A body of an unknown man sits up against a rock by the lake. There is a strange purple gem with the man. At first it seemed like a blessing. You are able to fight the spirits of another dimension and save the good spirits. Kevin was reunited with his dog but things soon spiral out of control and one tragic moment changes everything.
Crossing Souls starts off in the beginning of 1986 in California. There is a lightning storm that cuts out the power to a small town. The town is left with some odd ramifications that seem to have a supernatural connection.
There are a lot of references to 80s pop culture that add a nostalgic feeling to the game. I really enjoyed exploring and finding the hidden gems such as a refinance to Studio Ghibli’s Howl’s Moving Castle and a lot of 80s horror films.
The map is a quite big with a lot of areas to search for collectables and characters to talk to. One thing I really liked was that there are five main characters and they have different conversations with different characters around the map depending on their relationship with that character. This was really interesting to show that these character are so different and shows a bit of realistic interaction.
The dialogue is written down in a text box with large easy to read words. It was an interesting storyline with lots of twists and even though there wasn’t any spoken dialogue the cut scenes was used perfectly to move the story along and even show a lot of emotion.
The pixelated design and the interior of houses reminded me a lot of the Pokemon games. The design also enhanced the feel of an older game and coupled with the music the developers did an amazing job to create the overall scene. One thing I really liked as well that the save point are floppy discs that are scattered throughout the map.
Each character has unique abilities and have an impact on the game which is hard witch can be quite hard with multiple characters. For example, Big Joe has five hearts of health and is a high damage dealer whereas Matt has three hearts and uses his intelligence to help out the team.
I really enjoyed the game because the storyline was really interesting and very moving. The twists were shocking and so intriguing. I really liked that the developers used the references, music and art style to make a full package nostalgic game.
GameCritUK 