Crossing Souls

“The gameplay is one of the worst gameplay systems I've ever seen, committing the cardinal sin of not providing enough information to the player, making most of the platforming a guessing game.”

“This game originally got my attention after I watched some of its preview videos on its store page, it was during a sale and being an indie it means it has an accessible price. To start, the game's art style is simply beautiful, with stylistic spritework that makes the game evoke successfully an 80s feel without being forced or cheap. It all comes together as something unique to me; on top of being very detailed and nice to look at, some cutscenes are animated like 2D short movies. When it comes to visuals, style, and audio, this game is well-made. The problem here is the gameplay. I was probably already halfway through beating the game when I put it down. The gameplay is very formulaic; it's your typical 2.5D indie action title. You have enemy encounters with very basic combat, some platform sections, and sections where you just walk around talking to NPCs. The problem is the game gets constantly interrupted by story sections where we just hang around interacting with NPCs or finding items. It would have been fine if the story or characters were more interesting. Even the gameplay itself, the combat is rather basic; you get to play as different characters but none of them feel unique enough to differ from the rest. Platforming is pretty crappy and unpolished. I encountered some weird bugs too, like when I jumped on a crate and my character drowned. The game just feels like it has no flow or pacing. After a while and some annoying sections I just lost interest and dropped it. I still think that the game deserves a recommendation; it's cheap and beautiful looking and has a serviceable gameplay, so some people may find something interesting here if they're fans of indies. But at the moment I want something more substantial and this game didn't work for me; it didn't grab my interest.”

“The gameplay is bland, the story is intentionally over-cliched, so much it's annoying. The combat didn't feel engaging and felt like it was not up to the same standard the rest of the game's mechanics showcased.”

“I also hate it sometimes when you go into battle with random enemies and barely hear any fighting music in the background, except for bosses where it is epic; with normal enemies it is the same boring music with very loud attacking sounds when hitting enemies.”

“And all you can hear is dog barking blaring over the soundtrack.”

“Oh yeah, the music is *rarely* synthwave.”

“The cardinal sin is the inconsistent art style though; I really hate that every single one of your party members is depicted in four different ways.”

“While the game's art and story are very nice and evocative of a 90s kids TV show aesthetic, the game is ruined by its actual gameplay.”

“The graphics are the standard pixel graphics that have been all the rage for quite some time now.”

“There is dog barking in a handful of areas of the game that does not suit the atmosphere, oddly in most indoor areas.”

“Unless ambient sound or music adds value to the atmosphere and overall gameplay experience, there is no need for it.”

“I understand that the developers wanted to create a specific mood and atmosphere but it was a misfire.”

“It's not funny.”

“The protagonists and story are void of depth, passion or creativity, the gameplay is basic but made tedious by the five different characters you have to cycle through every time you want to perform one single action; and the game just has no sense of consistent structure with what it actually wants to do.”

“Combat gets especially obnoxious in the later half of the story, as enemies are defeated in the exact same way they were since the beginning part of the game, except there are a lot more of them now; it's a tedious grind to clear them out the exact same way every time.”

“Some are close while the difficulty setting is very low and when the game really challenges you the safe points are nowhere to be seen resulting in doing the same (long tedious) parts all over again.”

“The platforming is way too buggy and you cannot remap the controls at all, so your left hand becomes extremely cramped as you try to both jump and hold onto things.”

“The gameplay is relatively easy and unrewarding at its best and downright infuriating and buggy at its worst.”

“Also, how can a game made by an established studio be so damn buggy.”

“My problem is that it is not long enough and/or there is not a lot of character development.”

“No consistency in design, awful character design, no pacing, terrible planning and editing.”

“Besides plot-driven character development, everything you start the game with is what you finish the game with.”

“Because of this, its replayability is pretty low (you'd mostly just be starting a new game to find collectibles you missed the first time around).”

“The game has no replay value at all, other than getting the achievements.”

“If you’re unsure about getting it, I’d wait until it goes on sale, since there isn’t much replayability.”