Game Review: Soulvars

Solvars is a blast from the past that’s also a straight up blast to play. The game is a pixel art, turn-based, deck building RPG that pays homage to some of your favorite JRPGs from back in the day.

You play as Yakumo a “Soul Bearer” tasked with investigating a series of attacks from “Variants” who are taking over people’s souls and transforming said souls into digital data. You explore a city, broken down into different zones completing missions, side quests and random encounters. There’s no voice acting and no actual cutscenes so the story can be a bit hard to follow. The text dialogue from the characters is an amusing mix of wholesome edginess. It’s just sparingly implemented. Anyone looking for Final Fantasy style storytelling, will likely be disappointed. What will certainly not disappoint is the gameplay, in particular it’s fast, furious, and fun combat.

The unique hook is the game’s Soulbit system. You can learn different moves or “actions” and combine them to pull off over 100 different combos. You have a party of three characters with their own unique skills and combos as well. Some combos create normal, quick, and heavy attacks. There are also charges and defenses. Loot includes, weapons, gear, and additional combos to learn. Thinking strategically is a must.

The game is so deep that some of the systems can be difficult to grasp. It doesn’t help that they are not particularly well explained. One can spend a lot of time in the menus both customizing and trying to figure out some of the systems. Mastering that deep learning curve is absolutely crucial in the latter parts of the game as the difficulty level ramps up considerably. You can sometimes escape random battles but you can’t keep runny’ away. Plus health doesn’t regenerate after each battle. This is not a game you can just farm weaker enemies to over-level yourself and cakewalk through. This is for RPG fans looking for a real challenge.

The pixel-art graphics of the game put a modern spin on the classic art style. The charters are well animated, especially in battle. Yakumo even has a Naruto-inspired run animation when he’s roaming the city. There is a day/night cycle which gives the outdoor areas some variety while exploring but this is a game set in the middle of an invasion so the color-pallet overall is bit gloomy. But it must be reiterated that the game looks fantastic in combat.

The music goes hard. The battle theme is an 8-bit banger (which is a good thing since you will be hearing it a lot). The exploration background music is also very well done. It’s all upbeat which helps contrast the doom and gloom of the game’s setting and corresponding graphical tone (color-wise).

Soulvars has a 15-20 hour playtime but one can easily sink many more hours into the deep systems and addicting combat. Plus, there’s a new game plus mode to extend that indefinitely. Add to that the slick visuals and great beats and one can forgive the overcomplicated parts and the underdeveloped storyline. The impressive thing is that this was all created by two people. The pixel artist, programmer, FX artist, and scenario writer are all one person by the name of Gino and the incredible soundtrack is by Sound Airyluvs.

The game has its positives (great music and great combat) and negatives (complicated systems and a lack of story). But in the end, the negatives are negated because you’re playing this game because it is really, really fun. And if turn-based JRPGs are your thing, this one is well worth checking out.

Score: 4/5

Platform: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Steam, Android, MS Windows, IOS, Linux

Publisher: ginolabo, Shueisha Games

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Christopher R. Ford

Writer, author, and blogger. Published author of three children's books and also writes for the boy Creators For The Culture. Part-time sneaker head, full time nerd.