Game: Soul Catcher
Platform: PC
Genre: adventure game, survival horror
Style: light Lovecraftian influences
Verdict: Mixed
Lovecraft Video Games received a review copy of Soul Catcher through the Steam Curator Program.
Soul Catcher is a horror adventure game with retro graphics in which you pick from one of six characters (based on what you say you value the most) and search a mysterious mansion in order to save someone you love.
While it has very simple graphics, it uses them effectively for some well-timed jump scares and subtler bits of creepiness, with stylish rotoscope cutscenes for the most significant moments. Gameplay-wise, you’ll be searching the mansion for items to solve puzzles to unlock doors and so on – the usual adventure game and survival horror formula.
Some of the puzzles are pretty clever, and there are also notes scattered around the mansion to provide clues and flesh out the story.
Unfortunately, there are a few frustrations as well. The biggest one is that you can’t save manually at all. The game only saves after certain key events. This means if you’re stuck or if you’ve made some progress but haven’t solved the next big puzzle yet and you need to stop playing, you’ll need to start over from that last checkpoint.
That frustration is mitigated somewhat by the game’s short length. It should take 1-2 hours for your first playthrough, and then subsequent playthroughs will be much shorter.
You see, while your choice of character changes the character’s personal story and some aspects of the mansion’s layout, such as important notes being found in different places, the basic structure of the game remains the same. If you’ve gone through it once, you’ll largely know what to do.
Add in a chase that requires you to follow a very specific path to survive (which results it in feeling tedious rather than scary), an occasional glitch where the game freezes (which ties back to the autosave-only frustration), and unclear points that change what options are available to you, and it becomes hard to recommend Soul Catcher.
It’s a shame, because Soul Catcher has some great scares and creepy moments, and the story is pretty interesting – although only lightly Lovecraftian, with dark rituals pertaining to an ancient entity.
You might find some enjoyment here, but right now Soul Catcher feels a bit too rough around the edges.