Soulvars Nintendo Switch Review 7/10 "a mobile port that’s actually worth playing" 💥 @ShueishaGamesJP #IndieGame #GameDev

SOULVARS is that rarest of things – a mobile port that’s actually worth playing. It’s got clear JRPG roots, with turn-based combat, and a pixel art style providing a nostalgia hit for the old-timers.

The game is the work of Ginolabo, a solo developer, which results in the double-edged sword of it being an impressive feat for one person (self-taught, too), but having some areas of the game where collaboration might have polished it up a little. 

The first of these is the story. You play as Yakumo, a freelance Soulbearer who works with Dominator Disposal Organisation (DDO), a military contractor dedicated to protecting the public through the elimination of, yes, Dominators. You do this through chaining attacks using Soulbits, which enable you to do the usual combos of attacking, defending and healing while trying to use the right Soulbits for the real hard-hitting moves.

The story is…well, it’s here, to a degree. Apart from the stuff mentioned above, there seems to be an awful lot that’s assumed. Characters allude to long and complex relationships between them without us getting any of the actual details. This may be due to localisation issues from the original Japanese, but it all feels a bit lacking.

 

SOULVARS is billed as a deckbuilder, but it really isn’t. Where Slay the Spire and Monster Train really lean in on the card mechanics, the only thing approaching that here is how you change up your gear to use different elements and learn new moves. Don’t get me wrong, it’s good fun once you get the hang of it, but it’s no deckbuilder.

Another niggle is the amount of lore. There’s a decent combat tutorial at the start, but after that, you’re pretty much left to figure things out on your own, from the various stats and effects through to what the in-game stuff actually is or does. There is an excellent and deep info section in the pause menu, but a bit more hand-holding at the start would stop me from pausing every 30 seconds to look something up.

 

Despite these problems though, SOULVARS is just fun. You get to do some dungeon crawling with random battles (love them or hate them), fight some difficult bosses, and once you get the hang of the inventory system you can start optimising your builds to smash that particular boss you’ve been having trouble with, which is satisfying.

 

The pixel art style really works for this sort of game, and there’s also the nice option to switch to illustrations instead. There’s also the option to add a VHS-style filter for that real 90s feel. The music is good too.

SUMMARY

Overall, SOULVARS, while it has its flaws, is a good way to revisit your glory days of staying up all night trying to kick Kefka a new one in Final Fantasy VI. 

There’s real depth here if you’re prepared to devote the time, but equally, you can dip in and out thanks to the save-anywhere feature. 

Be prepared to spend a fair amount of time reading if that’s your approach, though.