6Souls PS4 Review

2021 have seen some great platform games, both new and rebooted. A lot of them have their visuals looking like games from the 8-bit or 16-bit era and they hold up pretty good in modern day gaming. Bug-Studio have created a retro-inspired, action-adventure game called 6Souls. The graphics will give you a feeling that you are playing a Sega Mega Drive / Genesis or Super Nintendo game from the 90’s. So let us go adventuring in this title and see if it is a treasure worth keeping.

Developer: Bug-Studio
Publisher: Ratalaika Games
Release Date: 3 December 2021

Thanks to the publisher for the review code.

6Souls see you take control of Jack, a treasure seeker who is accompanied by his trusty, but scared puppy Butch. You have found an old map that leads to a long-lost treasure which is at an abandoned castle in the woods. It is not long into the adventure that things take a sinister turn and Jack and Butch finds themselves in deep trouble.
There are ten chapters and each one is very interesting and tells a captivating story. You have two difficulty settings to give you the gameplay experience you want. Each character has their own mechanics and there are a few puzzles thrown in for fun and to give you a trip down memory lane back to the 90’s. The single player sees you having to work with your canine companion to finish each stage. Using Butch’s abilities to access new areas reminded me of Ratchet and Clank.

The aim of each level is to overcome the dangers to find the goodies which involve collecting keys and basically just surviving. At the end of each chapter, you have a boss battle and to complete you must use all your abilities. There is not a steep learning curve and the levels are not too tricky but they require some thought to achieve what you need to. This is what gives it the true retro feel that old school gamers will love.

Sadly, the boss battles aren’t that great. You can either avoid or you can fight and it will be quite easy to kill. There are no extra rewards to fight or not, so this choice is up to you. Each stage is split into smaller segments, so dying is not really a big concern which is good and less frustrating. Also, the controls are slightly awkward and some may find them tricky.

The visuals capture the old-school retro feel amazingly. The pixelated graphics, simple level designs and colours give a nice look. The cutscenes are enjoyable and tells the story as you go. The old-school audio and sounds are the cherry on top as this just completes the overall experience of the game. Replayability won’t be there, but there is a list of achievements you can complete so this fun for the trophy hunters out there.

Final Thoughts
6Soulsi is a fun little retro-inspired title. Everything from the visuals, sound and gameplay will give the old-school gamers a warm fuzzy feeling of the 16-bit era. Yes the controls are a bit clumsy and the difficulty might not be challenging, never the less this is still a fun title to play over the holiday season.