Soulstice: Deluxe Edition (PS5)

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Soulstice's overwritten story and repetitive second half somewhat dull the catharsis of its glorious throwback hack-and-slash combat, but it's still great fun. Owning as many consoles as possible since then, he’s never slowed down in playing as many games as he can. And though its developer, Reply Game Studios, follows the recipe as best it can, Soulstice is a great reminder that not all character-action hack-and-slashers are created equal. You have to fight well, vary your moves and not get hit to bring your Unity with Lute up to the required point where you get access to this along with a few nice finishers. Make sure to follow Finger Guns on our social channels – Twitter, Facebook, Twitch, Spotify or Apple Podcasts – to keep up to date on our news, reviews and features.

Briar and Lute aren’t the only Chimera in the world, and the comparison between them and the other clandestine duos makes them stand out, as they seem to be the only body and soul duo that actually like each other. As you explore the camera is locked in position, pointing you in the direction you need to go to progress. Briar masters melee attacks and combos, while Lute controls the battlefield with her otherworldly abilities. The boss in Chapter 9 really demonstrates the issues with the combat – It demands that you use the red field to hurt the boss, then when he falls, that you use the blue field to kill the wraiths possessing him before they revive him. The answers come eventually, but to be honest, they were very predictable and not very interesting when they did.Several other Chimeras have also shown up to assist in the fight, all of whom you’ll eventually meet. There is one large enemy in particular that the camera just gets stuck behind constantly, giving you a view of nothing but a close up of the enemy’s back which actually ended in my first death of the run as I literally couldn’t see anything. I felt this game would have been better if the enemy encounters were structured more like waves than a line of enemies that come in once there’s an empty spot. Lute brings a whole other element to the battles however and they must all be juggled if you want to survive. There's a ton of replayability and a high skill ceiling to achieve, but the lack of variety in gameplay elements and wonky camera angles keep it from being truly amazing.

You do have to keep an eye on Lute’s entropy though, as letting it fill up without deactivating or attacking will cause her to disappear for a couple seconds. Although the plot leaves many threads hanging, the development of the central sibling relationship and setting were enough to draw me into Soulstice’s world and want to see more. I can’t tell whether enemies still attack off camera, as they still seem to do counter-able attacks though. Wraith-type enemies can’t be hit in the normal realm, so Lute brings them into the physical with the blue field, ready for Briar to chop up.If you’re a fan of challenging action games and can forgive a slightly annoying camera, Soulstice is definitely worth checking out.

Most of the types are based on weapons we’ve seen in the Devil May Cry series, but having them all available to you at the press of a direction button does make combo’ing fun.Utilise Lute’s unique auras to expose or weaken these creatures and adapt to a flow of battle that never feels the same. Enemies like the Wraiths and Possessed, or enemies that are blue and red, will require you to bring out the corresponding field to even do damage as well. I can find Devil May Cry a bit stupid at times – at no point in Soulstice did I fight wielding two motorcycles for example. Even Briar and Lute, who constantly are attempting to avoid succumbing to corruption and transforming into monsters themselves, look super cool when they occasionally lose that battle. This only seems to take hold when one is on the verge of death as a Chimera is made up of a living half with superhuman strength and a ghost, or Shade, half with mystical powers.

In a world where every AAA game has to patch this in later, never learning from this mistake, it’s refreshing to see Modus Games and Reply Game Studios be smart enough to have it from the start.Some are great, a lot of them are good, but there are some that are just bad that it hampers your platforming since you can’t tell if you’re actually over a platform or slightly off to the side.