Beat Souls Review (Xbox One)

STAFF REVIEW of Beat Souls (Xbox One)

Monday, February 28, 2022.
by Adam Dileva

The mid to late 90’s was when we really started seeing a slew of music based rhythm games. Ever since then I’ve become a massive fan of any rhythm based game, so many of my early favorites were PaRappa the Rapper, Bust a Groove, Dance Dance Revolution, Beatmania, Amplitude, Rock Band and really anything from Bemani, Konami’s music division, just to name a few. Any time a new music based rhythm game releases I’m instantly intrigued, so the latest in the somewhat rare genre now is Beat Souls from ZOO Corporation and Eastasiasoft. Self-described as a ‘cyberpop’ game, you can expect challenging gameplay, vibrant visuals and an anime inspired theme.

Being a connoisseur of musical games, I have to say, Beat Souls is one of the more unique rhythm games I’ve played in recent memory. Of course your goal is like most others in the genre, trying to amass a combo and high score to unlock new songs and move onto the next or try your skills in the harder difficulties. With dozens of songs on the docket to get into, I was excited to see what Beat Souls had to offer and if it would scratch that proverbial rhythm itch I’ve’ been having for a few years.

Don’t expect any sort of compelling narrative or story, not that many musical games have them, but Beat Souls simply has you playing a song to completion to unlock the next and a higher difficulty before eventually having access to the whole library. To do so you’ll need to have a musical prowess, incredibly quick reflexes and a resilience to overly bland song selections.

A musical rhythm game lives or dies by its music song list, which is why I still listen to classics from old games in the genre decades later, but I doubt I’d see myself searching for the song list from Beat Souls anytime soon with its uninteresting soundtrack, not that the songs are bad by any means, but they are very unmemorable, so don’t expect any licensed bangers you'll be tapping your foot to.

As you progress through the song list you’ll unlock up to four playable characters, each with their own unique perks to suit your playstyle and help against your weaknesses. Each character has fifteen songs to compete in and become more challenging the further into their set list you get. Based on your score you’ll receive a rank with bonus points coming for full combos and no hits.

Likes most games in the genre, notes will come from the top of the screen to the bottom, where you’ll need to collect them. As levels get harder, the songs not only get faster but there will be many more obstacles to avoid and more challenging note placement that will take some serious finger dexterity. Essentially you want to collect as many notes as possible to fill your Fever Gauge and avoid any obstacles so you don’t fail the song after losing your health.

Most rhythm games either have you hitting a correct note at the bottom of the screen to the beat at a precise moment, or collecting notes in some way. Beat Souls is no different, but its method is a bit more unique than most. Your character can move freely across five different lanes, tasked with catching all of the notes in various lanes that coincide with the beat of the music. Thing is, instead of your character ‘catching’ the notes, you have two “Otomo” companions that rest on each side of you that need to collect the notes, not your character. If your character hits the Beat Souls, you take damage, so it takes some practice and getting used to for placing your character not in the lane of the souls, but making sure your Otomo do instead.

As your character runs towards the top of the screen the lanes appear to come towards you, like any other endless runner, but you’ll have to maneuver quickly to not only avoid obstacles, but also placing your Otomo’s in the correct lane of the notes coming towards the bottom of the screen where you are. On top of regular walls that need to be avoided in the moving lanes, you’ll also have to look for markers on the floor to jump over as well, or again, you’ll take some damage. Thankfully now and then there are heart pickups to refill some health, but you’re going to have to be very quick with the reflexes to catch these as well, though with your character and not the Otomo’s, so keep that in mind.

So as you move left and right to change lanes as the Beat Souls flow downward, you’re also going to have to move your Otomo from side to side as well. By default one will rest in the lane to your character’s left and right, but using the Bumpers will place both Otomo on that side. This means pressing Right Bumper will have one Otomo to your right and another two lanes over on the right as well. The same goes for pressing Left Bumper, moving them to the two lanes to the left of your character. Get used to this, as the latter half of the game heavily uses this mechanic, as it’ll be the only way to collect both notes at once without your character hitting an obstacle.

To make things even more challenging, later on you’re also going to have to change your Otomo from their default Yellow color to Blue to catch the same color of notes as well. It seems like only a few mechanics to memorize, but it can become quite chaotic quickly, especially since the difficulty can ramp up out of nowhere.

While Beat Souls is quite colorful and vibrant with its palette, because of the speed of the songs and how many wall obstacles there can be on screen at one time, gameplay can become quite confusing at times. Not impossible by any means, but even a music genre veteran like myself had to replay a few songs multiple times to simply get a passing grade. Remember, you need to not get your character hit by the notes or walls, or doing so will reset your combo meter and cause your health to drain, eventually causing a song fail.

The harder songs near the end become quite challenging, having you constantly moving your character, swapping sides with your Otomo and changing their colors to collect the frenzy of notes all while avoiding a wall of damaging obstacles. There’s a leveling system in place, but I don’t see why, as there’s nothing really tied to it aside from achievements. There’s no unlocks or anything else tied to having a higher level, so I question why it’s even included in the first place. Speaking of achievements, I thought it was going to be a grind to get them, but by the time I played through the set list once, I had them all without any extra effort.

Normal difficulty isn’t too bad until the last handful of levels, but completing a level unlocks its Hard mode, obviously more of a challenge. There’s even a Hell mode for songs for those that want an endless mode that’s incredibly harder. The majority of Beat Souls is much too easy, then you hit this wall of insanely difficult songs that require some serious reflexes and memorization of note patterns.

Where Beat Souls falters the most is with is completely forgettable soundtrack, almost a cardinal sin when it comes to musical games. This isn’t to say the music is bad, but it’s all instrumental and certain songs feels like they are just chunks of a larger song, cutoff for an individual level like piecemeal. I normally gravitate towards a more House or JPop-like track, but none were really all that catchy and I’ve basically already forgotten them by the time of writing this review. With some known or licensed music, Beat Souls could have had me wanting to keep playing longer term.

The aesthetics are cute, vibrant and anime inspired chibi characters, but the levels themselves almost have too much going on at once to really take in an enjoy. With the harder levels you almost need to zone out, not focusing on one lane, simply trying to use your peripheral vision to see the note stream coming down the screen and hopefully reacting in time.

Beat Souls adds some interesting twists but ultimately will be forgotten by the time you’ve gotten all of its achievements due to the lack of online play. Sure you could reach for online leaderboards if that’s your thing, but aside from that reason alone, something just felt ‘missing’. I truly love rhythm games and am always excited to try a new one when they release, and Beat Souls was no different, but I doubt I’ll go back to play anytime soon unless showing someone for a very specific reason.

**Beat Souls was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**

Overall: 6.0 / 10
Gameplay: 6.5 / 10
Visuals: 6.0 / 10
Sound: 5.0 / 10

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STAFF REVIEW of Beat Souls (Xbox One)

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