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.