So often it’s the games that go under the radar, that don’t have the huge development or marketing budget, that impress so much. In console generations gone by, it seemed like there were a lot more of these games that I like to refer as ‘AA’ — they are not your blockbuster, big budget, marketed-to-hell-and-back ‘AAA’ games, but instead they’re the games that come out of smaller spaces, yet have big dreams and are developed with passion. These ‘AA’ tier games are rare enough, but often remind me why I play games in the first place. I recently found another one of these games this past week with Tormented Souls.
Tormented Souls (TS) hit my radar just a week or less before it was set to release on PS5 and PC (will soon be releasing on Xbox, PS4, and Switch). This game is clearly a tribute to the classics of old from the ’90s and early ’00s. Games like Resident Evil of course jump to mind, but also your Silent Hills, Alone In the Darks, and Dino Crisis. It’s classical survival horror — fixed camera angles, tank controls (though thankfully optional in TS), limited weapons and health resources, the intentional inability to save your game as often as you want, and that unsettling feeling of “what’s behind this door?” every time you come upon one. Tormented Souls captures all of these classic survival horror gameplay mechanics and elements impressively. It’s very clear that the teams at Dual Effect and Abstract Digital Works put a lot of passion into this.
So, Tormented Souls puts players in control of Caroline Walker, a young woman who receives a strange letter one day out of the blue. It was sent from an old mansion, which was converted into a temporary hospital after a fire consumed the town of Winterlake’s previous hospital. The mansion/hospital has since been abandoned as a new one was built and the home owners have passed on, but, something very, very austere is going on within the confines of this place. Anyway, upon receiving this strange picture of two young twin girls with a brief, cryptic message, Caroline suffers from headaches and decides to go investigate. The mansion/hospital, situated cliffside in a remote area, looks creepy enough, and why Caroline goes there in the middle of the night without any resources is up to your imagination. Anyway, soon after arrival, she’s knocked out and awakens in a makeshift surgery room, with her right eyeball and who knows what else removed. Your adventure to figure out just what the heck is going on and who the mysterious twin girls are starts here.
Tormented Souls takes players on a gripping adventure throughout this massive mansion-converted-hospital. Dozens of rooms and areas make up your game world as you traverse all across the complex in search of answers. Creepy, surgically modified monsters and dastardly puzzles get in your way, but it’s nothing that some nails or shotgun blasts and some critical thinking can’t fix. Or well, in my case, I had to resort to a walkthrough at times — there is a door-knocking puzzle that was like playing a rhythm game blind (very rigid timing requirements) that threw me for a loop. Another time or two I didn’t even see an object or even a little pathway to get to a new area just from playing a little too sloppy, or because a camera angle (which you can’t adjust) made it a little hard to tell another area was available. These instances are certainly the exception though — I found the puzzles to be very fairly designed and intuitive for the most part.
Gameplay is very much like you’d expect — gather items, including morphine vials that give you a minor health boost, and various items used for puzzle solving, and keep your eyes and ears open. You can die pretty quickly in TS, and save spots are pretty far apart. There are no checkpoints, no autosaves, but you do have three save slots that you can use whenever you find a magnetic tape and recorder. Using medkits and morphine with caution is a must. I recommend using all three save slots and overwriting the oldest first in case you have to backtrack, which at times I thought I might have to. You know the first time I played TS, I spent about fifty minutes exploring and enjoying myself, only to die just outside what turned out to be a room that I could save progress in. Chaffed, I put the game down for a full day, but I was eager to get back to it and do better. Sure enough, I discovered that ammo, while sparse, is not as desperately sparse as I feared, so instead of trying to fight with a crowbar I would light up the monsters with nails, which worked obviously much better. All in all, the difficulty of TS is pretty fair and reasonable, but if I could be completely transparent, I would have liked the ability to save my progress at least a little bit more often if not at will.
As far as presentation quality goes, TS looks and sounds great. It is certainly not the best looking game on PS5, obviously, but the lighting and artwork are great. The animations are pretty good as well. I thought the sounds of the game were nicely done, and the metal clanking sounds of the various monsters moving about is appropriately creepy. Though the voice-acting isn’t great, it’s serviceable and you know in that weird way it has that kind of AA caliber charm to it that kinda adds to the overall intrigue of this game. I loved the bits of music that play, such as when you enter the Main Hall and other atmosphere-setting tunes that play softly in the background as you explore.
Tormented Souls gets way more right than not, and I came away from it very impressed. This was the kind of game that once I got the hang of it (I have not played many survival horror games at all) I became enthralled with playing and exploring every area and uncovering all the secrets and story material I could. This game does not try to advance the genre; it doesn’t do anything particularly new or better than previous champions of the genre have, but for all that it does, it does it very well. I’ll always say there is room in any genre for another solid entry, and that’s what you get here — a great survival horror game built with intentional classic/retro design. By the way, the game is available digitally for only $20, and should net you a solid ten-plus hours of compelling play. Highly recommended, and here’s to a continuation of Caroline Walker’s adventures in the future.
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