Operation Backlog Completion 2025

Celebrating All Things Spooky: Tormented Souls

 Celebrating All Things Spooky, Reviews, Video games  5 Responses »  Tagged with: ,
Oct 312025
 

Happy Halloween!

I’d wanted to conclude this year’s Celebrating All Things Spooky with Silent Hill f, but I realized I wasn’t going to finish it in time unless I rushed – and it’s not a game I want to rush!

I also considered Tormented Souls II, but I didn’t think I’d finish that in time either… and then I realized I’d never blogged about the first game before!

I’ve mentioned it a few times in passing, but now it’s finally time to talk abut Tormented Souls.

Tormented Souls is a survival horror game styled after the classics, and I love it.

I reviewed it for MonsterVine back when it came out in 2021, so be sure to check out my full review there.

Suffice it to say it’s an excellent survival horror game with fixed camera angles, nightmarish enemies that create a tense atmosphere, and all the exploration and puzzle-solving I could want.

It really captures the feeling of classic Resident Evil and similar games.

I’m excited to play the sequel, and even if it doesn’t surpass the original, I hope it at least comes close. Anyway, if you love classic survival horror games and haven’t tried Tormented Souls yet, it’s definitely one you should check out.

In fact, I even added it as a last-minute addition to this year’s possible contest prizes, so keep that in mind! All comments on this final day count, after all.

Celebrating All Things Spooky: Yuki

 Celebrating All Things Spooky, Reviews, Video games  7 Responses »  Tagged with: ,
Oct 272025
 

The other day, I was on social media when I saw a post about a newly released free game called Yuki.

Yuki begins with you entering an abandoned school in search of your missing best friend. Spirits haunt its halls, but you press on and begin your search.

The game has an interesting 3D pixelated art style, with sliders in the options that let you change the level of pixelization. (I immediately cranked the text pixelization option all the way down because I found it unreadable on any higher setting.) In many ways, it mimics classic survival horror games, with items to find, puzzles to solve, and even an option for tank controls.

Facing enemies, however, is a different matter. Encountering a spirit initiates an unusual form of turn-based combat. On the enemy’s turn, they attack you with bullet hell projectiles in a style very similar to Undertale. On your turn, you must choose dialogue options to talk to the spirit.

It’s basically a test of how well you’ve paid attention to understand who the spirit is and what they want, because giving them wrong answers will prolong the battle and cause them to deliver deadlier attacks.

These encounters are few in number and all story-based, so ultimately I feel like Yuki is more of an adventure game than survival horror. It only takes a little over an hour to complete, making it a compact experience with some nice exploration and a decent enough story.

Oddly enough, a few aspects make it feel like it should have been part of a bigger game. For example, you find money a couple of times, but the only thing you can do with it is trade some of it for a hat.

Yuki is short and feels like it doesn’t quite meet its full potential, but it’s also free, so it’s worth taking a look. It’s one of those games where if the dev ever makes something longer, I’ll be interested in checking it out.

Celebrating All Things Spooky: Immure (Part 1)

 Video games  8 Responses »  Tagged with:
Oct 152025
 

A few years ago, I picked up a bundle on itch.io that included a horror game called Immure.

Immure is a side-scrolling horror game about a man who finds himself trapped in a strange mansion. After seeing a glimpse of his past, his exploration takes him into another space entirely – an apartment building where a monster roams the halls.

You’ll find items you need to use to get past obstacles and unlock doors, notes that shed light on the events that happened before the game, and places to hide from the monsters. In addition to hiding, you can stop monsters temporarily by shooting them.

There’s another mechanic as well, a mysterious crystal that acts as your light but can also be used to reveal secrets.

What really stood out to me is that you can choose whether to save or destroy the monsters by making use of the information you learn about them, which reminds me a bit of the Spirit Hunter series. I enjoyed it there, and I liked seeing it here, as well.

Now, after playing for about an hour, I finished the apartment section and returned to the mansion, and that’s when I learned that what I actually got in the bundle was Immure Part 1.

Part 2 is only available on Steam, as DLC for the first part, but since Part 1 is free on Steam, I could download it and buy Part 2. However, it seems the remaining parts will probably never be developed, so even playing Part 2 will leave me with an incomplete experience. It’s a shame to see that it didn’t work out, especially since the game seems so promising!

I might still get Part 2 one of these days, but in the meantime, the first part of Immure is an enjoyable horror game worth taking a look at if you don’t mind knowing its mysteries may remain unresolved.

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