Tormented Souls 2: A Stunning Horror Relic
I had high hopes for Tormented Souls 2. As a newcomer to the series, seeing a title unapologetically dedicated to merging two of my favourite genres—atmospheric horror and complex puzzles—was exciting. I didn’t want a modern, polished hero shooter disguised as horror; I wanted that old-school, crippling sense of dread. And for the most part, developers Dual Effect have expertly delivered an experience that perfectly rewards your patience and observation.
Yet, like a grand, decaying mansion, its beautiful façade hides some glaring structural flaws. This game delivers an unsettling experience, a gorgeous love letter to PS1/PS2 survival horror that relentlessly punishes you with antiquated design choices.
The Illusion of Dread: Atmosphere, Art, and Tension
What Tormented Souls 2 achieves is a commendable imitation of classic survival horror. It has all the right ingredients, and Dual Effect deserves credit for keeping the flame of fixed-camera tradition alive in a landscape where titles like Resident Evil have moved toward over-the-shoulder action. Visually and structurally, they have mastered the craft of dread, providing a true nostalgic experience.
The game’s art design and environment, reminiscent of the early 2000s, are absolutely on point. The visuals lean into every glorious, stereotypical horror trope: dead bodies, gruesome torture equipment, creepy paintings, and vast, decaying architecture. The sound and music build a subtle background creep that had my skin tingling with anticipation that something was always just around the corner. This on-the-nose traditionalism satisfies an inherent expectation, and immerses you in its unsettling world.
Effective Tension Mechanics
With a design philosophy built on tension and deprivation, there is absolutely no autosave. Instead, you save on tape recorders, and there are limited reels of tape to find. This makes saving your progress a high-risk, strategic decision, a brutal nod to the genre’s unforgiving past, where a misstep can cost you potentially hours of gameplay. Especially when death can come from simply walking into the shadows, that, by the way, will literally eat you alive, forcing you to use your lighter—which, crucially, cannot be equipped with a weapon.
The core disappointment here lies in an industry truth: in the modern era of survival horror, gameplay mechanics have advanced too far to simply regress. While we crave that gorgeous nostalgia and a different kind of apprehension than high-fidelity visual gore, we still need a smooth and immersive gameplay experience. Tormented Souls 2 fails to blend that old-school tension with modern functionality, making its fundamental mechanical experience feel less like a choice and more like a technical oversight.
Combat the Unnecessary Chore
The movement itself is a perfect imitation of the fixed-camera era, which means it will feel natural to retro veterans, and instantly awkward to everyone else. However, the movement isn’t the problem; it’s simply the foundation upon which a frustrating combat system is built.
Creature skirmishing feels utterly unnecessary and instead of layering on the tension and fright, detracts from the central atmosphere. The game utilises an auto-lock aim, which while functional, due to the chaotic nature of the fixed camera perspective constantly yanks your target off-screen or snaps the viewpoint at the worst possible moment. The dodge mechanic, while present, felt unnatural and unreliable. This ensures every creature encounter feels less like a strategic survival moment and more like an unavoidable chore. Frankly, this game would have been more successful, for me at least, if it had leaned harder into puzzle-based threats and environmental dangers rather than forcing players into this awkward creature engagement loop.
The Intellectual Shortfall: Puzzles, Narrative, and Immersion
While the developers clearly mastered the visual craft of dread, the feeling never ascends to true, genuine horror, and this ties directly into the game’s narrative failure. The game is highly effective at making you feel apprehensive to proceed, sure, but this stems less from a creeping, psychological terror and more from the knowledge that ammo is scarce and the controls are about to betray you.
The biggest intellectual disappointment was the puzzle design. I expected elaborate, “obtuse” brain-busters that would give me a strong dopamine hit when solved. Instead, less than an hour in, the puzzle loop became all too predictable. They are less like true riddles and more simple point-and-click adventure logic. They require a mix of being observant as well as fully inspecting every item in your inventory, and the key is always just a few clicks away —a secret wall, a clue scribbled on the back of some paper, etc. If you’re stuck, it’s not because the logic is too hard, it’s because you just haven’t looked at, read, and examined everything. This leads to far too much dull backtracking through previous rooms and an almost mindless clicking through each environment.
Forgettable Narrative and Immersion Breaks
The narrative is an absolute wash. I would have appreciated any kind of intro or text prologue to the first game’s storyline, as there’s an immediate feeling that important context is missing. The story snippets found throughout are interesting enough that I didn’t skip them, but they failed to trigger any care factor for the overall plot.
Adding to the list of immersion-breaking elements is the rather in-your-face inclusion of jiggle physics on the main character. I personally don’t have issues with fanservice in a game, but in titles aiming for maximum dread and tension, having it implemented in a way that seems comical and distracting is without a doubt a negative.
Tormented Souls 2 is a game of magnificent atmosphere, crippled by maddening moments. It is a stunning visual and auditory experience that perfectly channels the look of classic survival horror. However, its brilliant design philosophy is undercut by an irritating combat loop and puzzles that substitute intellectual challenge for diligent clicking and inventory management. It wasn’t the game for me, but I do think it has a place on the download list.
Tormented Souls II was reviewed on PC with code kindly supplied by the publisher.
