6Souls [Xbox]
In BUG-Studio’s 6Souls, you’ll take on the role of Jack and his dog, Butch, as they go off on an adventure to find - and explore - the abandoned Clifford Castle. Only, it’s not quite as abandoned as they think; the members of the Clifford family have been trapped inside Soul Crystals by a mysterious sorcerer - and they will need to be rescued by defeating each of the bosses inhabiting various areas of the mansion. There’s Classic and Adventure mode difficulty levels, although Adventure will only be unlocked after first completing the story via Classic.
For the most part, you’ll be playing as Jack; and movement is slightly different depending on whether you’re controlling Jack or Butch, with Jack being able to wall-jump as well as grab onto walls to climb for a short time; and Butch being able to fit through tight spaces as well as double jump to reach higher ledges - as well as bark. You can’t switch between them willy-nilly however, these switches will be brought about at specific times, when you come across small gaps for Butch to squeeze through - a button prompt to tap RB will appear, so you’ll trigger the switch and then play as him until you’ve retrieved the key (or whatever you need to do), before returning to Jack. There’s a pair of binoculars that you’ve got access to, which is a really great mechanic for allowing you to scope out areas of the level for any collectibles, as well as potential danger - saved our asses from dropping down into the spike-filled abyss quite a few times.
Visually, the chunky pixel look works really well here - and the overall design of the world is well detailed. The animations for Jack and Butch are great, with Jack flailing around when he’s teetering on the edge of platforms, and their ‘voices’, which are reminiscent of a sim-lish style language, are unique and entertaining to listen to despite them repeating similar phrasing at times. The different areas of the mansion have slight differences to their look and overall feel, with areas having different enemy types available and providing routes that will force you to utilise your dash skill, that adds to the number of dashes the more souls you’ve rescued, increasing the level of skill and precision needed to use it without firing yourself straight into your own spiky-death. Bosses are often similar to enemies found in the levels preceding them, though their attack styles are often different and more challenging - although can be figured out to wipe them out quite quickly, at least with the earlier bosses.
The combat is simple, with a sword attack that’s fairly weak, and a shield that isn’t the greatest as it has a bit of a knock back, and only protects for three hits before requiring a cooldown, leaving you open in the process. More often than not, we just avoided enemies as much as possible, as there’s really no need to defeat them, aside from the bosses of course. As you progress, you’ll switch from your trusty sword to a bow and arrow, which takes a little bit of getting used to at first - however this works to give you additional landing spots if you shoot an arrow at a wall before using your dash, replenishing it when you stand on the arrow-platform, which is a fun way to change things up. You can have three arrows available at any time, although you’ll need to collect more at various points to make sure you don’t run out!
There are collectibles hidden throughout the levels, in the form of coins for Jack, and bacon for Butch, so these encourage you to explore a little, although they’re usually fairly simple to find. Reaching them is the part that will often be more of a challenge, as you need to carefully use your boost and climbing abilities, whilst avoiding the spikes - and if you’re anything like me, you’ll find yourself with a rather unnecessary amount of deaths caused by your own sheer impatience.
Priced at £7.99 on the Xbox Store, 6Souls is a fun puzzle-platformer that will net you a very quick 1000 Gamerscore, due to the fact that all of the achievements can be nabbed before you’ve even completed the game; something I always find to be a tad unusual, as surely you’d want to encourage players to 100% it!? The chapter select menu has a breakdown of everything you’ve collected, which is great as this allows you to easily see which levels you’ll need to replay to pick up any missing collectibles if you’re like us and do want to fully complete the game. It’s not a groundbreaking title, but it’s one that feels great to play - and for that, we really enjoyed the time we spent with it.
In the end, we decided to give 6Souls the Collecting Asylum rating of 8/10.
Are you interested in 6Souls? What do you think of it?
Let us know in the comments below!
- V x
Thank you to PRHound for the 6Souls Xbox review code!
