matching with other aspects of the game. There was apparently a patch to add a new outfit to the game, so this was partly resolved. Sexy is fine and all, that's not my complaint, it just looked really weird when placed inside the beautifully rendered environments with their The Suffering-esque enemies.
Anyway, I think I've been more negative than I actually feel about the game. For fans of classic Resident Evil, play this! It's absolutely worth the entry fee, and the brisk 7 - 10 hour playthrough doesn't drag.
This game has no limited inventory, and the fixed camera means old school lock-on is utilized for gunplay. It commits hard to these old school tropes, with beautiful backgrounds that closely resemble GameCube era Resident Evil, inventory reloading, and a nearly useless map. But committing to these things showed me, at least, that these are not gimmicks - they hold up even today, and still make for an enjoyable game. Some of the puzzles are far too obtuse to be easily solved, but most of them can be accomplished without a guide with a bit of head scratching. If anything, I just wish the map marked when you had everything in a room, like the RE2 remake - this would help signpost when you had everything you needed to solve a puzzle. Other things I hope they fix in any future games would be the excessive backtracking (a few more shortcuts would have made this perfect!) and maybe a sortable inventory. Also, this is my own fault, but I didn't realize you could equip a crowbar as a melee weapon until a significant way through the game, and I weep for the ammo I lost finishing off floored enemies - a ground stomp or some sort of heads up about the crowbar would have been excellent.
In some ways, I like this a lot more than other modern attempts at survival horror. It is a very flawed game, so my score is being heavily impacted by "reviewer's tilt" - basically, I like this way more than I should on paper.
Also, the story is terrible, which I guess you could see as a problem, but I personally adored. It's survival horror, a terrible story with bad voice acting is perfect - I had a great time with it. What's less good is the main characters model and outfit, which I found to be exploitative in a lame and unfun way, and not really matching with other aspects of the game. There was apparently a patch to add a new outfit to the game, so this was partly resolved. Sexy is fine and all, that's not my complaint, it just looked really weird when placed inside the beautifully rendered environments with their The Suffering-esque enemies.
Anyway, I think I've been more negative than I actually feel about the game. For fans of classic Resident Evil, play this! It's absolutely worth the entry fee, and the brisk 7 - 10 hour playthrough doesn't drag.