I absolutely believe Soulstice is a breath of fresh air simply due to how saturated the market is with soulslikes and other slower paced gameplay systems, seeing this old school type of combat still being made nowadays makes me very happy and gives me hope that gaming isn't a complete lost cause We can always use some more stylish action games in the vein of Devil May Cry and other PS2 era games Character action games are finally coming back, i'm all up for the hack n slash renaissance
Este juego fue grandioso, hacia mucho tiempo desde que no me emocionaba tanto un juego. Su universo está muy bien establecido y tiene potencial para desarrollarlo mucho más ❤👍
¡Definitivamente estoy de acuerdo contigo! ¡La historia es genial, la jugabilidad es muy divertida y existe potencial para una secuela! ¡Me alegra que te guste!
I'd like to recommend Astlibra Revision. I hadn't played a game that hooked me like that one did in a very long time. I enjoyed it so much I recommend it to anyone who'll listen. The story is a wild ride and it has addictive progression systems with a simple but enjoyable combat system. It has some fanservicey designs in it if that catches your attention. Shigatake from Vanillaware contributed some art to the game. Don't let the graphics put you off, once you get into it the game is a lot of fun. You cover a good bit of lesser known games on the channel so I think that would be a good one to give a shot. It offers a lot of content for its low price, too. I have one tip, when you start the game it will ask if you want to play a demo to learn the combat. Say no to that, it doesn't teach you anything that starting normally doesn't and it spoils some later game areas. Hope you enjoy it if you try it. I loved that game.
Great video! Once again, you put all this passion into a review for a game I never even heard of and once again, I now NEED to play it. This looks fantastic! Nicely done! I still can't believe you don't get 500K views per video! Seriously man, your content is awesome! Keep it up! 😁
Already have, it's a delight to see more people discovering and loving Soulstice. Hoping for a sequel (or two) and a proper conclusion to its tale, just like with Darksiders, and that future games will be good too.
Watched the video properly in full now. I can agree with a number of the criticisms here, and find it interesting that the opening hours were the slowest for you. In retrospect for me, it's the middle seciton that drags on a bit, both in terms of gameplay and story events. The beginning of the game provides the lore background and setup, plus its end part where the Transcended (Nemesis and Colossus) are properly introduced. Meanwhile the most memorable and intense bosses plus the climax of Briar and Lute's development and their findings, where Layton has his part too, are more backloaded. The middle section does have some revelations in those Lute segments, as well as the first Donovan fight that follows up the Weavers (those two very big Wraiths, i think they're my least favourite boss). And I appreciate all the optional conversations between the Sisters and Layton to tell more of the world, but there's little really memorable stuff happening. That's my reasoning in retrospect. Either way, i'm very glad that you enjoyed Soulstice so much even throughout the tougher parts, that you found yourself wanting to replay and make a video on it. That's really heartening. Especially the statement at the end too about Soulstice having the potential to be a proper franchise. Reply Game Studios did leave us on a cliffhanger, which is a risky move for sure. But regardless of that cliffhanger, the fact someone gives out such praise out of their own enthousiasm for a game and story is simply nice and I hope more people will try it thanks to this video. With all the mechanics going on, like Lute's fields and the limits on it, Soulstice is not the easiest game to get into. And some of the most helpful skills are only gotten in the fifth row of the skill tree, like the Field upgrade that has enemies remain affected for a few seconds after exiting a field too. But on the other hand, there's a lot of interesting stuff to sink one's teeth into. On the front of skills, on the front of weapons, and on the front of the Special Forms. Right on about all weapons having their uses! The Codex clarifies this even more, with stuff like explanations on what "types" enemies are and what weapons are stronger or not as strong against them based on type, but *also* that in terms of behaviour all weapons have their use. What i've come to enjoy about the weapons is that while they have similar inputs for the base movesets, their behaviours tend to be different. - Combo String and Pause Combo String - Attack + Jump - Attack + Jump from the Air - Double-tap forward + Attack - Hold Button (sometimes) - Evade + Attack (if i remember correctly) To focus on the Attack + Jump from the Air specifically: - Ashen Enforcer makes you slam downward and crush the enemy into the pavement - Hand of Retribution does the same, but can launch enemies in a short range around the impact crater - Tearing Penance has Spiraling Downdraft, which is like a wide-range vertical buzzsaw to both keep enemies in the air and hit enemies below you - Hallowed Huntress is simply slapping an enemy downwards while remaining in the air - Merciful Blades is spinning around for multiple damaging hits into the enemy, ending with yet again slapping the enemy downwards while remaining in the air - Fiery Zealots is a BIG BURNIN' BLAST straight downwards That's only one of the attack variations, and they all have different behaviour for those who want to utilize and get more technical about them. Pair that with the Ashen Enforcer easily breaking Barriers, the Hand of Retribution breaking Armor (plus the base combo strings having Hold Button inputs, which make the swings hit harder and reach further), the Merciful Blades suppling constant concentrated damage which is honestly very good against Flying and Sorcerer/Summoner type enemies (like the Preacher and Repentants for the Wraiths, and Eidolons and Choruses for the Possessed) to disrupt their animations and wind-ups. ESPECIALLY IN COMBINATION with the Tearing Penance's Grapple Hook move, due to there being no range limit when you are locked onto an enemy and the lock-on following those summoners' teleports. I do think there's a few stinkers among the enemies (i put a thread on Steam up about the enemies, the Best, Worst and Most Interesting of the three main varieties), but for a game with over 20 enemy types, having three or four be bleh, especially the Abominations, but the rest be from Alright to Very Good and in-between, i'd say that's a strong enemy line-up. As you can see i can go on about Soulstice at length, so i'll stop here. I'll finish this comment by saying thank you for the video, fiar points were made, i'm really glad that you pressed through and had a solid and memorable time with the game, and i'm hoping here with you that it may turn into a proper franchise with solid further entries, that will be able to tell a good story right to the end. (alongside Darksiders) Wish you a lot of fun and good luck in future projects and videos-- and may I interest thee in some other game titles? (i'll put those in a next comment if you reply to this one).
First off, I LOVE the passion and knowledge you CLEARLY have about the game! I’m with you on the story - it’s way better than it has any right to be. It was just the gameplay that was tough until things opened up - and until I actually got the muscle memory myself! And YES - PLEASE send me any other games! I tend to gravitate toward lesser known AA games - so introduction to anything new is appreciated! THANKS!🙏
@@adamscottgames Thank you! I'm glad the comment's made you smile :) I probably could have put down even more too. Enthousiasm gets the tongue rolling. It has all the right to being such a good story, but that does mean the devs have put a pretty high standard for storytelling in any future games in this possible franchise. Let's hope that fans' hype through expectation, like overconfidence, won't be a slow and insidious killer Thank you for replying, and right on! Will be plopping down a number of titles at once. Won't be describing them all in super big detail because i'm feeling rather tired as of writing this. Will mainly keep that at the first four. - Clash: Artifacts of Chaos. One of my absolute favourites from 2023. Kind of action/adventure with 3D beat-em-up/fighter combat. Some have said it's a Soulslike, but I wouldn't outright call it one. Prequel to the Zeno Clash series, a kind of prehistoric/dawn of culture-era land full of monsters of all sorts, shapes, sizes and colors. Its dev company ACE Team also produced The Eternal Cylinder, another beautiful and weird game on a planet of monsters and aliens. Really good music, art direction, atmosphere and solid writing. (fun fact, the lead writer, Jonas Kyratzes, worked for the Talos Principle games as writer as well, if you're familiar with those). Sadly been underperforming sales-wise based on a dev comment from another review from some months ago. - Cookie Cutter, beautifully animated 2D metroidvania from late 2023. My other favourite game from that year. (Admittedly, those two were the only new releases i bought and played). It's got a pretty unusual irreverent tone. Gameplay's solid and fun despite some annoying enemy types, story's fine, world itself has *awesome* design and atmosphere. Very colorful sci-fi/cyberpunk dystopia on another planet with its own bits of lore and mythology. It's a finished game as it is (though with a cliffhanger too), but the dev really wants to expand the base game for a long time to come, from adding in new NPCs, quests, areas, weapons, bosses, story beats, probably all the way to a proper ending to its story. Cookie Cutter's not here to reinvent the wheel, but to make a world that's really all its own, regardless of how derivative it may be. There's some interviews with lead developer Stefano Guglielmana where he tells of the troubles that came with making the game, including allegedly over a 100 rejected interviews with publishers before he found one that was comfortable with letting Cookie Cutter be what it is, fully knowing how odd, provocative and probably hard-to-market to the general public it may be. - Blud. Likewise beautifully 2D animated game, and quite bloody too, just like Cookie Cutter. Seems to have a top-down perspective with a social aspect (LOT of writing to the NPCs) and a slight dungeon/beat-em-up aspect. - No Straight Roads. Came out in... 2020 and is a short, stylish colorful boss-centric hack-and-slash debut game by its studio Metronomik, set in a city that is powered by music and different music artists preside over different districts. When Rock gets outlawed by the company NSR that rules over the city, the two protagonists take up instruments to set the record straight. Tagline may be Rock vs EDM, but there's love for music in all its forms. Heck, all bosses started out with three versions of their boss themes (Normal, EDM and Rock) which change based on who has the upper hand in the fight, and the later Christmas and Encore edition added two other remixes of individual boss fights. Plus, for the release of the Encore Edition there was an event held where people could make a special piece of fan art that would be spread around the city as collectable Graffiti (with credits to the artists, based on the credit they chose) which you can then put on a guitar-case shaped piece of the UI. Gots about 273 pieces in total. Those are four of my main interests on smaller-time and lesser known games, one of which isn't actually out yet. But wait, there's more! - Genokids (same genre as Soulstice) - Enenra (same genre as Soulstice) - Yasuke: A Lost Descendant (yet again, seems to be in the same genre as Soulstice) - Gori: Cuddly Carnage (*somewhat* similar genre to Soulstice, but mixed with hover boarding like it's Jet Set Radio or something) - RKGK/Rakugaki (Only learnt about this one recently, seems to be somewhat in line with Gori but less gorey) - The Mermaid's Tongue/The Mermaid Mask (point-and-click adventure) - Duck Detective: Case of the Stolen Salami (point-and-click adventure, not entirely sure if i remember the full title correctly). - Loco Motive (point-and-click adventure) - Harold Halibut (stop motion-animated game that took over ten years to make) - Wuppo and Tiny Terry's Turbo Trip (made by the same creator, but under different names) - Whatever Moonhood Studio are cooking up (formerly Zoink! which made Lost in Random, Stick It to the Man and others) and Amanita Design (Machinarium, Samorost, Happy Game and others) - Resistor (racing RPG, though i recently read on a Steam forum that there may sadly be some dev drama) - Most games by Ska Studios (The Dishwasher series, Charlie Murder, Salt & Sanctuary) - There's these two Beat-em-ups called Fight'n Rage and Mayhem Brawlers that seem to be held in good regard but are little-known. - Another Beat-em-Up but this time in 3D, a rarity. Goes by name of Kings of Hell. Currently in production. Colorful and stylish, but fair warning though, it's quite spicy/mature as well. Main characters look like wrestlers and their thongs have prominent aubergines if you know what i'm saying. Nothing explicit, but still noticable. - My Familiair (top-down RPG that looks very, very nice with imaginative and weird character designs, nice colors and good atmosphere) - Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo - Felvidek With some honorary mentions to the interesting-but-very-flawed Infinite Guitars and God of Rock. I mainly like God of Rock for its OST, Infinite Guitars didn't grab me at all but still seems like something worth remembering. A number of these games are a bit older, like Wuppo, the Dishwasher series, Charlie Murder, most games by Amanita and Zoink! but many of them have yet to come out. Hope they may all prove interesting when time and opportunity allows for checking them out! Thanks again for taking the time to reply, and wish you once more a lot of fun and good luck on future projects.
@@gamingguru1137 It is! Like the reviewer said, there is toughness to overcome, but it's very much worth it. Even if you may not end up fully jiving with it yourself, Soulstice deserves being talked about more, so if you have any friends who you think may be interested, tell them of it as well.
Yeah man this is a nice DMC style game the dark exploration areas remind me of Max Payne and that one part of God of war following the red line this game is a solid game man I'm surprised games like this and ultra age are not promoted as AAA title nice review
I really tried to love this game, I got very far but just gave up because of the camera really being difficult to follow, and the color matching combat mechanics got so messy in its visuals, I just got too frustrated, it is sad because there is so much good about this game, but the difficult visuals and the bad camera killed the great potential it had.
It definitely has a not insignificant impact. While I ultimately enjoyed my time, I can’t fault anyone who gives up. That’s why I’d love to see a follow up that addresses some of these issues - there’s something really special once you get past those core issues.
Corridors and places looking similar to those I've been before is not one point worth to criticize. I'm used to that because I played Vagrant Story and Soul Reaver (both on PS1) and lots of other games going way back to the NES era. I think the developers do that on purpose to make the player feel lost and like losing their senses.
I get your point although I suspect it’s more due to budget limitations. My issue wasn’t so much that corridors were reused but in how when the camera snaps back, it’s disorienting to know where to go since everything tends to look the same and you’re not sure which way you’re pointing. If this was done to disorient the player, they’ve succeeded although I doubt that was their clear intent.
