If you give me a top-down, rock hard action game with low-bit stylings, I am going to play the heck of it, evidenced perfectly when I veered towards Eldest Souls at EGX 2019 with sheer tunnel vision.
Developed by Fallen Flag Studio, who started the game as students before United Label Games swooped in to publish, Eldest Souls is a boss rush RPG that may look very similar to Dark Souls to begin with, but actually has more in line with the likes of the criminally underloved Furi and Hyper Light Drifter, the latter being the comparison I made early on. The hand-crafted visuals and twisted tone definitely caught my eye, but Eldest Souls has what promises to be a very interesting storyline to boot.
You control a warrior knight who is sent to The Citadel after the old gods who were captured there get loose and things start going very wrong. It’s up to you to put them in their place, one swift death as a learning exercise at a time.
It’s certainly a hard time, but the bosses I encountered during the demo had their downfalls, such as a reliance on AOE attacks that you can easily move out of the way of, as well as some rather obvious telegraphing. This seemed to be just the initial bosses, though, so expect Eldest Souls to ramp the difficulty all the way up the further you progress. Defeating these Old Gods rewards you with shards for upgrades, though the limited nature of the demo meant I couldn’t really dive too deep into them.
Combat is fairly straightforward, but the enrage mechanic is where Eldest Souls really starts to come into its own. By holding down an input, you can power up a special manoeuvre that deals significant damage. The only problem is that you’re quite vulnerable while waiting for it, and with how the bosses can be on you in a split second, it’s a constant risk and reward scenario.
Though the bulk of the game is making your way through bosses, downtime in-between each will allow you to talk to NPCs and discover more lore about Eldest Souls’ fascinating world, as well as items for your quest. I encountered a near-dead knight early on, though it did seem to trigger a bit of a bug in the build when the camera didn’t follow my character.
That said, there’s no release date for Eldest Souls just yet, so it seems like Fallen Flag are happy to take their time to iron out bugs like these and make the game the best it can be.
Eldest Souls will launch on PC with console releases possibly following.
Some of the coverage you find on Cultured Vultures contains affiliate links, which provide us with small commissions based on purchases made from visiting our site. We cover gaming news, movie reviews, wrestling and much more.
