One of the greatest tragedies in entertainment is that there are many works that are truly amazing, all sorts of great. And yet, they don't get enough of publicity to get properly noticed. There are so many great cartoons out there, so many great movies... and they just didn't have the chance to be unearthed. They don't get discovered and passed on like Undertale or Andy and Leyley were. I think that in this category goes Young Souls. I've barely seen anything related to this game out there: it has less than 430 reviews by the time I publish this one. It doesn't even have a measly Wikipedia page - it almost feels like this game only exists on Steam, and barely so. This is really sad, because Young Souls is one of the best games I've played last year (I completed it just now). I'm usually not one to tell people what they should like or not, but I feel a lot of people are missing out on it. And I believe that, in a perfect world, this game would have a massive presence online, with plenty fan arts of it on Instagram and DeviantArt, with fan animations on YouTube, and who knows, a cartoon adaptation on Netflix or Amazon. But this is not a perfect world. Young Souls is a hack-and-slash/beat 'em up hybrid that was incredibly fun, that was easy to play and not at all hard to master, that kept on bringing me back for more, and most importantly, that didn't overstay its welcome: as much as nearly 10 hours may seem like a bit much, it's more because I backtracked a lot to collect locked awards. And you know a game is great when you deliberately want to backtrack even when you don't have to. The first thing I'll talk about this game is its cartoonish visuals, and seeing such in promos immediately brought my attention. But it was the gameplay that got me hooked: I feel a lot of people would classify this game as a "souls-like". The dodging and parrying, the stamina management, the armour weight, weapons and all that jazz would somewhat qualify it. But at its core, the game is a beat 'em up, in which players are introduced to linear levels, having to defeat a certain amount of enemies before progressing - complete with the "GO!" sign and arrow to the right when you're done. And eventually there's a boss at the end, sometimes supported by smaller minions. The game however is not entirely linear: upon progressing, players arrive at hub areas that lead to different paths. Some paths are alternative, withholding weapons, armour and minerals that can improve such gear. This game is also something of a Metroidvania, in which some paths and chests are locked for players at first, and they must collect keys to open them - usually found in bosses. There are also these treasure rooms full of goblin gold, which reminds me: this is one of those games in which you make a ton of money very fast, both gold and human dollars, and it just piled up in my inventory. But whenever you do, don't sell your minerals, the rocks you find along the way, in that they improve your stuff. I was dumb enough to sell them at the town's pawn shop, but in my defence, the game listed them as junk when I was there (in Brazilian Portuguese, at least). The game is actually very nice with fast travel: at a point in the beginnings, you'll get a fast travel device that can lead you to the town, the goblin market, the Moon Portal and your room. At town, you can buy several stuff to your characters, such as everyday clothing and, more importantly, shoes, which affect your combat. At the goblin market, you can buy and upgrade items for combat. At the Portal, you can fast travel to all portals you activated in the Underworld, but you do that with a different device - just put the coordinates on the computer next to it. And finally, you level up in your room, after a night of sleep, provided you got enough XPs. Eventually, I was using the fast travel for everything - even because it's the only way to leave the Underworld, as the game gives players no other means of returning. At each two levels you gain, you get a card to the gym at town, in which you can pick between three stats to improve for each sibling: stamina, health and speed. There's a minigame for each activity, but it's not as fun as developers may have imagined. A hindsight of the game is that it didn't allow me to freely customise my characters: when you're at the human world, you can only change your regular clothes, so you can't choose between armour and weapons because "you can't equip them here". This feels so dumb to me: oh, of course I thought I could pull my magic sword in front of townsfolk. Then, there's the combat. Now, I played this game on normal difficulty and with controller, so I'm judging it like that - I'm intended on playing it again and going after more achievements, to play it harder. But from what I can tell, the combat is just great: the two playable characters actually start with the same stats, so it's up to you to decide what the combat identity of each will be through gym levelling and the gear they carry. You have to keep an eye out for your stamina and also your mana, which allows you to perform a special attack, depending on the weapon you're holding. As for the rest, it's the stuff we've seen in plenty of RPGs: heavy weapons that are powerful but slow, light armours that make you faster but more vulnerable, ranged weapons like arrows and explosives, potions, special items that change your capacities, and so forth. It may not be original, but I have to applaud the intricate dedication put into it, while other beat 'em ups - as great as they were - were little over beating enemies. The blocking itself is actually not that good: it can mitigate some of the harm tossed you way, but attacks will still hurt. What you want to do is to parry: to time the blocks right when enemies are about to attack. They telegraph their attacks very visually, but some are too powerful, so it's best to just, you know, get out of their way. Parrying attacks can make enemies dizzy, but some enemies are resistant to that. Nevertheless, parrying grants mana, so don't scoff on that. In fact, don't forget to use all the abilities at your disposal. Death in this game is similar to Cuphead, in that once your sibling is down, the other one can revive them by doing a massage. During this moment, this sibling becomes vulnerable, but I believe they become less so than during combat. Each sibling has two lives, and the run ends when all four have been depleted, or there's no one to revive them. Mind also that drinking a potion, such as a health potion or a mana one, will make your potion drinking go into a cooldown state - this may have been so players wouldn't abuse it, in that they actually can carry an enormous quantity. The story may not be that original, but the dialogues are full of charm, and really sell our teenager heroes as good-for-nothing punks who just happened to become heroes. It's just a game made with love and care, and it gives me hope that indie games still have a future in our complicated gaming scenario of today. This game is just superb. It's a blast from beginning to end, and a sight for sore eyes. I wish it could have that typical sequel in which its mechanics would be used as a base to a larger game, like it was with Banjo-Tooie and Arkham City. And this may be the first time I've ever played a game that made me wish for a sequel. It's that good. But given how nobody has even heard of this game, and this review won't change this, I guess the way is to play it again, Sam.
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