It’s fun to see a ragtag team pull off a win that seemed impossible, but what about when it is a pair of rambunctious brats that happen to be twins? Thanks to developers 1P2P and publishers The Arcade Crew, we now know that it can very well be pulled off as an entertaining story. Tie that in with some hack ‘n’ slash-styled beat ‘em up gameplay and you have their latest game, Young Souls. This title was definitely an interesting one to experience and is one for anybody who enjoys a beat ‘em up game.

Story

A pair of adopted twins start out their day like any other and check in with The Professor. As a man still trying to earn the title ‘Dad’ from the twins, he continues to work hard in his mansions lab while letting the twins do what they want and run a few errands for him. Soon, the reason the twins were left to do whatever they wanted became abruptly clear.

Coming home from an errand that The Professor sent them on, the twins are unable to find him. Checking the lab, they quickly find themselves in a strange underground lab with some weird activity happening. It isn’t long before they meet their first goblin who explains what is going on and where The Professor is.

Finding out he has been kidnapped and it is up to them to save him, the twins set out on a journey unlike any before. This will be a difficult task, even if they don’t know it at first, but the forces that are against them are prepared to enact their plans.

Overall, the story isn’t super unique, but it is well written with a few comedy aspects to it and a good cast of characters. It was a tale that held my attention throughout and did a great job at giving purpose behind the action.

Gameplay

From the start of the game, you will be tasked with going to town and selling a box of junk. This will introduce you to moving between the few locations that are in the main world. Most of the things to do are in the city, which includes cosmetic cloth shopping, a gym to level up your character when you have a gym token, a shoe shop to purchase stat-boosting shoes, and the eventual goblin city to upgrade gear and weapons. All of these shops run on either Goblin Coins or Cash, where the coins are typically for gear and upgrades while Cash is just for the cosmetic clothing options. I definitely suggest upgrading your shoes first because weapon and gear focus becomes important closer to mid-game.

Once you make your way down to learn about the Moon Gates that control your direct path into different sections in the goblin world, that is when the real game begins. The first area of the game will act as a tutorial where you can get used to basic fighting mechanics, such as light hits, mana-charged hits, using potions, blocking, parrying, dodging, and swapping characters. After you get a bit further into the game, you will find some more intricacies with these basic controls, typically depending on your gear, but you will also unlock an alternative tool.

This alternative tool can either be an attack or a bonus ability, depending on what you equip. I ended up sticking to the bow for one character and bomb for the other, but there are some other good options to use such as the healing totem and grapple. You do have to find these to unlock them, typically by taking a side path in the game that will lead you to a boss holding a key that will unlock more chests and doorways for you. Defeating these bosses will take you to a treasure room and gaining a key alone will give access to some other treasure runes.

One early tool you do get in the is the travel stone. This is what allows you to fast travel and it is incredibly handy. You can even fast travel to different sections in the town, which saves time going back to the mansion, running to the street, and taking the motorbike. To use this you simply open your options menu and then open the map, unless you are trying to leave the goblin areas in which you would use the fast travel tab in the menus.

When you gain enough experience to level up your characters naturally, you do have to sleep in order for it to take effect. There didn’t seem to be any downsides to sleeping, so no worries there. The game also tells you when you have earned enough to level up. When you are ready to gather this experience to make your twins stronger, simply fast travel to the bedroom. Every two levels gained will give you a token to go to the gym in town where you can increase one of three stats for each character; strength, resistance, or stamina. The gym section acts as a quick mini-game and the better you do, the better the stats improve.

Other than leveling up, you come across a variety of weapons and gear. Weapons all have their own stats to them and you shouldn’t strictly base it on which is the highest attack level. There are speed implements along with negative and positive traits. Once I found a weapon that had a spell option, I fell in love with that mana attack and always made sure one character had a weapon with a spell option on it. The other character I focused on being more about brute force and defense, which helps to have a mixture of fighting styles. However, when it comes to gear, you will be seeing somewhat the same thing but the stats matter a lot more. Being resistant to elements is nice, but if you can combine a same-name body and helmet, you will get bonuses that are worth way more beneficially.

As far as the actual combat goes, the game is really smooth and fair. I played solo mostly but did try it out with a friend for a few levels. While it is always fun to play with a friend, this game has a few mechanics that make running it solo a bit more manageable a lot of times. Of course, there are benefits to the co-op as well, like ganging up on enemies, sharing health potions (one potion heals both characters, unlike when solo), and so on. But when you run solo, you can use the character switch mechanic to save yourself a lot. For instance, if you take some damage, the health bar will have a section that is orange, so if you swap the characters out that orange bar will refill itself. Along with that, if you blocked a hit that broke your guard, you can swap characters so that you don’t get hit while laying there useless.

When fighting enemies, it is mostly about knowing their attack style. If you can parry an attack, dropping your enemy’s guard, you can get some automatic critical hits on the enemy. This is the best way to take out some of the larger foes you will come across. Once you get some ranged attack options, those become pretty important to the strategy as well. But beware of making ranged attacks a clutch; there is a section in the game that will leave you with nothing but melee as an attack option, so learn your enemy’s moves and get good at dodging, blocking, and fighting up close.

Audio and Visual

Both of these aspects were honestly so well-fitting to the game. The art style they used for the game had a 2D cartoon style made into a series of 3D artwork. Given that the game is played with a 2.5D perspective, this game chose an appealing and unique art style.

As for the music, it was never really distracting at any moment and stayed mostly in the background. It was only truly noticeable during boss fights and they did a really impressive sound setting with the gym section of the game. Overall, the sounds and music didn’t stand out, but they were well fitted to the game itself.

Replayability

While the overall storyline and levels are the same, you are welcome to replay levels after they have been beaten. With a wide range of weapons to use, plenty of side bosses to fight, and optional rooms to explore, there is definitely some reason to replay the game. The co-op experience always helps as well.

What It Could Have Done Better

It was incredibly frustrating that every time I loaded up the game, I needed to update my control changes before beginning. Anytime I would forget, I would be mid-fight and find out that I am unable to dash. This was only worse once I unlocked the bomb side attack since it does friendly fire damage and I would use dashing to avoid taking damage, meaning I would typically be super close to enemies and get blasted thinking I am about to dodge.

Verdict

Young Souls is a near-perfect beat ‘em up, hack ‘n’ slash mix! I was truly entertained the entire time I played the game, both solo and with a friend. This is a solid game that I would suggest to any player looking for a good, challenging side-scrolling action-fighter title. They have difficulty options to adjust your challenge level and a welcoming atmosphere to the game itself. Easily a title I would recommend for just about any player.

Young Souls is out now on Google Stadia, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC via Steam, along with backward compatibility on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S!