In its first production, Jukai Studios deals with survival horror with Stray Souls. Much Alan Wake-esque, but really much less good.
Introduce. Your grandmother dies at a more than honorable age and you inherit her house. On your first night on a dating site, you meet a strange neighbor who seems to know more than you about the house where strange paranormal phenomena occur. For the average person, the first logical reaction would be to run away and leave the house. But Daniel wants to find out the origin of the evil plaguing his home and find out what really happened to his grandmother.
This is the starting premise of Stray Souls, the first production from Poland’s Jukai Studios, an independent team “founded by industry veterans who have been involved in the development of critically acclaimed games specializing in the horror genre.” Their mission is “to spark the next evolution of horror media,” the website explains.
In its gameplay and its approach to the survival horror style, Stray Souls directly reminds us of a certain Alan Wake. You move through natural, dark and hostile environments populated by evil creatures that are after your skin. Equipped with a flashlight (useless here, except for the lighting) and a pistol with disastrous handling, your character fights for his survival.
Stray Souls has a great atmosphere and universe, if a bit fascinating at times.
If we come back to the gameplay later, we would still like to point out the excellent atmosphere in which the game lulls us. This is probably the game’s only strength, and if anything, it’s particularly important. With a strong, disturbing but fascinating introductory film, Stray Souls lays the foundation for a disturbing plot and a completely crazy universe from the start. We never really feel comfortable in this atmosphere steeped in satanism and horror. However, the developers may have pushed the jump scares cursor a little too far to scare players. They clearly went overboard, some even becoming predictable and ridiculous. Therefore, we are lulled into this stressful environment, even if we sometimes laugh at the nonsense of certain details.
An excellent atmosphere supported by musical compositions by Mr. Akira Yamaoka, the legendary composer of Silent Hill. And for good reason, we were captivated by the accuracy and quality of the tunes throughout our adventure. On the other hand, the title is not dubbed in French at all, leaving us with sad French subtitles…
The level design is catastrophic. For example, let’s take the path to the cemetery when we find ourselves alone in a forest and face these strange creatures. Apart from the fact that we cannot see anything more than three meters away, the construction of the wood is completely unsuccessful. We wander around for more than ten minutes without really knowing where we are going, in levels that give the impression of being completely open and that all resemble each other. This also applies to cutscenes. These drag on unnecessarily, with extended dialogues that are not very interesting, although it could have been quicker and the pace quickened.
Dealing with the weapon and our hero Daniel.
As for the gameplay, Stray Souls puts us in the shoes of Daniel, armed with a pistol to defend himself against the strange creatures that may come after you. For the young man, who celebrates his eighteenth birthday during the adventure, it is impossible to defend himself with a kick or something similar, the only gestures he can perform are dodging or running. To be honest, there is nothing positive to highlight in the gameplay.
Daniel’s movements are very difficult and extremely uncomfortable. They are not at all fluid and very complicated to coordinate when you have to dodge attacks from an enemy or a boss. The worst part is probably drawing the weapon, which is only possible with a button combination. We regularly forget to draw before we start aiming, leaving us completely vulnerable to the enemy. The hitboxes are also risky, because even if you shoot next to an enemy, they will be hit…
We just talked about bosses. These are completely uninteresting. Like a big baddie, you just have to dodge them and fire shots in their direction. They simply have a larger health bar than smaller enemies, but that’s about it. Their strike pattern is completely empty, they just rush towards us and attack us. Our only mission is to avoid these meaningless enemies and then shoot them.
Visually, certain panoramas and settings are really successful.
“Empty” is the adjective we will use to define “Stry Souls.” The numerous puzzles that are thrown our way are quite well researched, although often far-fetched and devoid of logic. They are even in English, which is not always easy for those who do not know the language of Shakespeare. Additionally, the game is entirely in English with French subtitles.
It’s simple: Jukai’s production is more like a demo or early access game than a finished and marketed title. At full price it still sells for €30, but it only lasts less than five hours and is full of bugs of all kinds that terribly disrupt the immersion. Characters jumping around in the middle of a cutscene, a camera problem shaking in tight spaces… A really big patch from the developers that fixes these bugs is more than welcome, even if we doubt it will ever happen.
Visually, Stray Souls finally gets an honorable mention. Thanks to Unreal Engine 5 and Epic’s MetaHuman technology, which provides high-quality faces and facial animations, Stray Souls is honestly very successful at this level. If there’s always better somewhere else, Jukai Studios’ game is (almost) flawless for a small independent production of this level.
Diploma
With a desire to revolutionize the survival horror genre like so many other games have done before, Jukai Studios is completely indulging. Full of good intentions, Stray Souls fails in many ways. Despite a very successful atmosphere, visuals and soundtrack, Stray Souls gives the impression of a title in development, such as a demo, rather than a fully marketed game. Whether in cutscenes or during the bug-filled game, Stray Souls abuses jump scares at inopportune moments. Even the more rhythmic passages are disturbed by cutscenes that drag on and irretrievably break the rhythm that the developers try to enforce (despite everything, very rarely). We had no complaints about the title’s soundtrack, which was composed by the legendary artist who also worked on “Silent Hill,” and it adds a lot to the title’s atmosphere. Stray Souls sold for 30 euros and was finished in less than five hours. It’s a survival horror that sorely lacks ambition in its gameplay and struggles to impress on every level.
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Stray Souls
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We love :
Visually quite nice
A really successful atmosphere
A high quality soundtrack
We like less:
Too many jump scares kill jump scares
Far too many bugs disrupt the immersion
A bit like playing a demo of a game in development
Numerous passages that drag on
Little interest in boss fights