Tormented Souls is a throwback to the genre of survival horror, and you’ll find all the hallmarks of the games of old here. She presses on, almost compelled to continue in her search of the twin girls in the photo, and what discover secrets are hidden between the walls of the makeshift hospital. Caroline then receives a nasty bump on the head and wakes in a bathtub with tubes connected to her and her left eye plucked out. Somehow drawn to them, Caroline leads her to a creepy mansion later turned into a medical facility. In Tormented Souls, we follow Caroline Walker as she receives a mysterious parcel carrying a photograph of a pair of twin girls. Well, somebody must have called Dual Effect, because they happened to do just that. We’ve even lost some great franchises in the process (I miss you Visceral Games and Team Silent.) Yet, with all the evolutions and new perspectives, I yearned for that simple time when I would slap in a plastic disc and explore spooky mansions and endure overbearing atmospheres. The genre has gone through many phases and changes from different controls to how much action should be allowed, to borderline walking simulators that deliver some scares on occasion. It has been a long time since that first entry and played more horror games than I can count since then. The action, the scares, the (at the time) impressive voice acting all of it just clicked. That old Capcom “this game contains scenes of explicit violence and gore” plastered on the screen, the menu yelling the title “ Resident Evil ” as you started I loved it and played whenever time would allow. It was a gift and couldn’t wait to get it running in my old PS1. Still, they’re worth it if you want to experience such a great game.I remember when I played my first Resident Evil. It’s not that difficult, but there are some obscure puzzles and truly horrific sections to play through. If you want to see what a masterclass in modern sound design looks like in horror games, then this is a title for you to play. If more modern survival horror entries did this, we’d have a much richer genre to work our way through, and that would be amazing. I’ve not seen such clever use of sound design outside of enemies in other classic survival horror games. It’s a great way of telling players that there’s a threat up ahead without revealing it. They’re grotesque monsters with knives for hands, and they scrape along the floor, alerting you to their presence even if they don’t see you. The sound design of the enemies is particularly good. I hate it, but of course, I keep playing and plowing through. It’s designed to make you want to turn the game off, and it achieves that really well. The music becomes all metal and huge terrifying noises at this point. Then there are the enemies and mirror world areas to consider. I’d actually go as far as saying that they go against any sort of relaxation, making you feel just slightly less stressed instead. The save rooms and large scale areas have different themes that aren’t quite as horrifying. The exploration section of the game has a generally tense atmosphere that keeps you on your toes. Just like Silent Hill though, the music is a fantastic way that the game keeps you on edge, always waiting for something scary to happen, or an enemy to come around the corner and kill you in the next few seconds.Įach area has a distinct theme in Tormented Souls. The save rooms even have a similar theme to those in Resident Evil that always makes you feel safe. That game had a lot of time poured into making every scene as horrific as possible, and that’s what’s happened in Tormented Souls.

Tormented Souls has some of the best sound design I’ve witnessed in a game since Dead Space.

Tormented souls music puzzle