Last year developers Dual Effect and Abstract Digital brought their love letter to old school survival horror games, Tormented Souls, to PS5, Xbox Series and PC. Now the game has finally hit PS4 and Xbox One, so that last-gen console owners who have still to upgrade, can join in on the fun. A Nintendo Switch version will be out in April for you to take the horror on the go.
If you’d like, you can check out our review of the PC version here: Tormented Souls Review – Scared the Pants Off Me | Invision Game Community (invisioncommunity.co.uk). For this review, we’ll be focusing on the PS4 version of the game.
After receiving a strange envelope containing a photograph of twin girls and a cryptic message, Caroline Walker sets out to the town of Winterlake, specifically Winterlake Mansion, to find out why she was sent that photograph. After getting unceremoniously knocked out and waking up in a grotty bath missing an eye, your job becomes to survive whatever terrifying events are happening in the mansion and hopefully solve the mystery of the photograph while you’re at it. But before you can get out alive, you’re going to have to go much, much further into the darkness.
Tormented Souls is a love letter to the survival horror games of yesteryear, wearing its many inspirations on its sleeves. Resident Evil and Silent Hill are the most obvious inspirations and their DNA shines brightly through Tormented Souls darkness. Cinematic camera angles, resource management, obscure puzzles and an assortment of freakish monstrosities looking to tear your face off are all par for the course. But does a near slavish recreation of 90’s game design still work in 2022?
The answer is yes, yes it does. And wonderfully so. The developers have done a fantastic job of recreating the feelings that those early classics inspired in players. With some updates to certain systems and mechanics, Tormented Souls comes quite close to standing alongside its forebears.
Now if you’ve played a survival horror game before, then you know what to expect. You’re trapped in a sprawling location full of monsters to battle, puzzles to solve and lots of locked doors to figure out how to open. Scattered across the mansions various rooms are the records and diaries of what happened here to help you figure out what’s going on. And if you’re lucky, you’ll find a friendly soul to help you on your way.
The first thing you’ll notice about Tormented Souls is its gorgeous visuals. While the game world is fully rendered in 3D, the developers have opted for the classical locked camera system, always presenting some fantastic views and inventive cinematic camera angles and tracking shots when needed. This system still renders as much heart-pulping tension today as it did way back when because you never know what’s laying just beyond your view, or much rather, were beyond your view.
The set dressing is superb as well with an environment rich in detail and clutter that sells the impression of a once busy hospital now abandoned.
There are more than enough monsters roaming the halls looking to end you. The mutilated, Frankenstein-ish monstrosities have some interesting designs but the developers haven’t taken them to the extremes they could. One nice touch is that you’ll be able to hear the baddies lumbering around the environment even though you won’t know exactly where they are because of the fixed camera angles. It creates a nice sense of tension having to explore while watching your back.
Combat, for me, is easily the game’s weakest aspect. You see Caroline is no action hero so her move set is extremely basic. She can auto lock on to enemies, which is incredibly useful, and dodge backwards from an attack. She’s quite slow so you have to play rather tactically when fighting. Even so, the combat felt sluggish, both for melee and projectile attacks. Nailgun ammo is plentiful but the enemies can chew through them easily. Each enemy will take a certain amount of shots before they get knocked down and this gives you the chance to wail on them with the crowbar. It’s a nice risk-reward system because there’s always the chance the monsters will get some swipes in as you’re trying to put them down.
The developers have also included traditional D-pad tank controls for those feeling brave enough to try out this now frustrating style of movement. Personally, I don’t recommend it as that system really hasn’t aged well in, well, anything honestly.
Item management is non-existent thankfully. There’s no need to worry about dropping anything off or choosing what to sacrifice. Puzzle-solving items are usually used only in the area that you’re trying to get out of. There is still a lot of running back and forth between areas to solve puzzles or find locked doors you couldn’t open earlier. There’s a sense of constant forward momentum though and I rarely found myself stuck or wondering what to do next. The puzzles feel par for the course for this type of game but aren’t particularly hard.
Personally, I didn’t find Tormented Souls particularly scary. Yes, there are jump shocks and monsters to fight aplenty, but once you’ve gotten used to the combat and using the environment to your advantage along with remembering which enemy took how many nails to drop, the difficulty does come down significantly. Where Tormented Souls does shine though, is in the creation of the atmosphere of the game. The sense of mounting tension and dread crafted through the fixed camera angles, decrepit setting and sound design is unnerving. And with darkness and shadows been an actual mechanic that can kill you eventually if you don’t keep your lighter on, the game keeps your nerves taut.
Technically the game runs well on PS4 with no slow down. There are some loading times between areas, how much dependant on the areas you’re jumping between with smaller rooms loading in faster than larger, more detailed areas and corridors. It’s usually only a couple of seconds at most.
Overall, I found Tormented Souls to be easier than I expected. I didn’t struggle with the puzzles and adapted to the sluggishness of combat fast enough. Where the game does shine is in its story and the palpable sense of dread and tension the developers have crafted. With its design inspired by the classic games of yore – there’s even a grimy, industrial otherworld waiting for you in small bursts – Tormented Souls is more than a love letter to a much-loved genre, it’s a game that reminded me just how much I loved survival horror games to begin with while proving that most of the design is as viable today as when it was first created and subsequently refined.
Tormented Souls journey to the past is very much one worth taking.
- Publisher: PQube
- Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X and Series S, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 5
- Developers: Dual Effect, Abstract Digital
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