Almost 5 years ago, I reviewed a mobile roguelite game called Wayward Souls and concluded that it would be a better experience on the PC, working under the assumption that its PC port would release at some point in the near future. Then developer Rocketcat games started working on the incredibly popular Death Road to Canada and everything else fell by the wayside. Half a decade and one Early Access release later, though, Wayward Souls is officially a PC game, and while I do feel that it works better as a PC title, many of its mechanics have aged poorly. Comparing Wayward Souls to something more recent like Children of Morta, it’s clear that this game is lacking some important quality of life features.

Wayward Souls tells a simple story that takes a long time to get to the point

You can play as 7 different characters in Wayward Souls (many of which are only unlocked after clearing dungeon areas), but while all of them have unique personalities, backstories, and story scenes, their motivations are rarely fleshed out enough to make them likable. The characters here are nothing more than shallow archetypes who are drawn to a tower under the flimsiest of pretenses, which brings us to the main story; Wayward Souls has an overarching plot, but it spends so much of the early game being mysterious that endgame events can feel like an info dump.

You’ll often stumble across ghostly visions of the past, and while this could be a good way of communicating the history of the area and developing the main story’s characters, they instead babble about terminology that’s either irrelevant or lacking enough details to explain anything. The only way of piecing together how it all fits together is to be lucky enough to have Wayward Souls‘ procedural generation spawn books with information between you and the exit. It’s not ideal.

By the time your chosen character’s story begins to run up against the main story’s characters (which usually results in them ignoring important details in favor of the single-minded pursuit that led them to the tower in the first place), there’s a sense of disconnectedness that undermines Wayward Souls. You’re not driving a story forward so much as having it lobbed clumsily at your face until you’re unable to care anymore. The story should be a selling point, but it’s easily ignored instead.

Slow movement and the absence of a dodge make Wayward Souls awkward

Wayward Souls‘ gameplay loop is remarkably simple—you select an adventurer, spend what little gold you’ve earned to upgrade their stats an imperceptible amount (with this being the only permanent improvement to characters between runs), and then select a dungeon to run. These procedurally generated dungeons can last anywhere from 5 floors to 21, and the shorter early ones can be enjoyable enough. Beating a dungeon unlocks the next one, whereas dying sends you back to the menu with any gold you acquired to try again. Unfortunately, Wayward Souls is a game about throwing yourself at a wall until the procedural generation gives you an easy dungeon or you fail for enough hours to afford upgrades.

For one thing, your movement speed is incredibly sluggish. That wouldn’t be a problem on its own, but most characters don’t have a dodge move, and those that do can’t use it often enough thanks to its prohibitive stamina use. The only reliable method of avoiding attacks at your disposal is to walk around them slowly, and even that’s stretching the word “reliable” to its breaking point. Enemies are capable of turning on a dime to hit you, after all, and even when they don’t, rooms with elaborate floor tiles and/or magic effects will block the subtle sprite changes that serve as Wayward Souls‘ attack cues.

I could forgive all of this if you could run past enemies like in Children of Morta to regain progress lost to a death or escape a bad situation, but Wayward Souls always closes you in rooms until you’ve defeated every last enemy, and that’s the root of the problem: this is a combat-heavy game with awful combat.

Everything from the economy to the levels seems designed to waste time

You can make between 4,000 and 6,000 gold on a successful 20-floor run, depending on how much time you waste destroying objects in the hope of money dropping. If you die before that point (which is likely), though, you’ll make considerably less, which is embarrassing when you consider that 6,000 gold pieces aren’t enough to upgrade a single passive on a single character fully, and there are 8 of these that can be upgraded. They don’t make anywhere near the kind of difference their expensiveness warrants, sadly, offering slightly more health at fountains or an increased critical hit rate. The eighth and final upgrade applies to all characters and can be useful for that reason, but unlocking it requires first unlocking everything else, and that’s just not going to happen unless you don’t own any other games. Wayward Souls is determined to become your job.

If you’re like me, however, you’ll find the thought of slowly grinding out enough money over hundreds of runs appalling and use Cheat Engine to hack in infinite money. If Wayward Souls isn’t going to be fair about its economy, neither am I.

The levels in this game are an indictment of procedural generation. The goal is to move to the next floor down, but whether the staircase spawns next to you or 10 rooms of cheap enemy mobs away is left entirely up to the randomizer. The same goes for pets (which confer minor bonuses), upgrade forges (which provide bonuses to your weapon that expire after your run), healing fountains, and healing potions.

It’s possible to go 45 minutes without a single healing potion, and healing fountains can likewise be missed. The game used to heal you at staircases, but now you have to waste even more time exploring, and while I liked the change at first, it ends up being yet another opportunity to pad out dungeons.

Issues aside, I do have a fondness for Wayward Souls‘ visuals and music

The destructibility of almost every object is every bit as entertaining now as it was 5 years ago, while the art has stood the test of time—which is one major positive of sprite art—and retained every ounce of charm it had when it originally came out. That having been said, the floor sprites can get so busy in certain areas that it’s hard to read enemies, and that’s assuming that the chaotic mass of overlapping enemies could be read in the first place. The art looks good, but there’s no denying that it also has a negative impact on the gameplay by making it difficult to tell what’s happening when things get busy. Wayward Souls‘ soundtrack, meanwhile, is split 50/50 between tracks that I couldn’t recall if you put a gun to my head and those that end up being surprisingly melodic and memorable. The visuals and music aren’t perfect, but they do buoy the experience.

Story: 1/3 Gameplay: 1/3 Visuals: 1.5/2 Music: 1.5/2 ★★★★★★☆☆☆☆ – 5/10
*Click here and scroll to the bottom for a detailed explanation of what these numbers mean

Wayward Souls Review Screenshots (PC)

*A Steam key was provided for this Wayward Souls review. If you don’t cheat, expect to lose a hundred hours repeating the same levels before you reach the unsatisfying ending.

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