I was going to skip this week in favor of posting how much I dislike Overwatch 2 but I stumbled upon a really sweet demo. I will post how much I dislike Overwatch 2 later on in the week but for now, this week’s demo is SoulQuest.

SoulQuest is a hack-and-slash game from SoulBlade Studio LLC and TomasJPereyra. There is absolutely no information about the game on the Steam page.

You take the role of a young woman who is looking to become powerful enough to save a friend. The demo takes place right before the protagonist ventures off on this quest.

The gameplay has plenty of platforming and hack-and-slash. The game introduces both of these organically through regular encounters and conversations with the protagonist’s acquaintances. Bad guys spawn in, and you take them out with the ability to wield the sword and dance like an acrobat and take their souls. Use those souls to purchase upgrades to moves, magic, and abilities, rinse and repeat. I have nothing bad to say about combat in general because you can get into a fight and juggle enemies until their health bar goes to zero. The game encourages you to take combat in any way that the player pleases. There are five types of enemies introduced: two flying enemies, a shield and sword man, and a heavy swordsman. All have health bars and stamina bars that can be exhausted which results in a stun.

Combat is really fun, and it is the star of this show.

Platforming is fun. It is used more for traversal of the world, and it works really well. The player can dodge to gain that extra foot to get that ledge.

The voice acting is a little wonky but it doesn’t ruin the game.

Pixel graphics yet again. It looks really nice and the enemies look really spooky. There’s a cave system in the later half of the demo and it has quite a nice combination of colors.

SoulQuest so far has a bunch of great attributes to it. The combat is so far above average, it looks great, and the platforming is fun. The only gripe I have is that when the player gets hit by an enemy, there is a window of not being able to move, which invites more enemies to essentially stun-lock you to death. I had gotten frustrated a few times but not bad enough to quit the demo.

Fun video game. I really recommend playing the demo