Soulstone Survivors, as the name implies, is a “survivor” game as in Vampire Survivors; You do multiple runs where you start almost from scratch, unlock new abilities and passive boosts from a pool of choices by defeating enemies and leveling up, then at some point get overwhelmed, gain some resources and progression for your troubles, and start over. I did almost everything in this game; there was a lot to unlock and the moment to moment gameplay was very satisfying!
You start the game with a little tutorial where you already control a high level character with high stats, but then the loop starts for real. You pick one of 23 heroes, each with their stat modifiers, unique skills and weapons (that also bring unique skills and stats), then choose from a handful of game modes. There’s the classic one where you must defeat enough enemies until bosses spawn, then take those out to progress, there’s one where you have to hang on multiple rounds where your skills reset constantly with a special boss fighting you at the end, and there’s one where you fight multiple bosses to unlock seals to get to the main villain of the game; the void king.
In your arsenal are a lot of different skills with a ton of effects, either on you or enemies. There are damaging status effects that all have their specific quirks, buffs and debuffs that synergize with each other. You get specific skills by using specific weapons, but then each character has their own pool of moves, and it’s always fun to build up a satisfying loadout, even after the 90th hour of playtime. You also have runes that you unlock as you level up characters and complete achievements and you can use these to further specialize your builds. Finally each character has their own skill tree that you level as you gain experience in maps, some nodes will boost only that character, unlock new runes, passive abilities, or even boost all your characters, making your subsequent runs a bit easier.
As for the moment to moment gameplay itself, you only move your character around and can aim the general direction your attacks go, but dodging attacks is more or less the biggest of your worries. The game is good at showing you area of effects for enemy moves, but some attacks are less good at that than others, after you level up, you pick a new skill or a boost from three choices, and there are the classic options to reroll, lock, or banish them that you progressively gain. One of the biggest issues with the game is that all the moves have fun visual flourishes but it completely becomes impossible to see anything if you leave attack visuals on, the screen will get filled will nonsense and will completely hide you, the enemies, and everything else, thus making it almost impossible to play. Luckily there’s a way to toggle the visibility of moves, but I more or less always played with them completely disabled, which is a bit of a shame.
Otherwise the progression is quite satisfying, there is a bit of a push-and-pull at the beginning where you’re lacking in certain resources and need to do specific maps in order to gain them, especially to craft new weapons and unlock new passive abilities, but after a while you start swimming in materials. The later game modes are very fun too, with there special, extra-powerful effects that you can try to gain to really make a build shine. I’ve done virtually all the achievements, except the “secret” ones, which is a bit of a shame, but I had the feeling that levels have some obscure tricks or mechanics that you needed to interact with in a very specific way in order to unlock… something! Without the game telling you anything, of course.
Overall, I had a great time with Soulstone Survivors! I like that kind of game, but I haven’t played a lot since Halls of Torment. Give this one a shot if you enjoy the genre as well!
