We've had the opportunity to test the action game Soulstice on Xbox Series X for several days. Imagine the merger of the Bayonetta X Devil May Cry licenses for the gameplay, with a hint of Dark Souls for the atmosphere and Berserk for the character design and you get Soulstice. The game is developed by the Italian studio Reply Game and will be released this Tuesday, September 20, 2022 on the latest generation home consoles (PS5, Xbox) and on PC. The plot revolves around the two sisters Briar and Lute who have been transformed into powerful chimeras, inseparable entities born from the fusion of their own souls.
While Briar gained superhuman skills after her transformation, Lute unfortunately had to be sacrificed in the process to become the shadow of her sister, a ghost with supernatural powers. The two sisters who are voiced by Stefanie Joosten (widely renowned for her work with the character Quiet from Metal Gear Solid V) are sent on a mission to a ruined city known as Ilden. The balance is threatened there, the specters have managed to cross the veil, which constitutes a major risk for the world of the living. The two sisters as chimeras are sent by the order on a mission to put an end to this disaster.
Let's first talk about the things that annoy, so we won't have to go back over it. This is really a point that bothered us during the twenty hours we spent on Reply Game's game. Microsoft should revise its “optimized for Xbox Series X/S” label or impose real prerequisites on development studios to obtain this mention. Clearly, playing Soulstice in "balanced" or "fidelity" graphics modes on an Xbox Series X isn't a good idea per se.
The game has a hard time maintaining a stable frame rate of thirty frames per second in these modes, which is the minimum for this kind of production. We end up with a framerate that is constantly yoyoing for an ultimately jerky experience. In performance mode the game is fluid most of the time (although we feel some dropouts in certain places or during certain scenes), the problem lies mainly in the display of textures which sometimes take a nasty delay or which not showing up at all!
We happened to go through half a level without the slightest texture, everything was smooth… Even at the very end of the game by viewing the scene before the credits, Soulstice had the luxury of not loading the textures correctly in performance mode in our game. We don't know if the developers will deploy a corrective patch when the game is released, but as it stands, expect this texture display delay when you play Microsoft's latest game. We don't even prefer to imagine the result on an Xbox Series S… Of course, the graphics aren't everything, but it's a detail to underline. For this type of fast-paced game, we're looking for a smoother experience and that's why we have to turn to the "performance" display mode.
Apart from this defect, Soulstice is one hell of a video game experience to live! The adventure is divided into several phases. You start by exploring a ramshackle environment with a fixed camera where you have to advance towards your objective which is to join this strange crack which tears the skies above Ilden. During your exploration, you can clearly feel the atmosphere of this totally dilapidated city. Silence reigns, the game leaves little room for other sounds during these moments to reinforce this feeling of anxiety, while as soon as the monsters appear en masse around you, the depressing atmosphere of the place gives way to music with frenzied and boosted rhythms to give the player a soaring adrenaline rush.
The combat system is dynamic and very technical. Briar and Lute are a great character duo. They have a wide range of weapons and skills to stand up to the specters and the corrupted who cross their path and all these aspects can be improved in the game. Briar is the brute force of the group, she has superhuman strength and has the ability to wield multiple types of weapons while Lute takes on the appearance of a ghost with supernatural powers who is there to lend support to his sister. She can deflect incoming attacks on Briar and immobilize enemies for a short time if necessary. There are so many gameplay possibilities that Soulstice takes into account all the keys on the controller and requires real quick thinking when monsters are coming from all sides.
In standard difficulty "the initiated mode", the enemies are fast and hit hard. You must constantly move in the space around you and know how to adapt quickly to a situation (unlike exploration, camera movements are free in combat giving the game a different point of view). You need to have a clear idea of which weapon is going to work best based on the enemies that spawn in a fight. Knowing that the closer you get to the truth about the identity and source of power of the two sisters, the more things become complex. As you approach the strange rift that has appeared in the sky above the ruined city of Ilden, new game mechanics appear with red and blue barriers coming to the party you must activate according to the color of the crystals on the enemies.
The game will also reach a climax with this system where traps will hinder your movements in combat which can make certain confrontations laborious if you are not properly prepared or if you do not judiciously exploit the weaknesses of your enemies. . You have to be careful, because it happens that medium or high class monsters have an influence on a group of weaker enemies of the same type, which has the effect of making them more enraged, more powerful!
If you're not used to playing fast-paced games, we highly recommend that you start Soulstice on its lowest difficulty setting to experience the adventure at your own pace and increase occasionally. a first course the capacities of the two sisters. Soulstice is a well-made game, each difficulty can be experienced independently through chapter selection while retaining unlocked weapons, their upgrades, healing and entropy expansions or Lute's spiritual alignment and skill trees.
For the genre, the lifespan is in the average of what we have seen with other licenses of the same type. There are more than twenty chapters which have a variable duration which can go from 10 minutes to more than 40 minutes of play knowing that in some chapters you can spend more time searching every corner. Add to that just as many side challenges and you end up with an average of 15 hours to complete the game for the first time in its standard difficulty. The game offers great replayability thanks to its chapter rating system and above all, it offers no less than six difficulty levels, two of which are unlocked by reaching certain conditions.
Like the verses of the Bayonetta license, each confrontation gives you a score (iron, bronze, silver, gold, platinum, diamond) according to your overall performance taking into account the number of points you have accumulated with your combos , the time you took to clear the arena, and the amount of damage enemies inflicted on you.
The top of the top is to reach the rank "diamond". So you explore Ilden by defeating the monsters on your way (knowing that clashes can be missed if you do not explore the areas correctly) and at the end of a level, the game counts all the medals you have obtained to make an overall score. It is then up to you to decide whether to continue with the next level or start over to try to improve this score. The clashes are often tight, but if you manage to gain the upper hand over your opponents and have a good command of all the gameplay mechanics, you come out of it with a truly rewarding feeling.
soulstice-is-a-great-game-to-play-a-future-behemoth-of-the-beat-em-up-genre-">★ In the end, Soulstice is a great game to play, a future behemoth of the Beat 'em up genre?
With Soulstice, the Reply Game studio offers an adventure that begins quite timidly, with few script elements and giving the impression of visual redundancy during the first hour of exploration. This starting premise actually hides a solid concept, intelligent game mechanics with a combat system as exhilarating as it is technical. The adventure takes off completely in the last quarter with bosses of great class both in visual and game design, enough to leave us totally speechless in front of our screen.
We felt like we weren't playing the same game at all towards the end! If Soulstice meets the success it deserves and a sequel is produced, the license could well end up enthroned alongside the behemoths of the genre. Too bad, however, for a game that wants to be “next-gen” not to be able to display something correct in terms of textures on an Xbox Series X…
soulstice
Game rating
8 
