Indie developers 1P2P, have at long last brought their action brawler Young Souls to consoles after initially being a timed exclusive on the Stadia.
This highly stylistic brawler breaks the normal conventions of the genre by mixing several different gaming elements into one, which is why we love indie titles.
Young Souls follows siblings Jenn and Tristan, who after being seemingly abandoned by their parents have been adopted by a kind scientist.
Their humble life gets flipped upside down when their adoptive father goes missing and the pair discover a portal to a mythical world while searching for him.
In this fantasy world filled with a mixture of fabled creatures such as goblins and mechanical behemoths, Jenn and Tristan will have to fight their way through to discover the hidden truths while searching for their adoptive father.
Young Souls is a great adventure that finds the right balance between fantasy and naturalism. The developers have built a great world with rich lore boasting memorable iconography and a wonderful cast of characters.
One massive highlight is Jenn and Tristan's relationship, who may butt heads often while having a humble partnership at the same time. They are just a couple of badass protagonists.
When Young Souls was revealed, its art style was instantly a talking point, it feels like playing a living graphic novel.
Each of the comic styled characters looks majestic with their intricate designs that can be constantly customised.
The diverse range of enemies throughout the adventure is simply stunning, it is just a joy to see that the developers went out of their way not to reuse enemy character models.
The bosses are spectacular with their brazen designs bursting with originality. Levels can get repetitive at times, but their initial designs are very engaging.
One of the major highlights is the animated cutscenes, which pop in at just the right time to keep the adrenaline following.
Even though they are lacking voice acting, each scene lands perfectly with its high octane action sequences.
Young Souls is a plethora of genres that have been perfectly interwoven to compliment each other.
Players' time will be split between dungeon crawling for loot, brawling fierce foes and customising their characters.
The main action will take place through several different levels that are divided into smaller sections filled with enemies and powerful bosses.
Young Souls was built for co-op but the single-player mode has been admirably designed. Players will control the twins simultaneously, with the ability to swap them on the fly.
What I do love is that they both have their own health bars and stamina, meaning if one dies the other can continue and so can the game.
Local co-op is frantic, but I did feel the difficulty spike was too similar to the single-player. But this can be easily altered by changing the difficulty settings which did improve the challenge during co-op.
Combat is fairly accessible and what you would expect in a beat 'em up. Players will have access to light and heavy attacks that can be chained into combos, parries that leave enemies wide open and rolls that are great for evading big attacks.
But combat becomes rather complex when players start mixing spells, charge attacks, special attacks and more.
Jenn and Tristan can even execute air combos and tag attacks. There’s so much here to incorporate into your strategy, but the game does a great job at teaching the controls making Young Souls really accessible.
The game features an RPG inspired customisation system, where picking the right weapons and armour make the difference.
A huge feature is the weight of your weapons which will not only slow you down but decrease your air combo ability.
Weapons can be upgraded to unlock new special attacks and spells. Players will be able to gain bonuses from matching the right armour sets and more.
I’ve only touched the tip of what can be achieved, but Young Souls customisation is truly remarkable giving players full authority over how they build their characters.
The only slight issue is that the siblings will share their inventory, meaning that unless you have double of a weapon, only one of them can be equipped with it at any given time.
But I totally welcome this as it allows players to have two unique builds that will be ready to take down the different types of enemies that appear.
The creatures that inhabit the dungeons have great attack patterns and the game is always switching up between different styles to keep players on their toes.
Boss battles are some of the most imaginative I've ever experienced, each fight was otherworldly and more than just combat.
The level of quick thinking required for on the fly strategies creates a fun but intense experience.
When not fighting foes, players can increase one of three stats in the Happy Fit gym with tokens they gain throughout their adventure.
Each stat can be levelled up by participating in mini-games which also add more variety to the overall experience.
Verdict
Young Souls is a breath of fresh air for the genre, the developers have done a fantastic job at merging so many different elements into one. Jenn and Tristan are some of the most memorable characters to ever grace the genre.
Although playing on the Nintendo Switch I did experience some slow loading times and a bit of dropped frames during those frantic moments, but this wasn’t enough to sully a stellar title that is sure to be a new classic.
Young Souls is out for PlayStation 4,PC, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch on 10 March
