It’s easy to dismiss certain games, especially those that venture into adult territory, as merely a collection of explicit content. Sometimes, the hype surrounding an R18 title on platforms like Steam can feel a bit overblown, promising a masterpiece that, stripped of its mature themes, might just be… okay. But then, every so often, a game emerges that genuinely defies those expectations. 'Black Souls,' which recently landed on Steam, is one such title.
Don't let the recent Steam release fool you; 'Black Souls' has been around since 2017. Yet, its enduring appeal is evident in its current 95% positive rating on the platform, with many buyers being long-time fans finally getting a chance to 'pay their dues.' This isn't just another 'adult game'; for its dedicated fanbase, it’s something far more profound.
Crafted single-handedly by an individual known as Sushi Hero using RPG Maker, 'Black Souls' began as a fan game paying homage to the Souls series. It was infused with a dark, fairy tale aesthetic, but it quickly blossomed into something much larger. And yes, it's unequivocally an R18 experience, with a significant portion of its design and appeal rooted in its mature content. While some of these elements might be considered extreme, they’re handled with a certain artistic flair, reminiscent of niche manga rather than gratuitous shock value.
However, the truly remarkable aspect of 'Black Souls' is that its adult content, while integral, isn't its sole defining feature. Many players find the gameplay itself to be the real draw. The game boasts a complex, epic scope that offers a truly unique experience, one that’s hard to replicate. It’s less of a classic R18 game and more of a cult classic within the gaming world.
'Black Souls' is just the beginning, too. The narrative continues and expands in the even more ambitious 'Black Souls 2,' with the overarching story still awaiting its full conclusion in future installments.
A Soulslike Twist on Turn-Based Combat
The gameplay is where 'Black Souls' truly carves its own niche. It’s a peculiar blend of turn-based combat and Soulslike mechanics. You won't find the real-time action of games like 'Expeditions: Rome,' but you will encounter the signature difficulty, the soul-dropping mechanic upon death, and the bonfire system that respawns enemies. The combat itself isn't a simple exchange of blows; enemies can unleash devastating attacks that can quickly deplete your health. Success hinges on carefully watching enemy action bars and timing dodges precisely when they're about to strike.
A Twisted Fairy Tale World
The narrative mirrors the Soulslike influence, presenting a cryptic, fragmented story that, upon closer inspection, reveals a coherent tale. You play as an undead protagonist who finds themselves in a bizarre, collapsing fairy tale universe. Here, classic fairy tale characters have been twisted into monstrous forms, all seemingly stemming from a corrupted Cinderella, now a 'Demon Princess.' To save this world, you must defeat four such 'Demon Princesses': Snow White, the Frog Princess, Rapunzel, and the Little Mermaid.
Each area is steeped in a dark fairy tale theme. Bosses include corrupted versions of characters like the Ugly Duckling, the Big Bad Wolf, and the Bremen Town Musicians. Your allies are equally iconic, featuring Little Red Riding Hood, Dorothy from 'The Wizard of Oz,' Joan of Arc, and various fairy tale sprites.
This is a grand mashup of dark fairy tales, infused with adult themes of desire and malice. It’s a world that feels both like the despair of Dark Souls and the edgy, underground youth manga of the 90s. The Frog Princess drains the life force of heroes, surrounded by mountains of corpses. The Little Match Girl sells matches made from human remains. To recruit Dorothy, you must first defeat her former companions: the Lion, Tin Man, and Scarecrow.
Your protagonist is a hybrid of demon and hero, capable of defiling any character or offering salvation to any soul.
Navigating the Darkness
Prepare yourself for a challenging journey. While some consider the first game’s difficulty manageable, this often assumes the aid of guides. Plunging in blind can lead to a trial-and-error experience. The game offers minimal guidance; some players have even reached the end without realizing they could sprint. Bonfire placement can be frustratingly obscure, lacking the visual cues of 3D games, making them hard to find. The game also harbors a dark, old-school Soulslike sense of humor.
For instance, choosing the Thief class at the start grants you souls but immediately throws you into an encounter with an overpowered boss, leading to a scripted defeat. The silver lining? The game allows for quick saving, reducing reliance on bonfires. However, this same 'Soulslike malice' can sometimes backfire.
Consider the breadcrumbs in the starting forest. Picking them up reveals their healing properties, but doing so triggers the appearance of two difficult, corrupted bosses in the witch's hut. This is a nod to 'Hansel and Gretel'; picking the breadcrumbs leads the siblings to get lost and transform into monsters. Without any warning, players can inadvertently trap themselves by saving after picking them up, only to face these formidable foes.
As a solo-developed indie title, 'Black Souls' isn't without its gameplay imperfections or occasional numerical imbalances. At certain points, leveling up with souls might be less effective than purchasing direct stat-boosting items. Yet, like its Souls inspirations, it offers numerous 'cheese' strategies. With a guide, it can feel like a classic JRPG.
Exploiting the environment, like repeatedly checking wall cracks in the starting area for a ring that doubles soul and item drops, or defeating the initial dragon for powerful gear, can significantly ease progression. Some difficult encounters have 'skip' mechanics; an intimidating boss made of eyeballs can be bypassed with invisibility magic. You can also summon up to three companions into battle. These allies offer sharp commentary and engage in witty banter, each with a distinct personality. Hilariously, a companion might comment on a boss based on 'The Emperor's New Clothes,' causing the boss to lose composure and significantly lower their defenses.
This echoes the classic 'Baldur's Gate 2' philosophy: if you can't beat it, outsmart it.
The Unforgettable Narrative Core
But these mechanics, while engaging, aren't the primary reason 'Black Souls' has achieved cult status. It's the unforgettable story and character design that truly resonate.
Let's delve deeper into the story, with a spoiler warning. The initial narrative of saving the kingdom is, in fact, a facade. During your quest, you'll stumble upon anomalies. A boat appearing in the seemingly safe 'Sacred Forest' leads you down a river to a boss composed of unnamable eyeballs – a 'Watcher.' Across this river lies a hidden cabin, home to Little Red Riding Hood, a crucial companion throughout the 'Black Souls' saga. She exhibits no romantic desires but possesses immense power and a singular obsession with eradicating someone. Why is she confined to this hidden space, and why does her guardian monster feel so disconnected from the rest of the story?
Successfully defeating the five Demon Princesses according to the game's guidance allows for a 'happy ending' with a chosen female character. Yet, these fairy tale conclusions always feel incomplete, as if violently torn apart into tragedy.
Sushi Hero demonstrates a remarkable talent for characterization and dialogue. Simple lines can be profoundly moving, imbuing female characters with endearing charm and distinct personalities, making them instantly recognizable. This writing prowess lends significant emotional weight to the narrative, and despite the Soulslike fragmented pacing, players develop strong bonds with their companions.
These heroines' endings are bound to leave you with a sense of regret and longing. Take Miranda, a killer companion inspired by 'Demon's Souls' Maneaters,' who knows only bloodshed. Through her interactions with you, she begins to grasp something more profound, even sacrificing herself to allow you to escape a powerful foe. If you choose to end the game with Miranda, you embark on a life of wandering together. Her soul is etched with killing, and you walk this path, swords clashing for glory. Countless monsters, enemies, and assassins fall. But in a final battle against an empire, Miranda dies in your arms, a smile of contentment on her face, surrounded by a sea of corpses. Your undead nature prevents you from joining her in death, leaving you to live on in solitude. As her life fades, you hear a baby's cry from her body.
No fairy tale ending is truly happy. Little Red Riding Hood eventually leaves to pursue a mysterious entity, leaving a note begging you to treat her as an ordinary girl if she ever returns. Dorothy and you live a happy life, only for her to perish after giving birth to a monstrous offspring.
These bleak outcomes compel players to seek the truth of this world. In a secret area, a library awaits, presided over by 'Alice,' the mysterious woman from the game's beginning. You learn that to uncover the world's truth, you must fill the library with fairy tale books. The enemies you defeated transform into their original fairy tale forms. But it's not just enemies; your companions, and even Alice, are part of some fairy tale. You must personally kill each companion and Alice to fill the shelves.
This unlocks a hidden path to the world's true nature. It's a realm created by an Outer God fascinated by human fairy tales, who placed beloved characters within a 'sandbox' world. However, this Outer God grew bored with predictable happy endings and craved twisted narratives, thus dooming all fairy tale characters to suffering.
When you confront this Outer God, you discover she has been by your side all along, disguised as one of the heroines. The idyllic 'Sacred Forest' is, in reality, a hellish landscape cloaked in illusion.
And you, the nameless undead? You are a creation of this Outer God, a fusion of countless fairy tale authors' souls. Thus, you are destined to have one side forever steeped in the abyss of desire, reflecting the truth behind human fairy tale creation, while simultaneously being drawn to the pursuit of happiness within them. Your true name is Grimm.
'Black Souls 1' concludes with your confrontation with the Outer God. As a mortal, you cannot defeat her. In this divine game, every character is merely a plaything, destined to struggle in eternal pain.
The Expanding Universe of 'Black Souls 2'
Some argue that 'Black Souls' is merely a good game, but only when considered as a whole with 'Black Souls 2' and its three DLCs does it truly earn the title of a masterpiece. 'Black Souls' itself is a fusion of dark fairy tales and Soulslike elements. Its sequel, however, is a colossal entity that merges 'Alice in Wonderland,' 'Bloodborne,' and Lovecraftian mythos.
Its complexity far surpasses the first game, introducing new mechanics and a significantly increased difficulty. For instance, various actions in 'Black Souls 2' affect your 'Sen' (Madness) value, the inverse of Sanity. Your perception of the world changes based on your Sen level. A high-Sen Grimm can see monsters and converse with the insane, while a low-Sen Grimm glimpses the true world. The game features two distinct inner and outer worlds, requiring constant cycling between them to uncover the truth.
The game's presentation is also vastly upgraded, with some horror sequences that will leave you breathless. At times, it abruptly shifts into a labyrinthine visual novel, filled with mystery and hidden clues.
The surface-level story is straightforward: the Outer God from the first game isn't the only one. A more powerful Outer God, Nyarlathotep, hosts a feast, casting you into another sandbox world where countless other entities play the roles of fairy tale characters, enacting a grotesque, pitch-black hellish drama. Later, it escalates into a survival battle between Outer Gods, Elder Gods, and entities.
Unlike the first game, the theme of this vast, convoluted story gradually emerges: in a world of unending darkness and hopelessness, what is the meaning of humanity's struggle against the insurmountable? And in a world where everyone can be defiled, and all vows and happiness are shattered, what truly is love?
If the first game felt like a blend of dark fairy tales and Soulslikes, the second, inspired by 'Bloodborne' and Lovecraftian lore, evokes another classic: 'Berserk.'
'Berserk' is an immortal classic in manga history, depicting the most desperate and cruel world imaginable, and then casting a mortal—without divine power, status, or wealth, only boundless rage and unyielding will—into it, allowing him to...
