You should know by now that if there’s a game out there with “Souls” in it, I’m more than inclined to play it. Demon’s Souls, Dark Souls, Titan Souls, and now you can add another name into that piles, Young Souls. When I was presented with a chance to get my hands on the Young Souls preview for the PC, I jumped at the chance. Not just because of the namesake, but because I’ve heard many positive things about the game. Originally released on Stadia, but is being released on other platforms.
Young Souls is a co-op RPG that focuses on the antics of the misfit brother and sister Jenn and Tristan, who seemingly lost their parents some time ago. They were taken in by a professor who lives in this massive but run-down house. Since the preview I had access two only allowed me to play two slices, there wasn’t much I could get out of the story about what’s going on.
So let’s talk about the first slice, which has you getting familiar with the twins, the Professor (the gut who took them in), and how the systems work in the game. I was able to look at the mansion where the twins live, the city hub, and goblin town hubs.
Once that was over, I checked out the second slice of the preview, which has to do with traversing the dungeons. Yes, the fun part of the preview. From what I see, there’s a large number of dungeons in the game. Sadly, I only had access to a small slice. However, the dungeons I had access to were full of nasty enemies, and it gave me a chance to try out the combat.
The twins have several forms of attack, low attack, charged attack, for starters. If you manage to pull off a parry, you can pick up an enemy and hurl them at others. You can also do that when you knock them down with a standard hit string. They can also perform a roll, as long as they have enough stamina, but doesn’t let you roll through enemies. As you complete one dungeon levels, you’ll gain access to another portion and teleport point to that section.
As this is a co-op RPG, you have control over both characters and can swap in the other character at any time. If you happen to die, the other character will also swap in as well. If that happens, you can still bring the other character back to life, but you have limited times you can fall in combat before it’s all over. Also, seeing how you can control both twins, this can make for some interesting things while hacking and slashing away.
Items also dropped, such as weapons. However, you’re only able to grab them and compare stats once the area you’re fighting in is clear, which makes sense. You don’t want to get walloped while trying to see which weapon is best. Items can also be purchased at the goblin town.
As this was played on PC, I’m sure many will want to know how it played. In a word – fantastic. No stuttering, hic-ups of any. I tried it out on keyword and it worked well, but then switched it playing on a controller and it was way better. Yep, playing a game like this is heaps better on the controller.
I wish I had more time with Young Souls, and I wish I could tell you more, but as this is just a preview, I don’t want to spoil it all. It’s a fun game and reminds me of games I enjoyed in the past, rolled into one—games such as Guardian Heroes and River City Girls. The art style looks fantastic, as is the gameplay. There’s been a shortage of games of this nature, so I can’t wait for the entire game to be released.
Publisher The Arcade Crew and developer 1P2P Studio today announced Young Souls, a co-op RPG beat em up following misfit twins and their fight across realms to save their loved one, will bring its moving quest to Steam Next Fest starting Oct. 1. The title was previously exclusively available on Stadia and will reach Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC via Steam in Q4 2021.
