I like to play many games with different gameplays, even if I often have a real passion for Soul-like and when I was sold Souldiers as a metroidvania in the same vein... we couldn't no more making mistakes! This did not prevent me from browsing this game and making an overview as objective as possible.
History
Following a last-minute change of plan by your kingdom's grand strategist, you'll find yourself in a collapsing cave. Following this, you will follow a Valkyrie who explains to you that you are going to die, but have no fear... a life in the afterlife will be magnificent. Except that before having your due, you will have to cross very many obstacles.
My opinion: the story itself is quite basic, but remains coherent. The different characters remain funny and offer equally classic side quests, but they hold together. Nothing really special to say about it.
Graphics & Atmosphere
In terms of graphics, the title offers us a really very pleasant show for this style of play and equally good music that punctuates the game in a perfect way. The effects, the bestiary, the capacities and the bosses are successful and make you want to see even more. The varied environments reveal a know-how that is more than clean and neat. In addition, the intro cinematic, punchy and well animated, displays an auspicious start.
Gameplay
Note: first of all, the impossibility of binding all the keys or using the mouse makes it essential to use the controller to have a correct gaming experience. Keyboard/mouse use is therefore strongly discouraged.
The game offers us to choose one of three classes: scout (close combat), archer (distance), mage (bah er... magician). The choice is quite crucial for the sequel because each class has its talent tree and its specificities, the scout will be more enduring and will never have magic problems, the scout has a fairly nice gameplay based on distance, and the mage has a basic homing hit but will subsequently be ultra dependent on his mana for the most devastating hits. Everyone will be able to deploy skills which will be very useful, but special mention for the perfect parry which makes a counter-attack of the scout which I only managed to trigger on pot shots, but I must be pretty bad I think .
The game goes pretty well, nothing insurmountable in itself, even if the difficulty may discourage more than one. The spiders' den, the first dungeon we step into, is full of little traps that will make us agonize so badly the game wants to show us that it won't let it go so easily. And the more we advance, the more it will go off in a violent avalanche of blows which will make us jump the bar of life more quickly than an ice cream under 40°C. The moment you set foot in the pyramid, you'll fall into an old-school key, maze, and death-at-every-turn progression system that will bring those who held on to tears even more. To top it all off, if you need to heal up, you'll have to buy a few potions which are expensive, and can only be found in limited quantities in in-game chests. And believe me, you'll be buying so many that even the items offered will no longer really be possible as your gold will end up in the pockets of potion producers.
The combat system offers a fairly fast style and will require greater or lesser reactivity depending on your class, because regardless of your power, a dead character will no longer do any damage. A blocking system for emergency situations is available, even if it is difficult to know what you can block or not if you do not decipher the color code: blue: simple blow, yellow: powerful blow, red: unstoppable. In these cases, the best thing to do is dodging which can give you a chance to avoid taking damage.
Along the adventure you will gain skills (hoshin cloak that will grant you the ability to double jump, elemental orbs, etc...) that will allow you to advance and a small aid in combat such as orbs which will protect you against their element (in part) and make you weak against their opposite and vice versa. However, this will above all be a lever for you to advance in the adventure and to advance further and access hidden places. In addition, you will have equipment and powerful secondary weapons that will support you and can be boosted by your talent tree.
But the real dividing point of this game will remain the significant difficulty coupled with a spacing of save points, which is extremely punishing and risks leaving only the most valiant of players. From a personal point of view, I like the difficulty, but it is true that I had to restart extremely long passages several times without saving, by consuming several potions to reach a point which will not arrive until very late.
Summary
Souldiers is a demanding title, as much as a good old Gouls'n Ghost of families. Its difficulty and rigor will give you hours of fun if you like the genre and what it requires in terms of concentration for the toughest passages. The gameplay problems are quite minor compared to the qualities of the title. Only, to like this kind of game, it will be imperative to like the difficulty that it implies and to know that we will perhaps take the lead several times. For those who don't have the patience... move on, this game is not at all for you.
