While we all know that they were not the first, it is indisputable that both RESIDENT EVIL and SILENT HILL laid the foundations of what the Survival Horror genre is in the world of gaming. For many years there have been countless times that other titles have tried to emulate their formulas, with mixed successes. Surprisingly, one of the best achievers, TORMENTED SOULS, comes from two small studios in the sister country of Chile: Abstract Digital Works and Dual Effect Games.
TORMENTED SOULS is available for Playstation 4/5, Xbox Series, Nintendo Switch, and PC.
THE HOSPITAL OF HORRORS
The story puts us in the shoes of Caroline Walker, a 24-year-old girl who one day receives a mysterious letter at her home. When opening it, he finds inside the envelope a photo of two twin girls and the phrase “Are you really thinking of leaving them abandoned?”. Caroline has no idea who these girls are or who could have sent her such a letter, but the envelope is addressed from the Wilderberg Hospital, a place that she does not know either but that, suddenly and after having seen the photo and the address, feels an irrepressible desire visit.
He decides to go to the place with the address that appears on the letter, and upon entering it, the place seems completely abandoned. While searching the rooms, the young woman is cowardly attacked from behind by a mysterious figure, knocking her unconscious. Not knowing how much time has passed, Caroline wakes up in a bathtub, completely naked, connected to an artificial respirator and, what is worse, without an eye.
From this moment on, Miss Walker’s survival mission begins, she must find out why they made her come to the hospital, they mutilated her, what relationship this place and the twins have with her and, if possible, escape alive from the horrors that swarm the corridors of the place, which has such a murky and twisted history that it will turn our stomachs several times as we discover it.
A CLONE OF THE BEST CHILDREN
TORMENTED SOULS is a Survival Horror with a classic approach. We will tour a mansion converted into a hospital, administering limited items of healing or defense, while we fight against nightmarish abominations, solve complex and quite difficult puzzles and gradually reveal the truth about this hospital and the relationship that everything has with Caroline. The developers do not hide for a second their two main sources of inspiration: on the one hand RESIDENT EVIL, regarding the setting of the game, item management systems, inventories, source used to carry out the story and the camera system, which is “semi-fixed”, that is, the viewing angles are predetermined but have some flexibility and movement, such as what we saw in RESIDENT EVIL: CODE VERÓNICA. The tribute reaches such an extent that even when we start the game we see a sign that reads “This Game contains scenes of explicit violence and gore”, a trademark of Capcom titles in the mid-90’s. The other obvious basis is SILENT HILL, whose imprint is noted in the design of enemies, deformed and horrifying beasts built from experiments that mix human parts with hospital elements such as wheelchairs, crutches or stretchers, and a system of “duality of worlds” in various moments of the game, where through mirrors (as we also recently saw in THE MEDIUM) we have access to a parallel version of the real world in which we are in principle, similar in structure but with a much more sinister and infernal setting.
The idea of the nostalgia slap does not end there, since we are even given the possibility of controlling Caroline in two different ways, a tank mode, like the games of yesteryear, using the arrows on the crosshead of our control, and a updated mode, with greater freedom of movement and using the sticks.
Nothing I mentioned above is new, in fact the game does not invent anything and just repeats safe formulas that work. And boy did they work, because TORMENTED SOULS It ends up being wildly enjoyable, addictive, and highly satisfying for all “old school” gamers. If someone is looking to relive what Survival Horror sparked far and long ago, feel like they are at home playing games for the first time. RESIDENT EVIL on Playstation 1 and recall the physical and mental sensations of that time, TORMENTED SOULS is definitely what you are looking for.
I LIKED IT A LOT AND I WILL NOT DENY IT
When analyzing the technical aspects of the game, one point that seems extremely important to me must be taken into account: the intention of the studios was to develop a game with a retro essence, with all that that implies. What does this mean? That TORMENTED SOULS it does not squeeze the technical capabilities of the systems in which it was released, but it does not point to that either. So, if we agree that the idea was, and I repeat myself a thousand times, to make a clone of the first RESIDENT EVIL and also, if possible, cause us the same sensations as when we played them at the time, then we will also agree that the game is very well done. The settings of the hospital mansion are very well detailed and the camera angles used contribute to increasing the tension and suspense of not knowing what we are going to find in each change. In addition to the previously mentioned concept of the duality of worlds, where many times we will go through the same place but from a mirrored perspective and with a more disturbing setting, the game also focuses a lot on the concepts of light and dark. Many sectors of the mansion are completely dark or poorly lit, and it is our task to find a source of light that reveals the way forward.
In addition, if we are not close to the light, not only will we not be able to see or defeat any enemy, but staying in the dark for a long time also means that the darkness consumes us, with the consequent death of Caroline. The enemies have interesting and really unpleasant designs, although they are little varied and get repetitive soon. The weakest point in this section is that of the human characters, which although well designed, move in strange ways during the scenes (or directly do not move) and do not even have movement in their mouths when speaking. Retro, yes, but a little more detail here would not have been bad.
The sound is very good although it is not for sensitive people. The music is varied but all the time it is very strident and maddening, especially when there is an enemy nearby. It generates a sense of urgency all the time, that at any moment something is going to jump us from behind, and this can make us quite uneasy. In addition to the guttural sounds or guts crawling of enemies in the distance that we cannot see and do not know where they are, more than once it will make us want to stop playing in search of a little “peace of mind”. Only the vocal section can be criticized, with super stiff and over-acted performances (once again, just like the old games), and they are in English, despite the fact that the game was developed in Latin America. An option of dialogues in Spanish would not have been bad considering the latter, but hey, globalization they say.
SO IS THE GAME WORTH IT?
The answer to that question depends on what type of player you are. If you are an “old man” over 30 years old and you are looking for a Classic Survival Horror with all the letters, where the enemies hit very hard, the resources are super tight, the puzzles make you rack your brains with their super complex and elaborate approaches but with perfectly logical solutions and the story catches you and invites you all the time to continue playing although everything that it proposes at an aesthetic, plot and playable level you have already seen a million times, I must say without my pulse shaking that TORMENTED SOULS it is quite simply one of the best games ever made that meets all these conditions. I clearly belong to the target that the developers targeted.
If you are looking for innovation, technological leaps, playable novelties or surprising plot twists, you will not find absolutely any of that here. And I must say that, for me, none of that was necessary to be an excellent piece that everything he does does it well. One of the best exponents of the genre not only in recent years but always, who is very firm having come out in 2021.