Let the title fool us Soulstice has some brushstrokes brought from the souls genre but the new game from Reply Game Studios (Theseus) has a strong base in the classic Devil May Cry.
soulstice It is available for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.
for the brotherhood
In soulstice We put ourselves in the shoes of the sisters Briar and Lute. The sacred kingdom of Keidas has been corrupted by the appearance of a series of creatures from “veil”. These souls affect the bodies of all living things and create hideous creatures. Briar has been affected by this curse but was transformed into a Chimera, a warrior with greater strength and endurance under the tutelage of the Order. While Lute was sacrificed and her soul in the form of a ghost accompanies her sister in battle.
The game takes us through 25 chapters through the different cities invaded by these creatures in order to stop them, close the veil and also discover the definitive plan of the order. Not without first avoiding falling into “transcendence” by losing our humanity and becoming soulless monsters.
The first thing that came to my mind when I played the demo and saw some trailers seeing soulstice and reading his story was the manga/anime Claymore by Norihiro Yagi. An order, modified humans trying to maintain their sanity and a heroine in whom no one has faith and who in the end is the most powerful of all. Saving the distances, it is the closest thing that fans of the work are going to be able to see in a video game.
If you read works like the one mentioned or the classic Berserk by Kentaro Miura, perhaps the argument falls into some places already explored; but apart from that, its 20 hours of play are very bearable and it is impossible not to feel empathy for the two protagonists. Especially since the gameplay is combined with various cinematics.
Quite a frenzied delight if it weren’t for his devilish cameras
At the beginning of the note mention that soulstice is an heir to Devil May Cry, especially the first three. Briar begins the adventure with a sword and a second weapon with a higher attack but slower. As we progress we will unlock others that we will have to alternate such as whips, bow and arrow or gauntlets. The combination of attacks between all makes a nice combination of the classic “hack and slash” without reaching such innovative places or combos of hundreds of hits as in Devil May Cry 5.
On the other hand, Lute our ghost sister follows us wherever we go and helps us with defense and some attacks. We are able to perform actions when we press the indicated button and stop an attack, freezing the enemy or pushing him.
The union between the sisters is the basis of the entire game both in history and in its movements. The more we combine, attack, defend and dodge we raise this unit and perform a synergy attack. If our union is high enough we can enter a state of rage, with enormous speed and strength and a special final attack.
Beyond combat, there is much to explore in soulstice. Lute has two force fields, one for evocation and one for elimination. Blue allows us to destroy that type of crystals or get on certain platforms. Red the same with crystals or let us go through other sectors. These fields are consumed and there is a limited time to use them.
Like all hack and slash, the enemies at first are quite repetitive and cannon fodder but as we progress we discover others that we have to defeat with some activated field or a combination of both.
When the enemies appear, the area is closed and when we kill them all, they give us a score for our speed or performance. In the same way that happens in the Devil May Cry. With high scores we get red and blue gems that we can use in the store to buy items from Layton (one of the Order’s helpers) or improve Briar and Lute’s skill tree.
We will have moments of giant final bosses to finish with enough patience. We are not facing a souls but I would even say that the challenge is a little higher than the Devil May Cry. There are five difficulty modes (2 blocked at the beginning) and in a medium term many times we will end up with little life if we do not combine the attacks well. We have the option to use up to 2 crystals to revive Briar.
Within the levels there are a lot of objects to destroy that drop gems in the best style God of War and also void challenges where we are going to perform some attack or defense tests to get fragments and increase our maximum life.
Now comes the big “but….” that most of us find in soulstice. Unfortunately fixed cameras were a problem during older generations of third-person games. Sometimes his scenes were dazzlingly cool, I say this having played all the Silent Hill Y resident Evil. Other times what could happen in fast-paced games like hack and slash was that we couldn’t find the enemies attacking us because turning the camera was impossible or challenging. soulstice suffers from this problem.
At times everything flows great, but in some areas that attack us from the front and back at the same time with walls very close we will see ourselves attacking at close range without knowing what is happening. The same thing happens with the puzzles and platforms that while we are climbing an area the camera abruptly changes and we fall into the void only to start over and scream in agony.
a gothic anime
I can’t help but feel attached to Briar’s illustration that reminds me so much of Claire from Claymore (even in his moments of anger) as well as Guts armor in Berserk. Besides, all the main and secondary characters and the enemies are very well defined and are distinguished without being so similar.
Its dark and gothic aesthetic ranges from its cathedrals with luminous stained glass windows to the cities and towns devastated by darkness. Everything can be seen very well thanks (here yes) to the benefit of fixed cameras to see areas from afar or up close.
The music, not surprisingly, combines Gregorian chants with the appearance of metal in moments of action. Also highlight the voice of Stefanie Joosten (Quiet in Metal Gear Solid 5) with a degree of calm as Briar and innocence as Lute.
System Requirements
MINIMUM: Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system – OS: 64-bit windows 10 – Processor: Core i7 4770k @3.5GHZ/Ryzen S 1600 – Memory: 8GB RAM – Graphics: GTX1060/RX5500XT – DirectX: Version 12 – Storage: 30 GB of available space – Additional Notes: GPU Memory: 6GB or Higher
RECOMMENDED: Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system – OS: 64-bit windows 10 – Processor: Core i7 4770k @3.5GHZ/Ryzen S 2600 – Memory: 12 GB RAM – Graphics: TX1080/RX5600XT – DirectX: Version 12 – Storage: 30 GB of available space – Additional Notes: GPU Memory: 6GB or Higher