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Souldiers first popped up on my radar late last year with a lovely gameplay trailer promising 2D Metroidvania-style exploration, "crunchy Souls-like combat," and some of the best pixel art I've ever seen. At the time, I was knee-deep in interviews with multiple developers breaking down what Souls-like actually means, so Souldiers immediately stuck in my brain. But when it launched in June, I saw that its Steam reviews were fairly negative, with many players mentioning disruptive bugs and basically everyone calling it obscenely, needlessly difficult, to the point, according to Steam achievements, the average clear rate across its three classes was below 1%, which is frankly on the same level as Kaizo Mario.
I watched Souldiers from afar for a few more weeks hoping to see these problems addressed. Thankfully, developer Retro Forge has since patched up a laundry list of bugs and totally rebalanced Souldiers' overall difficulty. You know a game is hard when the devs have to basically re-release it since almost nobody can beat it. Surprisingly, the rebalance apparently went too far for some players, who asked for a bit of the original challenge to be restored. This prompted the more recent addition of a Master difficulty setting, and with this change, Souldiers seemed to have finally found the goldilocks medium it'd been seeking since launch. Encouraged by these updates and still enamored with Souldiers' striking art, I finally gave the game a go recently, and it was worth the long wait.
Sword n' board
My impressions come with the caveat that I'm still in the opening hours of the game. I've heard that later areas ratchet things up dramatically, but to be honest – and this may come back to bite me – I'd welcome that at this stage. I started Souldiers on normal difficulty and I'm already considering a bump up to hard or potentially master. At least for now, it's really quite forgiving when it comes to damage. Breakables around the environment drop loads of health, and you get a full heal at every Dark Souls bonfire-style save point on top of every time you level up. Enemies respawn when you rest, but this also lets you farm them for more money, so you kind of net zero by my math. You can also hoard potions to bring into boss fights, though these don't seem to refresh like Estus Flasks.
That being said, Souldiers feels almost as good as it looks, which is really saying something. This is a staggeringly beautiful game. Layered and intricate environments scroll past as you dice up baddies with speed and flourish. The sprite work is divine, and the sheer variety of complex animations boggles the mind. So much personality and energy is packed into Souldiers' deliberately limited resolution, and it's equally capable of empowering whimsy and suffocating claustrophobia.
You play as a soldier taken to a sort of Valhalla-esque fantasy purgatory, escorted by a mysterious valkyrie who, to your understandable surprise, claims you've been killed and given a second chance at glory through battle. You can be a caster, archer, or scout, and I went with scout because I like melee. I've got light attacks, heavy attacks, mid-air plunging attacks, and later on I start spending mana on combo extenders and finishers. Stamina is essential for blocking, but you can attack with reckless abandon. I love a combat system that gets going quickly rather than drip-feeding you new moves that feel essential, and Souldiers starts off punchy and gets better from there.
The scout starts with a sword and shield but there's a wealth of secondary weapons to find and equip, not to mention power-up orbs, items, and abilities that further expand your arsenal. You quickly start throwing bombs, setting things on fire, and swapping between elements on the fly to exploit enemy weaknesses. Souldiers also has a full-fat skill tree where you spend levels on new moves like – in the scout's case – a counterattack, improved block, or rolling attack.
The right ingredients
Filling out your skill tree helps with combat, and upgrading the rest of your abilities also ties into exploration. The Metroidvania loop of revisiting old areas after you unlock or find new stuff is quickly established, and it's aided by Souldiers' top-notch map. You can find or purchase map fragments or fill out the map the good old-fashioned way, and this makes fast-traveling around a cinch. A good map for a Metroidvania game is like good bread for a sandwich, and Souldiers' is delicious.
There's a surprisingly robust quest system supporting the game's sprawling world, too, with plenty of memorable characters to meet and assist. I'm especially interested in the optional side bosses that spawn in old areas once you accept their bounties, as this sounds like a great way to blend combat with the flow of Metroidvania exploration.
Souldiers does a lot of things I've seen before, but it does them all so well and with such charm that I never get bored. It's just a rock-solid 2D action-RPG with a great world. Think of combat in Rogue Legacy by way of Dust: An Elysian Tail. Its gorgeous world alone is enough to propel me along, and I'm continually surprised by how much meat it's got on it. I need to play more before I can personally speak to the effectiveness of its post-launch updates, but I can say that I haven't run into any technical or balance issues so far, and I'm nothing if not hungry for more. The clear rate is up to a whopping 4.5% according to the scout's Steam achievement, and I'm eager to join the club.
Souldiers is out now on PC, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PS4, PS5, and Nintendo Switch.
