I’ve gushed a lot about Tormented Souls on this site, and I’m back with yet another aspect of it that I think fans of classic survival horror titles like Resident Evil and Silent Hill will enjoy. The puzzles. In the past, puzzles have forced you to really think about what an item could be used for, such as the wax that you need to melt in Silent Hill 2. No one solved that by themselves, I’m telling you that right now. Tormented Souls isn’t quite as obtuse, but every puzzle does have an angle to it that makes you reconsider your initial solution, forcing you to try something else whilst also making you feel smart.
For example, one of the early puzzles requires you to get an item out of a dead person’s hand. Rigor mortise has set in, so you can’t pry it out. Instead, you have to find a plastic heart, cut into two halves, enter a mirror world, put the heart into a doll, come back to the real world, and then shock the corpse to get it to relinquish the item. It’s a crazy puzzle that you don’t even realize is possible to solve until you discover the mirror world.
Another puzzle requires you to get a door knocker to get into a room. However, you can’t just knock to enter, you need a specific combination. You find this combination by using a stethoscope on a sculpture elsewhere in the game’s mansion. It’s a totally insane puzzle to read about, but it feels fantastic while you’re playing the game. I absolutely loved it.
There are puzzles later in the game that you think you’ve cracked in one go. However, when it comes to solving them, you realize that you’ve forgotten about one key component, and need to go back and slightly tweak your solution. It’s a great way of reminding players that they’re not the smartest people in the room, but giving them enough that their time feels valuable. If you haven’t tried the game yet, I don’t know what you’ve been doing with your time. Get on it and enjoy the survival horror revival that is Tormented Souls.