Tormented Souls 2 may appear to be a current horror game because of its eerie settings and intricate worldbuilding, but don’t be fooled by the modern appearance. The dark heart of timeless classics like Resident Evil and Silent Hill is at its core, along with all the goodies and tidbits that both won me over and infuriated me about these formulaic survival horror games when they first became famous. Are the camera angles fixed? Verify. Controls for tanks? Verify. An even stranger plot, complete with corny language and a manual save system, and incredibly difficult puzzles? Check, check, and check again. As a result, Tormented Souls 2 is a surprisingly accurate tribute, reviving many of the elements I liked to despise about classic survival horror games.
You don’t need to have met the Walker sisters in order to understand Tormented Souls 2, which takes place immediately after the events of its 2021 predecessor. This is due in part to the fact that it tells a story on its own and in part to the fact that it is so outlandish that nothing makes sense. You might be curious about Caroline’s attractive eyepatch, but you should only know that she is trying to find out what is causing her younger sister Anna’s horrific visions and reality-bending drawings. That answer seems to lie somewhere in the depths of a spooky convent tucked away in a remote place, for reasons that seem to be found only in schlocky horror stories.
However, Anna disappears before Caroline can even take off her (very 90s) leather jacket, and it is up to the older sibling to find her sister and figure out what the hell is going on before it’s too late—with a focus on the “hell” part, of course. No, it’s not a novel story, but like the original Resident Evil titles, Tormented Souls 2’s plot twists and turns are hilariously ridiculous throughout its nearly 20-hour campaign. It’s full of corny dialogue, intriguing flavor text, and some really strange interactions that made me chuckle.
And what a detailed environment those are! Villa Hess and the surrounding area are incredibly intriguing and atmospheric locations to visit, full of fascination and mythology. It’s crucial to have your curiosity stimulated since you never know when a useful tool or important object can be tucked away in a hidden room somewhere. Although a shambling zombie or a bladed demon may occasionally interrupt your research, foes in Tormented Souls 2 tend to remain dead, leaving you to investigate at your own pace after you’ve cleaned out an area. However, it’s a little too easy to miss things when there’s only a flickering candle to guide you;
The longer you play, the more you’ll discover that you’re unlocking previously inaccessible rooms and entire areas, which seems to be the rule for classic survival horror games. There is a lot of backtracking, especially at the beginning, so I’m sure some players will find it annoying, but since the levels and fetch-quests are well-made and often rewarding, I can’t complain. Nevertheless, there’s a good reason why tank controls and fixed camera angles are seen as outdated. I grew up playing the video games that Tormented Souls 2 honors, like Alone in the Dark, Parasite Eve, Silent Hill 3, and Resident Evil.
Add in Caroline’s dread of the dark, which causes her to freeze and begin hyperventilating if she is in the dark for even a few moment. If you leave her in the dark for an extended period of time, she will die. Without an ambient light source nearby, which is rarely the case, you cannot even put aside your lighter to burst open a wooden container or break a porcelain pot. However, the atmosphere is almost always tense and unsettling, and the lighter certainly contributes to that. Being the main source of light, you will frequently need to enter a room proactively in order to light up whatever is lying in the shadows. This will unavoidably need you to get up close and personal with the people that are lurking about the area.
But when something lurks in the shadows, everything kind of comes apart. Combat in Tormented Souls 2 is ferocious rather than awkward. You’re frequently defenseless when someone lunges at you because of the dependence on Caroline’s lighter, and it’s more difficult than necessary to back away or establish some distance due to the set camera angles and rigid character movement. Caroline uses a variety of homemade and acquired weapons, such as a nail gun and a shotgun, to defend herself. Although some of them can be modified to increase their rate of fire or reload speed, they are nonetheless sluggish to operate and challenging to control precisely in an emergency.
I understand that it’s sort of a genre cliché to make us feel weak and underpowered, but this could have been accomplished by giving us more foes or by making ammo scarcer; ineffective weapons and fixed cameras don’t increase the suspense as much as they break the immersion completely. It should come as no surprise that you carry that jankiness into conflicts with your boss.
A enormous nun, one of the first people you’ll meet, stomps about the area, attempting to beat you with a huge steel cross. However, there are at least three fixed camera angles in that one area, so if the camera moves while attempting to put distance between you and your opponent, you can unintentionally find yourself running in their direction. She’ll keep galloping like a grumpy rhino, which made the camera feel like the real boss I was battling. This wouldn’t be so horrible if your shotgun could hold more than two bullets at once or if the nun flinched with each blow.
Fortunately, you will encounter a good half-dozen puzzles that are equally confusing and entertaining for every lackluster boss battle you must face. Trying to figure out how to open a door, decipher a cipher, or pry open a dead shark’s jaws for reasons I still don’t fully understand was the closest I’ve ever felt like an old Resident Evil or Silent Hill game. All the way down to the mini-puzzles that require you to mix particular items in your inventory, these puzzles were precisely what I wanted from a game like this. They were frequently extremely cryptic, frustratingly illogical, or utterly unsolvable because I foolishly missed a clue somewhere. Yes, I will confess that I was genuinely baffled by one or two (or five) of the brainteasers for a shameful period of time, but what else isn’t classic survival horror?
Verdict
Tormented Souls 2 can offer a contemporary-looking trip down memory lane, complete with all the positive and negative aspects that come with it, if you’re missing the survival horror games of the past. You’ll need to endure janky combat and some backtracking in order to appreciate the tense mood and some stunningly eerie vistas. The part of me that missed smashing important pieces together to see what would happen was fascinated by its cryptic puzzles, which truly test your brain in a way that can occasionally disappoint.
Tormented Souls 2 is an entertaining throwback to the experiences that made modern horror gaming what it is, even though there are many things to like and many that maybe belong in the past.
