Carolina in the City of Nightmares. A Review of the Horror Game Tormented Souls 2
A significant portion of Tormented Souls' mechanics are reminiscent of classic Resident Evil games, but it still manages to remain unique. Players will explore eerie and colorful locations, as well as solve numerous puzzles. However, they will also have to deal with inconvenient controls, navigation, and combat system.
What Could Go Wrong?
A girl named Carolina is in trouble. Her younger sister suffers from a rare disease: the kind where pupils disappear, you predict the future, and draw chthonic creatures. It turns out that the answer to all the troubles lies in the clinic attached to the church, located in the Latin town of Villa-Ess. Mother Lucia, the head of the parish, stated that she is familiar with the ailment and will cure the girl in the shortest possible time.
The invitation turns out to be a trap - a cult of evil nuns separates the sisters. Carolina finds herself in a similar situation to the heroes of Resident Evil: she needs to survive in a monster-infested building, where she has to fight and solve puzzles to advance the plot. Dangerous zones alternate with rest rooms, where saves are made by recording on a limited supply of magnetic tapes.
Most puzzles boil down to finding one detail that applies to another - your own weapon or a lighter can help in solving it. Periodically, you will have to rack your brains over ciphers - I thought about some of them shamefully long - while some tasks are solved by trial and error. This is a game convention, but I was embarrassed by such moments when Carolina refused to break the glass of a slot machine, or could only cut duct tape with a knife.
The locations in the game are full of details, but this does not prevent you from remembering the elements important for puzzles. When you see a telephone dial, you immediately remember that you have already seen a rotary phone, and a jack reminds you of one stubborn shark. It remains only to get to the place through a labyrinth of tunnels and passages. The situation is complicated by the fixed camera, which does not always show some passages. I would also like to be able to make notes on the map - during the passage I often had to take screenshots.
One of the features of the game is the heroine's ability to move to another dimension and the past. The alternative dimension is a separate version of the locations, where solving puzzles affects reality. In the past, you can also take actions that affect the present.
The game even borrowed typical Resident Evil dialogues, where the main characters are slightly less insane than the main villains. At a certain point, Carolina stumbles upon a man named Miguel. Like Barry Burton, Miguel appears at important moments and does not allow the main character to turn into a "Carolina Sandwich".
Most of all, I was impressed by the crazy grandfather in a wheelchair. In a mysterious way, he managed to climb into the most impassable places. At the same time, he killed monsters with melee weapons, which the main character can permanently borrow without remorse.
Periodically, the game is diluted with videos, where the crooked facial animation of the characters is reminiscent of the uncanny valley. I changed Carolina's clothes, which caused her torso to disappear during conversations - there were no such problems in the standard costume.
Alone in the Dark
Carolina is a cool lady and is able to use improvised means as weapons:
- Her main friends will be a nail-shooting construction pistol, as well as a construction machine gun that shoots another type of nail. R is for variety!
- A shotgun and a crossbow help in particularly difficult situations - when enemies attack in a crowd. No, they are not construction-related, fortunately.
- It is better not to use a variety of melee weapons in close combat - it is suitable for breaking objects and finishing off fallen opponents, but the combat system... It's better to shoot. Really.
Upgrades found during the passage help to improve weapons. The coolest thing is that it affects the shotgun, because the modification allows you to make additional shots.
The main limitation for conducting combat is darkness. In dark rooms, Carolina is not able to defend herself - you need to use a lighter and look for a way to solve the problem. In most cases, the solution is to light candles or turn on the electricity. It is worth giving the game its due - it almost never sets monsters on the player when he is not able to stand up for himself.
Monsters are rare, they have a limited set of attacks and hit hard. Most of the creatures encountered absorb an indecent amount of damage. In battle, they show low intelligence and permeability - creatures are able to get stuck even in the railings. At such moments, I seemed to read on their faces: "I will never get out of this trap. Please, finish me off."
The type of monsters depends on their habitat:
- In the church, Carolina is attacked by disfigured and resurrected victims of nuns;
- In the city, you will have to deal with evil pigs;
- In the cemetery, annoying ghosts are among the enemies;
- At the fish factory, the fishermen turned into a crustacean version of necromorphs - they even sound similar! The "crabomorphs" have two death animations: funny and cool. The cool one is accompanied by piercing themselves with their own processes.
Many enemies can appear outside their habitat, and creatures from the church can be found everywhere in general.
The curvature of the monsters is compensated by the curvature of the main character. The changing camera angle also changes the movement buttons, which can lead you to retreat directly into a cluster of monsters. And sometimes Carolina simply refuses to aim at the enemy - in one place she killed two creatures for me, but simply refused to aim at the third.
Periodically, the heroine is sucked into another reality, where a battle with the boss will take place. The boss's attacks are predictable - if you want, you can beat them with melee weapons, but this process is very long. To win, you need to use environmental objects such as a giant harpoon, or electric generators - this is more interesting and faster.
On the normal level of difficulty, there are barely enough cartridges to destroy everything alive and not very alive - provided that you search every corner and use melee weapons. But you can safely explore previously visited locations, because you will have to return!
Atmosphere
The game captivates with its beauty and abundance of details. Low lighting and creepy music with sounds make you afraid of every rustle. During the passage, long stretches are characteristic when you do not encounter enemies. And the longer you don't see anyone, the scarier it becomes.
But the monsters are not scary at all. In some perverse sense, they are even charming in their grotesqueness. Except for the ghosts - I hated them with all my soul.
Diagnosis
The main strength and weakness of Tormented Souls 2 lies in the game's commitment to the classic formula. This is a typical horror game, where the main part of the gameplay is related to keeping in mind the obstacles that arise along the way, as well as finding ways to bypass them. You will have to think a lot and constantly be on your guard in order to get to the final and get the best ending.
Passing the game is like a walk through an amusement park with a horror theme. Here you will find an almost abandoned church, school, cemetery. The entire town of Villa-Ess is full of horrors, and in its depths operates a sinister cult, and monstrous mechanisms are located - a sight that is worth seeing. We definitely recommend it!
