Soulbind: Tales Of The Underworld Preview | From Death To Redemption (PC)

Playing Soulbind: Tales Of The Underworld is both a thrilling and frustrating experience in some of the best ways. Using a simple modification system can not only benefit the player with new skills but also hinder them if they aren’t careful. It’s this level of knowledge scaling that makes SoulBind: Tales Of The Underworld incredibly enjoyable to play. In that regard, it’s a perfectly good Rogue-like if you have the patience to deal with tanky controls and a learning curve. Personally, it was a fun time to burn through some of the areas, however, the game has a very short appeal. 

No matter how much I tried to stay interested in it, the gameplay and story proved to be average at best. Of course, a lot of this was locked behind the early development phases, however, it left a lot to be desired. Keeping everything from the gameplay that was witnessed in mind, SoulBind: Tales Of The Underworld could be the next Skul: The Hero Slayer. With different weapons, body parts, and powers you could play this over and over in a finished state. To that end pick up your sword and let’s travel through the depths of the underworld!

Soulbind: Tales Of the Underworld will be available on Steam in early access now for 5.99!

A Story In The Making

Being a tale of finding oneself once they die, you’ll be washed out of the river Styx as nothing but a skeleton with no name. As you progress through the underworld, you’ll have to defeat countless swarms of enemies ranging from rats to liches that attempt to impede you. Along the way, you’ll have to find an endless amount of parts and combinations to try and learn what happened to you. The world is static, and the enemies unforgiving, but each time you will journey farther than you had before. In this regard, there isn’t much else you can do besides explore through the endless hordes, and try to make your way further and further into this unique world.

Perhaps because of the fact that this game is still in development, it seems more of an endless slog than anything else. Otherwise, I’d like to hope that there will be more in the future in terms of a story, because what’s there isn’t fully worth getting through. It’s one of those features that really does seem like it’s middle of the road. Ultimately, it could be a great story to follow up on, but until it has a few more elements added it’s very hard to accommodate. 

Clunky Gameplay

One of the best aspects of Soulbind: Tales of the Underworld was its gameplay, as the hack-and-slash mechanics are both clunky and appealing at the same time. Perhaps it’s because I played the game solely on mouse and keyboard, but the control scheme felt very rough and hard to pace. However, once you do get the hang of it, things can get increasingly More entertaining the farther you go. You’ll run into monsters and undead that drop loot and experience points that can help you better defeat your foes. The best part about this aspect of the game is that you’ll always have the ability to both mutate yourself and build your parts up by collecting parts dropped by enemies. 

Interesting attack animations in Soulbind Tales Of The Underworld

Unfortunately, like the rest of the game, it’s clear that the developers want to add other weapons like the staff which has a coming soon piece on the screen. This leaves you for now playing with a sword that is both fun at first but leaves you bored after a few play-throughs. Of any rogue-like, in its current state, I had the hardest time getting through more than a couple of hours at a time. This comes from the fact that the gameplay gets repetitive. It’s the same thing with only a few different abilities for 30-45 minutes which makes it difficult to slog through. 

A Mixture Of Graphics

The art style of Soulbind: Tales Of The Underworld is meant to appear as arcadey as possible with tracks of drawn art. While not a terrible route to go down, sometimes the creatures tend to blend into the scenery itself which makes it hard to get a lock on them. This isn’t usually a problem until enemies have found their way near destroyable boxes, so you can run into them after you’ve cleared the area. Alternatively, the art style tends to lend itself to a more open-ended death and decay vibe; leaving the player okay with dying and starting again. To put it bluntly, you don’t feel as bad dying when you know you just kind of washed up in the water a few hours prior.

While I really enjoyed the art style, the main issue I had was that the areas really just looked all the same scenery-wise. The enemy, body parts, and everything else in their unfinished state are incredibly repetitive which makes it hard to stay invested. This game could be incredibly good, offering to tackle some of the more difficult aspects of a roguelike by offering choice, opportunity, and a unique setting. However, it is subverted by the fact that it all looks the same, and multiple playthroughs don’t feel that meaningful. 

Repetitive Sound Quality

Soulbind: Tales Of The Underworld has some decent music in its design, however, it’s repetitive and goes on for the duration of your game. At least in this regard, they have alternated between a few different soundtracks for you to enjoy. Ultimately though, it wasn’t one of the most enjoyable aspects when paired with the noises of the sound effects themselves. These sound effects were clunky and made the game harder to get through seeing every enemy have a flash-era swinging sound. Overall, like the rest of this game, one has to hope in its finished state all of this will be addressed. Until then it’s a bit difficult to know whether this game will be a run to first base, or a home run.

Unique lighting and scenery within Soulbind Tales of The Underworld

The improvements to sound could really come from anywhere, but hopefully, it’ll be with more soundtracks and more mixed enemy noises. It can get a little boring after more than a half-hour hearing the same exact things over and over. Of course, another major upgrade that could be made is simply adding boss fights to the game with their own level of upgrades. Otherwise, between a better mixture of sound quality, and more to do, there could be so much more added to Soulbind: Tales Of The Underworld.

Soulbind: Tales Of The Underworld was played on PC with limited features with a key provided by RubedoGames!