Today we’ll be reviewing Tormented Souls, a game which draws heavy inspiration from classic games such as RE and Silent Hill.
I’ll being this review with saying that I’m not a massive fan of the original Resident Evil games, or any of its various clones.
With that minor disclaimer in mind, Tormented Souls was one of those games that I did not expect to like; and initially, I very much didn’t, but ended up taking a real liking to by the end.
Though that’s not to say that the ride wasn’t completely without issues.
The lore is genuinely interesting. Now, I might well be in the minority here, and this will likely not resonate with the vast majority of potential players, but for me personally I found the lore the best part of the whole game.
Reading the many journal entries written by the Wildbergers painted a truly insane and horrifying picture of what has been going on in the mansion. Every time I noticed a new piece of paper somewhere, I immediately went over to read it. Arguably, one could say that the written lore is a fair bit better than the game itself. In either case, since the majority of the story is told through notes scattered around the mansion, it’s nice to see that there’s been quite some level of attention given to fleshing out the lore.
That said, the endgame does leave a lot to be desired, as both the gameplay and story take a not-so-great turn. Although not so badly it’s any sort of deal-breaker, though it would’ve been nice to see it having been executed better.
The voice acting is of…questionable quality at times. Fairly often, the subtitles doesn’t match what the VAs are saying; many lines are delivered with less than stellar performance; and even the pronunciation of the main family, the Wildberger family name, changes slightly from one VA to another, and even the MC delivers them with slight variation at a few instances.
Sound design and effects aren’t the best. In fact, I’d even go so far as to say that more than a few things in the audio department which were outright terrible. The noises that the most common enemies make feel cheap and repetitious.
The game isn’t some AAA-funded piece, and one should set their expectations thereupon. Furthermore, while hyper-realistic graphics and shocking imagery might startle, and perhaps even leave a brief moment’s impression, that’s not what will truly define a good horror game – I’m looking at you, Martha is Dead.
Tormented Souls will not be blowing any minds, but it’s a nice throwback to the iconic horror games of yore. Well worth giving a try, if perhaps best bought at a discount.
English: Tormented Souls
Russian: Измученные Души
Developer: Abstract Digital
The game is by no means perfect, but the good bits can easily outweigh the bad, so long as one doesn’t set expectations to high. Overall, a well recommended play for those that appreciates a good, highly creepy story with some old-school RE-like gameplay.
Story: 8/10
Gameplay: 7/10
Sound: 6/10
Overall: 7.5/10