Crossing Souls is the debut game from Spanish indie studio Fourattic, a passionate trio of developers that set out to recapture the games, media, and vibes from their youth – the 1980s. The game has an unabashedly 1980s style, complete with corny one liners, neon drenched worlds, and synth-laden music tracks. The game is focused on a group of friends living in California, during the summer of 1986. One day they discover a pink stone that lets them travel between two realms, and they get caught up in a government conspiracy. After several years of development, is the final game worth it? Read on to find out!
Crossing Souls
Publisher: Devolver Digital
Developer: Fourattic
Platform: PC (Reviewed), Mac, Linux, PlayStation 4
Release Date: February 13th, 2018
Players: 1 Player
Price: $14.99
The first thing that caught my eye is the aesthetic. It reminds me of Mother from the early NES days where you play as a kid going on an epic adventure in hopes to be home in time for dinner with mom and dad complete with roaming around a suburban neighborhood fighting off bullies with a baseball bat.
There’s even a cross dimensional time travel aspect of it that’s quite neat which reminds me a bit of Chrono Trigger. This game’s full of callbacks and nods to all the things I love about old school 8 bit / 16 bit games I grew up playing on the NES / SNES back when i was a kid.
The basic mechanics are fluid so far, the fight system doesn’t seem to be boring or repetitive and the interactive parts of the atmosphere with the different characters you can instantly switch to have all sorts of different abilities that can be utilized for various situations. It makes for a very interesting play experience to say the least.
The bad part of it however is it’s a bit glitchy and my Xbox One controller I have USB wired onto my rig doesn’t work half the time, and it’s brand new one. Keyboard controls work perfectly but the gamepad support needs tweaking and updating. Hopefully they’ll fix that later.
The boss battles can be quite challenging and you need to utilize all of your characters’ special abilities to their limits or you’ll be in for a lot of pain trying to play through it otherwise which I like. I like being challenged to the point of not being too annoying.
The soundtrack is where it shines though. It reminded me immediately of Hotline Miami’s vibe as far as the 80s synthwave music in the arcade scene in game (which can be heard and seen in my live stream) and the main theme from various cutscenes.
This game has lots of potential and I’m looking forward to playing it even more even after completing the main story. The throwback to the 80s is again a nice touch and gives off a Back to the Future movie feeling too the more I got into it and played it.
I had time to completely beat it and I was very surprised at how fleshed out the characters can be. I also loved how the story grabs you and holds your attention the entire time, and I wasn’t bored much while playing it. The aesthetic is quite nice and is definitely worth checking out.
This game is a callback to the golden age of gaming during the 8-bit era where we had legendary games like Dragon Warrior, Final Fantasy, Xanadu, Ultima, Mother, River City Ransom, and more – all the games people my age (mid 30s) grew up playing and love to this day.
It definitely has some flaws in the form of bugs with controller support where sometimes the movement sticks and I have to switch to keyboard WASD controls but it wasn’t annoying to the point where I put it down once I got determined to beat it. You should give Crossing Souls a chance, but definitely be aware of the minor issues.
Crossing Souls was reviewed on Windows PC using a review copy provided by Devolver Digital. You can find additional information about Niche Gamer’s review/ethics policy here.
