Young Souls

I have a soft spot for small studios that refuse to act small, and 1P2P is exactly that kind of outfit. Two developers. One game. A side-scrolling brawler threaded through with enough RPG DNA to make loot hoarders feel right at home. Young Souls drops orphaned twins Jenn and Tristan into a goblin underworld after their eccentric foster father vanishes, and what follows is roughly ten hours of dungeon crawling, gear juggling, and surprisingly sharp banter. The setup has a quiet Twin Peaks-ish charm to it: a sleepy port town on the surface, a sprawling subterranean goblin realm beneath, connected by a Moon Gate portal that becomes the axis of everything. The combat is where the game earns its keep, and it asks more of you than the cute art style implies. Stamina is finite and tied directly to your dodge, so you cannot simply roll through every attack and wait for an opening. Parrying is central, rewarded with a slow-motion flash that feels genuinely satisfying when timed right. Light attacks, heavy attacks, a hold-for-charge option, and a mana-gated special move round out the action. Weapon choice shapes each twin's entire rhythm: greatswords play sluggish and punishing, dual daggers reward speed and positioning, and the weight of every piece of armor you equip slows your character in measurable ways. You can build Jenn as a quick, fragile skirmisher and kit Tristan as a slow tank to compensate, or flip those roles entirely. Over twenty bosses gate your progress through four dungeon biomes, and unlike the standard enemies, bosses demand pattern recognition rather than button pressure. Solo players swap between the twins freely mid-fight, which keeps the single-player experience from ever feeling like a compromise. The loot system is the engine underneath all of this. Enemies drop weapons, armor, crafting materials, and currency at a generous rate. Set armor bonuses scale with matched pieces, crafting lets you push rarer gear through multiple upgrade tiers, and two separate currencies, one human-side and one goblin-side, keep the merchant economy interesting. The hub town between runs offers a gym where short button-press minigames nudge your base stats upward, though most reviewers and players agree those minigames feel like busywork by the third or fourth visit. The town itself has charm it cannot quite follow through on; it exudes personality but lacks the density of side content that would make it memorable. The story, similarly, opens with real intrigue around the twins and their missing guardian, then settles into a quieter rhythm where major beats only surface after boss fights. The dialogue stays funny and snappy throughout, with a profanity filter available if you're sharing the couch with younger players. Visually, this is one of the more striking things a two-person team has shipped. The art direction layers vivid 2D characters over three-dimensional environments, and the color work in the goblin realm is legitimately lovely to look at for the whole runtime. The soundtrack is serviceable and atmospheric, leaning into vaguely menacing tones that suit the underworld setting, but it does not leave a residue the way a truly considered indie soundscape can. The absence of voice acting is noticeable, and given how much personality Jenn and Tristan have on paper, it is the one place where the budget shows. Co-op is local only on PC, and some players report camera tracking issues when both twins drift apart, so solo with twin-swapping is arguably the cleaner experience. Accessibility options let you dial difficulty at any point, which is a thoughtful touch that widens the audience without softening the game for those who want the challenge.

Kai · Scout Team

Indie & narrative

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