Over the years I’ve seen so many attempts to make a survival horror game I stopped counting or caring. Mostly because vast majority of these titles, even back from the time the genre was still relevant, were crap. And as often because they weren’t actually “survival horror”, as in a genre and not a meaningless moniker given to any horror game. Tormented Souls didn’t look great, but I was willing to give it a chance. It turned out to be enjoyable.
To get it out of the way, there are two ways people use “survival horror”. One to talk about a specific genre (or subgenre of action adventure, I suppose) that was given name and a set of key pillars by Capcom, when they used the term in their marketing material for Resident Evil. And the other to define basically any horror themed game of any genre. The second use is far more common, not helped by the rise of the “survival” genre that has its own set of rules that are almost completely disconnected from what “survival horror” is. Either way, Tormented Souls aims to fit the actual genre and thus be a horror themed action adventure game with focus on exploration and careful item management, puzzle solving and slower paced methodical combat.
And it fits the genre pillars perfectly well. You get creepy locations to explore, finding safer and more convenient shortcuts. You get lots of puzzles, some with item manipulation, some independent. Combat is often avoidable and uses precious ammo and healing resources. Progression is rather open-ended with several sections of non-linear puzzle solving and multiple endings. All of the key ingredients are here and all of them are solid. None of them great, but all solid.
The story is pretty silly and its subtlety is best showcased with the fact that the opening cutscene features the main heroine with pointless full frontal nudity. Same goes for uninspired enemy designs and rather predictable spooks. Same goes for pretty bland characters. But hey, a lot of great survival horror titles had silly stories, if not most of them, so that’s not as important. The game world you explore is pretty good, though. It’s sometimes nonsensical in its design, but it looks cool and is fun to run around. Music can be quite nice too, whenever it’s playing eerie ambience, calming tunes or tries its hardest to sound like Silent Hill 1.
Gameplay-wise, it most reminded me of Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare, with elements from Silent Hill: Origins. Running around in the darkness with a lighter as your only light source might also remind you of RE: Code Veronica. But it’s really cool. It’s mostly really well-balanced between the puzzly bits and the shooty bits, though you do control this somewhat depending on the routes you take. The game often opens up a lot, too much, I’d argue, as it gets overwhelming. Not helped by the fact, that the map is nowhere near as helpful as in the classics of the genre, being more of a reference point, rather than a practical navigation tool. I don’t usually have a problem with this approach, but I fear that many people will get turned off by this approach. Some puzzles are also rather poorly thought out, like one that will frustrate both people with good music hearing and those without. Oh and sometimes you just need to go into a room for something scripted to happen, so if you don’t, you’ll just have to blindly run around thinking that you’re missing something.
Oh right, the saving system returns the limited save resource in addition to the save points. Personally, never considered this idea good or useful – genre savvy player will never be affected by the limited amount of saves, while those who are trying to get into it will get discouraged to play. Save points alone are enough. But still, I had plenty of save items left by the end of the game. Same went for ammo, even though I might’ve killed every enemy in the game. Speaking of – the combat system isn’t particularly good, but it’s a decent Silent Hill-like approach with a dodge button. If you master it, you might be able to play the game without taking any damage in any encounter, I’d assume. The main annoyance, though, is the fact that sometimes enemies just simply stop being hit by your shots and while this doesn’t happen often, it’s just annoying and hard to plan for. Might even be a bug, actually, since I’ve encountered quite a few (though most of the serious ones have already been fixed by the time I’ve finished the game).
The biggest issue of the game, though, is that it’s neither being a great example of the genre, nor trying to do anything interesting with it. Sure, it’s not a stunning trainwreck like Crying is Not Enough or a really poor attempt at a genre like Kabus 22. But it’s not being as inventive as Song of Horror either. Back in the day, it wouldn’t have been as loved as Resident Evil 3, or had a cult following like Illbleed. It would’ve been another Carrier. Most certainly not bad, just not that great either. In the current drought of good genuine survival horror games, though, Tormented Souls is a fine title to play. I most certainly enjoyed it and fans of the genre probably will as well. If you’re new to the genre, though, there are far better titles to ease you in and you’ll probably bounce off a lot of this game’s intentional limitations.