Welcome to our review of Young Souls, a game that surprised me by being a timed exclusive on Google Stadia.
Jenn and Tristan are two teenagers who find themselves suddenly abandoned and without a family until a good-hearted scientist adopts and brings them into his home settled within a small port town. Life in Portsbourgh for Jenn and Tristan proves uneventful. Uneventful, that is, until they uncover a portal to another world which threatens the very existence of life on Earth as we know it.
Fight with Jenn and Tristan, solo or in co-op, and experience the adventures of the twins and the two worlds through a beautifully crafted story and polished dialogue. Customize your gear by unlocking hundreds of weapons, armor sets, and accessories, and then prepare to fight hordes of enemies and over 20 fearsome bosses.
Explore the four unique biomes of the goblin world and complete dozens of dungeons in your quest to save the world, your reputation and the professor. Pass from one world to the other through day and night and make the most of each environment. Enjoy stunning scenery and a unique atmosphere as you wander the streets of Portsbourgh.
Currently Young Souls is a timed exclusive on Google Stadia, so you know where this is going, a two-sided review, the first being how crappy Stadia performed and the second how decent this game is! As per usual, Google Stadia relies solely on how decent your internet connection is and it still has not reached a sufficient level of performance to be called great. With an average of 85 MBPS down and 24 up, I had borks all the time I played. From stuttering images to small freezes, sure, never lasting more than a few ticks, but annoying nevertheless.
Now the game itself, despite all the Stadia flaws, is quite good. I enjoyed this “hybrid” game of hacking and slashing in a Double Dragon style combined with all the lore of a normal RPG. From gathering powerups, hearts, … to basically talking to all the NPCs and like to be expected, many of them having useless conversations, the joy of those never fails to make you smirk. Like how the book store is closed because nobody reads books, a classic right?
As this is mostly a fighting game, there are some things that stood out. You can basically perform some combos, though I am not sure they were put in on purpose, but I had some easy kills because I just got the timing right. Evading the incoming attacks however is not so easy, for the same reason. But you will see that thanks to the 4 difficulty settings, this is nothing to worry about. From incredibly easy, like almost no damage from even a big hit, to so tough, that it will almost make you cry.
The main appeal though is the ability to switch out one of the twins during battle. I loved using that principle to evade incoming enemy attacks and avoiding damage at the same time. Though the system could use some tweaking, to be honest, I am not sure if this is Stadia borking on the timing or not.
The story itself is one that must be experienced by oneself and if you do have Stadia, I do recommend giving it a test drive. But otherwise, it is coming to all major consoles in fall 2021. I think I will be grabbing this one on Xbox again and then playing without all the Stadia hassle. Yeah, this was not the best Stadia experience.
In conclusion, speaking purely of the game, this is a solid 8, maybe even an 8.5. The Stadia experience would make it a 7. But as this is about how the game is, I am standing firmly behind this score!
