Soulstice preview

Soulstice is our new action game that will be released in the fall and prepared by Reply Game Studios. We got the opportunity to play the demo early on, where the extraordinary sisters Briar and Lute fight supernatural creatures and investigate the cause of what happened to the city of Ilden. Let’s take a look at the Soulstice demo, which draws attention with its Devil May Cry-style action and impressive visuals.

Soulstice preview / We played

Chimera Sisters

I said Soulstice was about the adventure of two sisters, but these are not the kind of brothers we are used to. The character we control is one of the chimeras with special powers, one of whom is spiritually connected to the other. While Briar, with whom we wander around and get into one-on-one fights, solves the physical tasks, a brother named Lute helps us at points where we cannot interact, besides watching our back.

We receive the news that beings called wraith have appeared in Ilden, one of the largest cities of the Keidas Kingdom, and we set out to meet with other chimeras and save the city. Supernatural beings called Wraith are wild creatures that should not exist in the physical world, and they have descended to earth as a result of a rupture in the sky. As we understand from the introduction, the other chimeras do not like our character very much and the situation in the city is not good at all. We will experience this part as we play the game.

The time between the storytelling and the action in the demo episodes is well balanced. The story presented with cutscenes and conversations between the characters while they are walking around the city is at a level that will not make you say “we’ve been listening to you for two hours, let’s get into the action”. The city seems a little too empty, but considering the events that took place, this may be normal. It reminded me of the urban atmosphere of Devil May Cry 3. I haven’t come across content that will have much idea about side quests and npc characters. Topics we need to see and talk about in the full version.

Gameplay

The sisters we control are a powerful entity called the chimera, we said. As we struggle with the supernatural beings we encounter, we need the strength of both brothers. We travel around the city with Briar and fight the enemies. Lute, in ghost form, helps us stop and counterattack incoming attacks, and create a special area to make things accessible that we normally cannot interact with.

When we start the demo, Briar has a big sword and war hammer in his hand, we can quickly switch between them and clear the enemies quickly. If you have played Devil May Cry before, there is a fighting system that you will quickly get used to. We fight by beating many enemies with different combos and at the end of the battle we get a grade according to our performance.

Thanks to Lute’s ability to counterattack and stop the attacks of enemies attacking from afar during battles, it is possible to reach high numbers easily. With the blue and red areas created by Lute, we can also beat the enemies that we can’t normally damage, but this has a certain time and it is disabled for a while after that time. It’s very difficult to fight without taking damage in crowded fights without Lute’s support. In the demo, we can fight quickly because the transitions between weapons are quite rapid, but the areas can react slowly enough to affect the combat speed. I wonder if it is a feature that we will develop in the later parts of the game or will it always stay like this.

The force fields that Lute creates perform a similar task when navigating the city. We can reach places that we cannot normally reach or objects that we cannot break, and we can have objects that will strengthen our character. We have a chance to get more points by participating in difficult struggles through various portals that we will find in the environment. Keep in mind that these challenges are optional and do not have to be completed, as they will be much more challenging depending on the level you are in. A challenge that can be annoying at a high difficulty level.

Because of the fixed camera angles used in the game, we can’t always examine the surroundings as you want, which is a bit annoying. It’s nice that the camera angles, which are fixed while walking around, are free during the fight, it was a little difficult for me to get used to the control, but it’s not an unusual challenge.

Graphics and Performance

The Soulstice demo does a pretty good job visually. The characters and enemy models are pleasing to the eye, the animations are generally fluid, and the city of Ilden is impressive. We see a majestic cityscape that was once populated by people who have lost most (possibly all) of their people under the attack of the Wraith. I really liked that they didn’t settle for a simple image that would stay in the background, but worked in detail.

I played the Soulstice demo on PC and had almost no performance issues. I did experience minor FPS drops in some episodes, but I didn’t experience anything bad enough to affect gameplay. It should be noted that we are playing a demo for now and the final version may be different.

Conclusion

Soulstice is an action game that visually offers the impression of a Dark Souls-style game, but when you get into it, you find yourself in DMC or Bayonetta-style fast-paced gameplay. The story looks interesting, it managed to exceed my expectations visually and the gameplay is very enjoyable. It was a pleasant enough demo for me to eagerly await the game that will be released on September 20.