Beat Souls Review

Developed by Eastasiasoft Limited, ZOO Corporation and published by Eastasiasoft Limited, Beat Souls is the new rhythm game in town and it’s bringing a lot of colour. Beat Souls has taken the scrolling vertical column from Guitar Hero and turned it into apart obstacle course part skill game. There is still some music and rhythm to the game but for me, it feels like they are in the background.

The game defines itself as a high-speed rhythm game but I feel that is only partly true. They introduce you to 4 anime females you can choose from. Their description reads like something from a dating website and ignores the fact one of them has a tail but it is anime so anything goes. What is relevant is their skill which is unique for each and helps either to get through a level or to aim for a higher score.

There is only one option to play through and that is the stage select mode. Here you get a selection of 45 Stages of varying difficulty. Initially, you have to play through each track to unlock each of them up to the final 45^th track. But once you have completed a stage in normal mode you unlock the hard mode. If that is not enough challenge there is also a hell mode option where you play for as long as you can as things get faster and more difficult.

The gameplay itself is an explosion of colour and pretty animations with the whole screen pretty much pulsating. It’s very psychedelic with lots of rainbow colours and neon looking animations. Once your eyes have adjusted to that, you then have to grasp the skill of this game. The simple part is that you use either the left stick or D-pad left or right to avoid the obstacles called noise. The next part is trickier as you have a flame on either side of you called an Otomo and you have to line these up to the upcoming beat souls to catch them. Sometimes you will need to use your bumper buttons to move the Otomos so they both go to one side of you depending on the layout of the upcoming beat souls. The next skill to learn is that some of the upcoming beat souls change colour so you need to press X to change the colour of your Otomos to catch them. Lastly, as you are dodging the noise obstacles there are also floor obstacles that you need to jump over too. It is very much a plate-spinning act and on the much later levels on the harder difficulty, this becomes immensely tricky.

The audio is what lets the game down a little bit as all the tracks become techno background tracks with no substance. They are mostly down by the artist DI math-cow a.k.a Raven Sky with a couple of tracks by T.F which I don’t have a clue about. Every time you move there is a clicking sound and every time you collect beat souls there is a jingling hand bell sound and both don’t gel with the background track. The only blessing is that on some of the hard levels you concentrate so hard on the skill elements you stop noticing sound altogether and are just focusing on the vibrant pulsating rainbow. But it doesn’t sit well with me that it is a rhythm game but the sounds don’t mix well and I wouldn’t even say you collect the beat souls within the beat or rhythm of the song. It mostly feels like you are playing a vertical platformer with some annoying noises and forgettable background tracks.

There is a lot of challenge to this game, especially in the later levels as it is a good test of your reflexes and multitasking. But for all your effort of getting through a tricky level with your fingers on fire of such fast movement, there just doesn’t feel very rewarding. With Guitar Hero, it’s a skill game but you usually enjoy the song you are playing along to which is the reward. But after you have completed each stage on normal there is very little dragging you back to play it again on a harder difficulty or to try and get a perfect score.

Conclusion

Beat Souls is an interesting take on the musical rhythm game genre. They have managed to inject platform game elements into it which work pretty well and are tricky to master. The bright colours and animation are very vibrant and immersive but I feel it was let down by the audio as the sound effects don’t blend with the music and the music itself is pretty bland.

This game was tested and reviewed on Xbox Series X/S. All of the opinions and insights here are subject to that version. Game provided by publisher.