Review of Stray Souls: Is it Survival Horror?
Photo Credit: Steam
I had to do it. I just had to.
After the amount of reviews that I read for Stray Souls, I had to play it. After diving into the first chapter of the game, I was hopeful — and maybe a little too optimistic — that I would enjoy the remainder of the game. I mean it couldn’t be THAT bad, could it?
I was unrealistically hoping for another Deadly Premonition, and I couldn’t have been further off. Deadly Premonition was like catching lightning in a bottle. Stray Souls was nowhere close.
Before we dive in, I will answer the question in the title of this post. Is the game survival horror? The answer is no. It isn’t even close.
The game follows Daniel, who inherits his grandmother’s house on his eighteenth birthday, but quickly realizes the dark baggage that came with it. Soon after moving in, strange things start to occur in the house that send him on a journey for answers about his family’s past.
I mean the premise of the story seemed promising enough…
The story is actually one of the reasons that I wanted to give the game a chance. I also read some interviews with Jukai Studios where they talk about originality, boss fights, and compare the game to a lot of other survival horror staples, etc.
The game can be completed in under five hours. This is not a long game by any means, and it is also not a challenging game at all. The gameplay is linear and you will not be backtracking at all. You won’t be doing too much exploring of ‘Aspen Falls’, mainly because there isn’t much to explore, and the linear gameplay doesn’t allow for it. This is one of the main reasons that I do not consider Stray Souls to be survival horror. The game also lacks an inventory management system.
Unlike Resident Evil, where you are able to roam the Spencer Estate, explore, backtrack, solve puzzles, gather key items, do some crafting and inventory management, Stray Souls checks none of these boxes.
The game gives you an over abundance of ammo pickups and health every step of the way that it feels ridiculous to even compare it to other survival horror games. There are so many ammo pickups that I would have been happier if they just gave us unlimited ammo. There is also only one weapon in the game, which is a pistol that is given to you. Daniel has no secondary or melee attack that you can use to fight off enemies, if you do happen to run out of ammo.
There is not a wide variety of enemy types in the game, and bosses can easily be defeated pretty effortlessly.
Each level in the game follows a similar formula. You will find yourself trapped in an area on the map by fog, and you will have to defeat a set number of enemies to make the fog disappear before you can proceed through the remainder of the level. In some cases, you will have to track down the enemies to kill (because they will not always come after you), and this can be frustrating. I even had a couple of enemies glitch into map, and I couldn’t kill them so I had to restart the level. This happened more than once.
The sound was also a major issue for me. Even when you are not near an enemy (or if an enemy is on a completely different floor), you can hear them like they’re standing right next to you. Rarely would I ever complain about sound in a game, but this game is the exception.
The glitches and bugs, combined with the many issues that I mention above make for an overall disappointing experience. This is unfortunate because the story did seem pretty interesting and unique for a horror game. The delivery just wasn’t there.
The ~$30 list price for this game is definitely too much. I wouldn’t play it again, even though it does offer more than one ending. There isn’t much replay value there.
I may even have to consider it a PASS for Xbox Game Pass (if it makes it to Game Pass)…
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