Whether you play individually or cooperatively, you will face frustrations. While Young Souls is fine as a solitary experience, overcoming a tough boss with another person can feel especially gratifying. My colleague carried a bulky axe and would intermittently use the tag button to dart next to me, dishing out large amounts of damage to unsuspecting foes before retreating out of harmвЂ™s way. With an associate, I took the role of well-armored tank who drew the interest of enemies. But with a co-op partner, additional possibilities open up. When playing solo, shifting between twins, youвЂ™ll probably cultivate different builds for each twin. New weapons spur you into adopting different play styles with their divergent speed, reaches, specials, and passive abilities. ThereвЂ™s even a level recommendation offered by each stage to ensure that Tristan and Jenn donвЂ™t get in over their heads.ДЄ meandering course through Young Souls results in a gratifying supply of dividends. For most of the journey, you can select from different stages, opting to tackle compulsory, optional, and key-locked levels. When progress does come to a standstill, the gameвЂ™s mostly non-linear structure permits for some grinding. But play on normal and the game descends into frustration, with bosses that persistently guard and can kill one of the twins with a trio of hits. Tackle Young Souls on the easier difficulty and youвЂ™ll face a manageable challenge, undermined by the sporadic difficulty spike.

Remarkably, its quite a technical game and youвЂ™ll need to exploit i-frames, manage cooldowns, and shift between twins to maximize your health bar. But before long, youвЂ™ll start perceiving openings, parlaying a parry into a short combo. Although a tutorial explains basic moves, thereвЂ™s little instruction on when to employ each of them. YouвЂ™ll have to learn the cadence of combat on your own. But the game compels a persistent defensive stance and regular dashes to keep the tag-teaming twins from leaving their backs open to attack. Initially, the fault was solely mine as I was playing Young Souls like a traditional brawler. I really appreciated that.ДЄ Few Cheap Shots in an Otherwise Fair FightДЄt times, I didnвЂ™t like the actual combat as much. While the dialog is never too verbose, occasionally the game punctuates conversations with a line or two that adds poignancy to the exchanges.

But several tender moments make Young Souls conversations far better than the threats, boasts, and retorts that make up most brawler scripts. I didnвЂ™t expect to care for the characters, thinking it would be the combat that was the hook. This decision to veer slightly from formula is one of Young Souls best strengths. Traveling to the underworld to save your faultless father is cliched but making your way there to rescue a well-intentioned but inattentive care-giver proves more interesting. As such, the twins are prodded into action, striving to save a fallible father figure. Soon, Dwarvengobben, the goblin king, abducts the professor and forces into helping with an assault aimed at the planetвЂ™s surface. He tries his best at surrogacy but is also obsessed with a mysterious project that he works on in the basement laboratory. Recently, theyвЂ™ve been adopted by a well-meaning but overworking professor. As orphans, they were forced to depend on each other, which is evident in their distrustful and hardheaded attitudes. And while that habit might seem incongruent with the cartoonish look of the game, the dialog sounds like how teens actually speak. When we first meet the siblings, Tristan has a habit of dropping F-bombs. But what truly separates Young Souls from its peers is storytelling thatвЂ™s surprising accomplished. Expectedly, thereвЂ™s some light role-playing, as you cultivate the twinвЂ™s abilities. ThereвЂ™s a sizeable overworld that can be navigated on foot or via scooter, which helps to make the gameвЂ™s setting feel more realized.

But thatвЂ™s only one of the gameвЂ™s ambitions, which showcases traits from other genres. Sure, thereвЂ™s plenty of intense fighting, with teenaged, crimson-haired twins Tristan and Jenn taking on a succession of goblins. Price: $24.99, $22.49 launch discount priceДescribing Young Souls as a brawler is tragically reductive. Platform: PC, PlayStation 4, Switch, Xbox One

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