Gameplay
The core of SOULVARS is exploring its various locales, completing quests, and combat. In another time and place, the game could have been a first-person dungeon crawler, as players move from space to space through large, grid-like environments, albeit from a 2D perspective. Though the backgrounds change and the number of on-screen interactive elements change from space to space, you’ll spend most of your time winding through these areas in order to trigger narrative-related battles. The encounter system is random, so upon entering into a room, you might unexpectedly trigger a battle and enter into combat.
A deck-building RPG balances delicately on the nature of its combat system, so we’ll spend the proper amount of time detailing it here. SOULVARS’s combat system is mana-based, with party members starting with a single point at the start of each battle. Exploiting enemy weaknesses or defending effectively against enemy attacks will net you additional mana points for the respective party member that has accomplished said action. This allows for effective, exploitative offensive and defensive play, as the latter is not a single-turn effect but one that remains effective so long as you possess a used defensive card in your hand.
Of course, extra mana doesn’t just mean you have additional actions. The player may access and learn skills that can be triggered via card combinations for additional damage and effects. These combination attacks can even net further action points, so a well-placed combo can end up netting the player twice the amount of points for their next turn. All of this feels carefully balanced, as hand size will limit the amount of offensive and defensive options the player possesses in a single turn.
Where the deck-building aspect of the game emerges is in its equipment system, as primary and secondary weapons, jackets, and pouches actually add actions to your deck. Primary weapons actually determine your attack stat, but secondary weapons simply add action types to your deck. These pieces of equipment can be modified further with stat enhancements and additional actions, as well, so you can further strengthen the core strategy of your deck. This also allows players to actually fully transplant strategies across characters, though there’s further complexities to the system that push specific characters towards certain specializations. Characters have one more “equipment type,” being their SoulDrive.
This triggers Soul Alteration, which is a sort of enhanced state to be activated during battle, akin to a Devil Trigger. This supercharges your Arts and replenishes your health, but it isn’t a pure invincibility switch. SoulDrive also acts as the game’s character progression system, as completing battles with a specific Soul equipped raises the character’s resonance percentage, in a way similar to an experience system. Of course, a resource gathered by enemies is also needed to unlock the specific resonance bonuses, which gives further incentive to continue fighting and growing a character’s archetypal SoulDrive. However, the player can exchange SoulDrives between party members, or even equip SoulDrives dropped by bosses and special encounters. This means there are hundreds of potential character and party builds to be explored, if the player wishes to invest their time into the game’s slow, but steady progression grind.
Aesthetics and Narrative
SOULVARS depicts a relatively modern, if not somewhat apocalyptic cityscape setting using a diorama-style perspective and dark, moody pixel art. Characters and enemies are also depicted in the game’s cool, blue and purple-ish color palette, though there are brief splashes of color that differentiate specific character models and boss encounters. The game evokes a classic feel in battles, with boss enemies in particular possessing large character sprites and a consistent “party on the right, enemies on the left” battle layout.
The game is certainly committed to its art style, to the point that it carries on into menus and attack animations. However, the reliance on character sprites means that some battle animations come across as a bit stilted despite the smooth gameplay frame rate and copious effects animations. The game is leaning heavy into its corrupt, conspiratorial, cyberpunk world, but the sprites having animations as jerky and goofy as they are is a bit tonally dissonant. Finding briefcases and vending machines strewn about environments instead of treasure chests and healers seems a bit silly as well, but I can respect the adherence to the bit. The character portraits also possess their own distinct visual style that plays it closer to the aesthetic theming than their pixel art sprites.
Despite all of this, SOULVARS is definitely visually unique and striking, though the “cinematic” filter adds a further level of CRT blurriness that I don’t really feel benefits the overall look of the game. Fortunately, this is a setting that can be switched on and off. What can’t really be modified are the sound options, and this makes the unfortunate mixing of the admittedly punchy and enjoyable battle music and the much-quieter victory fanfare all the more glaring. The game’s music on the whole is very atmospheric and plays perfectly into its aesthetic theme, though the battle theme is memorable due to its ear-wormy melody and the frequency at which you hear it.
Unfortunately, the story that SOULVARS wants to tell is something that gets lost in between its sharp tactical gameplay and aesthetics. While the game is very willing to use larger text boxes to communicate tutorial, inventory, and menu information, the text boxes in-game are very small, with the localization leaving a lot to be desired. The dialogue is choppy and leans heavily towards “rule of cool” line deliveries or overly macabre exaggerations, to the point where unraveling the conspiracy at the core of the game’s narrative is hardly something worth anticipating, and more of a nuisance to skip through. Characters have clearly defined personalities, such as Yakumo’s no-nonsense, yet slightly hesitant demeanor and Izuna’s foul-mouthed, aggressive commentary, but it is delivered too sporadically and without the punch needed to truly endear any of these characters to the player. At least the narrative is similarly slick and streamlined, meaning you won’t find yourself reading through pages and pages of dialogue in-between missions.
Impressions and Conclusion
There is so much truly fascinating complexity going on in SOULVARS that feels worthy of mention, that I feel I have to include a few more details here. The game’s strange time system the factors into Soul Alteration cooldown and the completion of various quests feels like another element of first-person dungeon crawlers given a unique twist, and although it never feels like an obstacle that you, the player, are fighting against, its inclusion is neat. The smart way of balancing healing items and particular skills that can further help manipulate the random draws of deck-building titles by tying them to a limited SP resource is also welcome, as it does push the player to invest in other kinds of strategies rather than bulky tank builds. The active and passive skill systems being diverse and customizable are really great ways of making your time and money investments work for you in the long run.
It would be remiss of me not to mention the lengths to which this game has been modified to work on consoles and PC. If one were to look at the mobile version of SOULVARS, you'd find a very vertical display
In marketing material, SOULVARS is described as a game in which “[e]ach enemy is a puzzle to solve, a challenge to overcome,” and I absolutely feel that is the case. Sometimes, the game’s exploit-for-AP system feels a bit too strict, as some builds simply can’t develop momentum against certain kinds of enemies due to not having weaknesses covered, and while the game’s defense-for-AP system might seem to counteract this, the way that defense is balanced within the game’s hand size make it feel that super-specialized, aggressive builds are the most viable option. However, the sheer amount of customization means that any enemy could be approached from a particular angle, if the player wishes to invest the time into gathering resources, raising resonance, and perfecting their build.
As a deck-building enthusiast, this sort of experimental environment is an absolute dream… but basic enemy encounters hardly hold a candle to the larger boss skirmishes, and they also don’t do an excellent job of telegraphing the kinds of skills or strategies that might be needed in preparation for the next boss encounter. But the game itself encourages resilience and customization as you tackle ever-more-powerful threats, and with the amount of slight modifications and improvements you can make to each individual character, the game can feel like a blank canvas for your tactical art. In spite of tonally-inconsistent art and spotty localization, this is a deck-builder’s dream RPG, and absolutely worth the price of entry.
Rating: Good
Games listed here will likely find wide appeal due to their unique characteristics. Whether they offer inventive takes on pre-established conventions or are standout in any other way, they are a safe recommendation for any RPG enthusiast.
Nintendo Switch eShop link
Price: $16.99 USD
File Size: 569 MB
Publisher: SHUEISHA GAMES
A review copy was provided by the publisher.
Comments
Post a Comment