Unsouled Reviews

Unsouled is an interesting game that I'm glad I played. This is a very worthwhile game to try out if you're intrigued by an experimental and unique combat system. For combat, the stars of the show are chain counters and ghost orbs. Dealing heavy damage to an enemy if you attack right before you get hit is tricky yet satisfying, and being able to then use that as momentum to chain kill multiple enemies is inspired. On the other hand, the ghost orbs providing you with a defensive option that helps mitigate being stun-locked with a fighting game-style burst is a curious merging of genre ideas that grants the game a distinct combat feel. On top of this your overall toolset is varied and multi-faceted, allowing you to be extremely aggressive if you successfully combo your moves. The other elements of the game were not as striking. The visuals felt inconsistent, and at times looked a bit poor (specifically during boss-phase transitions and end-of-level screens). The story and writing weren't very interesting, and the gameplay tutorial is pretty hard to parse initially. The jump between the normal and master soul difficulties felt excessive, where normal was too easy and master soul was too difficult (and the chain counter feels almost impossible to pull off). Despite that, I could still easily recommend Unsouled if you're looking for a fresh take on top-down 2D action combat. I'd love to see some of the ideas here developed and iterated on.

Some of the reviews had me wary, but I enjoyed my time with Unsouled and don't feel like the current top review is indicative of where the game is post early access. What I will agree with is that the intro sets up different expectations. It suggests the game will be difficult, require precise timings you need to learn and will need to keep a rhythm and flow going, which, at least on the default normal difficulty, is only half true. So long as you have at least some situational awareness, you can pretty comfortably mash through just about everything, especially once you acquire certain skills and upgrades, which are by no means useless. The sense of progression with passive souls, skills, and upgrades was nice and kept me going as I went back and got through the true route. Unfortunately though, the game does end on a cliffhanger and I'm not sure we'll ever see that resolved.