Souldiers review – I’ve got Souls and I’m a soldier

metro.co.uk:

Metroidvania and Soulslike combat combine in this indie action role-player with a touch of 16-bit magic.

There probably isn’t a genre more vaguely defined than Soulslike. There’re some obvious ingredients – such as ‘bonfire’ save points which respawn enemies, highly difficult boss fights, and stamina-orientated combat – but the influence of Dark Souls has become so prevalent in so many areas, from level design to storytelling, it feels like a term barrelling towards redundancy.

By sticking it in the title, Souldiers might be perceived as a pixelated reskin of FromSoftware’s formula. In reality though, along with having a bigger hotpot of influences, the name is a smart sell for the game’s surprisingly meaty story.

In Souldiers, after a stylish opening cut scene, which sets the anime fantasy tone, you’re thrown into a kingdom on the brink of war. After your battalion receives orders to switch positions thanks to a last-minute tactics change, you’re engulfed by an earthquake and greeted by a Valkyrie. To save your lives, she opens a gateway to a land between life and death, where a Guardian promises to restore your group of soldiers to the world with even more power than before.

You play as one of the ‘Souldiers’ who follows the leader, General Brigard, through the gateway to Terragaya, where you quickly encounter the monsters which annihilated your squadmates. At first, it might just seem like contextual flavour to springboard the action, but Souldiers leans on its narrative more than you might expect – in a style which harkens back to the Game Boy Advance or original PlayStation era.

While the Soulslike elements are clear within the first 10 minutes – including a run-in with a difficult boss designed to obliterate you –