Alright, so this review took me longer than it should have. You really shouldn ‘t experiment with multiple machine syncing when you ‘re reviewing what is essentially an RPG. I was about a quarter through the game and I ended up destroying my save file by syncing all my applications all over again. Ugh!
In any case, I ‘m back on track now and ready to give you fine folk the heads-up on Soul Trapper for the iPhone. This one ‘s pretty different from any other title we ‘ve seen on the App Store, as it ‘s a fully voice-driven adventure with very little graphical input. But is it any fun? Or is it more of an interactive audio book?
Find out after the jump!
It’s kinda funny that all the iPhone games I’ve reviewed so far have been pretty minimal in terms of story. They’ve got one going in the background, but the gameplay is what really drives you and keeps you playing. Soul Trapper takes this idea and flips it on its head: you’ll listen to a lot more story with bits of gameplay serving only to advance the tale. There will be many times where interactivity takes a back seat to narration — it’s called an “audio adventure” for a reason 🙂
The story revolves around Kane Pryce and his battle against the supernatural forces of the world. He’s just an everyday guy (think Sam + Dean from the TV show Supernatural), but oh yeah, he captures ghosts with something called a Soul Trap. I’m actually not sure how the thing looks, but it seems to function a lot like the Ghostbusters ‘ weapons. You aim the Soul Trap at a ghost, suck it up, and it gets locked in a box. The twist here is that you then have to go into the trap and convince the ghost to move on (walk towards the light!).
The first couple of chapters (there are 23 in total) introduce you to Kane and his day-to-day life, and you actually start the game off in a burning barn. But that’s just the frying pan, folks “ you haven ‘t seen fire yet. I really enjoyed the story and there was an interesting little twist at the ending that ended up being quite touching. The game is touted as Episode 1, but Realtime Associates didn’t finish with an ‘to be continued ‘ ending. I really appreciated this, since I like having concrete endings to my digital adventures (audio or not).
So that’s the story, but what about gameplay? The idea behind the whole experience is actually quite simple, and so are the controls. You use sound to navigate and bypass the various obstacles in the game, so you have to make sure you’re wearing your earphones correctly so that each speaker is in the corresponding ear. The voice acting is fantastic all around, and the sounds and the music come through very nicely in stereo. It’s very easy to tell which direction a sound is coming from, and it’s also easy to differentiate different sounds when several are playing at once (which is important for the gameplay).
Kane and his associates serve to narrate the story, and they’ll be the ones to explain what you need to do for any particular challenge. Navigating the levels is easy, with Kane telling you which direction a particular room lies in accordance with one of the green arrows on screen (and there ‘s a map button if you don ‘t remember).
Onto the obstacles: one of the most common ones in the game is slowing your pulse to enter the Soul Trap. The idea is you have to enter a meditative state to send your soul into it. You’ll hear a heart beat every few seconds and you’ll need to press a button on-screen in time with it. The instructions for these puzzles are sometimes said only once, so you really have to make sure you’re listening. Other situations have you listening for the sound of an incoming blow so you can parry in the correct direction, listening for demonic laughter to chase its source down, or navigating a beach with a metal detector. These mini games usually don’t involve more than four or five buttons on the screen at any one time, but they’re also not as interactive as the rest of they could be. There are a lot of different mini games, but the interfaces are always the same: iPhone home screen buttons arranged around the screen.
They can also stretch on for a little too long. Some activities, like following the demonic laughter, lasted for about 40 seconds. Others, like parrying blows with a sword, forced me to parry four or five blows in a row to complete one sequence. When I finished that I listened to a bit of story, and then had to complete three or four more sequences. I’d have preferred to do each sequence in the game 1-3 times and be done with them, but anything more than that felt a bit repetitive.
The game is pretty much bug-free, so once you’ve got the rhythm of each challenge down you can be pretty sure the game will function properly.I only experienced one bug where I lost audio about 75% of the way into a chapter and had to restart it.
Although it only occurred once (the bug), it did highlight something that I could have used more of: visual feedback. The heartbeat sequence, for example, gives you no feedback aside from a voice telling you you’re halfway done with the sequence. It wouldn’t be realistic, but I think some sort of on-screen meter, or more audio and visual cues to tell me if I was actually doing things right would have helped a lot. As it is, there’s no clear indication as to whether you’re hitting the heart button at the right time, or if you’re doing it all wrong.
Overall, the game took me at least three hours to complete (which matches what they claim on the website). But it actually took me a lot longer because of my aforementioned saved game nuke (my fault!) and the way that the game save system works. There are 23 chapters in the game, and you can only save upon reaching a new chapter. But the game doesn’t save automatically: you have to hit the menu button and quit to the main menu, or you’ll lose all your progress since your last save. I learned this very early on after quitting the game to reply to an SMS, but it was something I never quite got used to and so I lost a lot of progress due to forgetfulness. I definitely think some sort of checkpoint feature within each chapter would help the game along a lot more, especially since this is something we’re supposed to be able to play on-the-go. Bus rides don’t always end at the same time as chapters, but the chapters should be flexible enough to accommodate the bus schedule.
Soul Trapper is a great idea for a game and has an engaging story to support the whole experience, but I feel it is ultimately held back by its core concept. The audio component is very rich throughout the story, but there is very little visual variation: there is only one background image per chapter, and considering how much is packed into certain chapters, more would certainly have enriched the experience. The game is pretty good value at the normal price of $9.99, but you can actually snap the game up for a deal at $6.99 right now. Soul Trapper is a refreshing change of pace from all the casual games available on the App Store, but I think it could be a lot more if it catered more to the iPhone’s graphical capability and touch capabilities.
You can check out the app in the store here, or the developer site here.
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