REVIEW / Tormented Souls II (PS5)

Within the curiosity of equity, let me be trustworthy: I by no means performed the unique Tormented Souls. Nevertheless, a survival horror recreation within the vein of Resident Evil intrigued me. Naturally, I felt my playthrough of Tormented Souls II would supply a novel perspective. After taking part in it, I notice it’s a difficult recreation to overview as a result of it has a mess of positives and negatives.

Enter the Survival Horror

Tormented Souls II has gamers controlling returning heroine Caroline Walker. She travels to a city known as Villa Hess with a purpose to assist her twin sister, Anna, who sees and attracts all types of disturbing photos which have the unlucky aspect impact of manifesting into actuality (learn a synopsis of the primary recreation’s plot so that you gained’t get misplaced). Issues go to shit just about instantly upon getting into the convent, the place the members of the church are presupposed to be serving to our protagonists. Caroline should rescue her sister from an evil cult, traversing twisted locales like stated church, a derelict mall, a fishing facility, a cemetery, and a college, simply to call a number of.

Credit score the place credit score is due: Tormented Souls II has a incredible atmosphere. Although character fashions are missing in graphical polish, the environments are stellar, stuffed with great use of sunshine and shadow. Gentle particularly is necessary, as you’ll be able to die by staying at the hours of darkness too lengthy. Areas shift in perspective as you progress round, just like the static backgrounds of Resident Evil, and the sport even makes use of tank controls (there are trendy controls, too, although I discover this methodology makes it tougher to navigate with the altering digital camera). I additionally love how maps mark off areas of curiosity, so you realize the place to look if you end up at an deadlock. Weapons are a delight, too. In contrast to different survival horror titles, weapons are made utilizing instruments you discover in every space you discover. From the nailgun to the crossbow that fires tubes of acid, all the things has this “I made this gun with scrap I discovered mendacity round” high quality to it.

A Step Ahead, a Step Again

Now that I’ve obtained the great out of the way in which, let me communicate of the difficult features of Tormented Souls II. These musings all have one thing good about them, however with a caveat. For instance, enemies have distinctive, scary designs, and the bosses all have weaknesses tied to weapons outdoors of your arsenal that seem of their respective arenas. Nevertheless, fight is clunky, requiring you to combat in lighted areas since darkness is so deadly. Caroline can simply get caught or stun locked whereas taking pictures or smashing adversaries, as nicely, although there’s a backdash that’s laborious to grasp however presents you an opportunity to keep away from getting hit. As well as, puzzles are a combined bag. A few of them are fairly ingenious and make you’re feeling like a mind surgeon once you determine them out. However others are so convoluted that you just’ll be reaching on your cellphone to search for the answer reasonably than max out your frustration.

Two issues drag Tormented Souls II down probably the most, although. The primary is the default problem. Taking part in on this mode is brutal, as enemies hit laborious and there’s a shortage of ammunition and therapeutic objects. Not solely that, you’ll be able to solely use a restricted provide of recording tapes to manually save your progress. Save factors are few and much between, and you may guess I had one enraging occasion the place I defeated a boss however died to a flying ghost enemy, shedding a stable quarter-hour of progress. Lastly, the sport is slightly too lengthy, clocking in at over 20 hours of playtime. Usually, an extended play time presents a terrific worth, however survival horror video games are at their greatest when they are often overwhelmed in underneath 10 hours and have new recreation + incentives to encourage replays. Whereas every location is enjoyable to behold at first, they every overstay their welcome only a bit.

Flawed But Charming

Tormented Souls II is a tough recreation to overview. For all of the issues it does nicely, there may be one other, irritating factor that stands in the way in which. However I imagine if you’re a fan of old-fashioned survival horror and insane plots, you’ll have the ability to get previous the sport’s jankiness and luxuriate in its charms. Simply select the assisted problem so you’ll be able to have autosaves and extra ammo and heals. It’ll prevent some ache.

This overview relies on a retail copy of the sport offered by the writer.