Crossing Souls

Crossing Souls is a top-down action-adventure set in 1986 California, where five kids stumble across an artifact in the woods that lets the living see and interact with the dead. If that premise immediately conjures E.T., The Goonies, and maybe a dash of Stranger Things, that is entirely intentional. Fourattic built this game as an explicit tribute to that era of storytelling, and the sincerity of that affection comes through in almost every frame. The pixel art is generous and expressive, the soundtrack leans on synth and guitar in ways that feel period-accurate without becoming parody, and the opening stretch of the game has a quietly confident patience to it that a lot of action titles would never risk. Each of the five main characters handles differently. Chris is your balanced brawler. Matt is the tank with slower movement. Charlie brings a skateboard and speed. Kevin is the youngest and leans on long-range gadgets. Big Joe, unlocked later, hits hard and slow. The game switches between them depending on the scene, and some puzzle sections require you to flip between the living and spirit planes using the artifact. That mechanic is the narrative heart of the whole thing, and when it clicks, the world-layering feels genuinely clever. The brawling itself is serviceable, occasionally repetitive, and the difficulty can spike awkwardly in boss encounters that expect a level of precision the controls do not always deliver cleanly. The pacing is where opinions split. The first hour is almost entirely mood-building, dialogue, and setup. Some players bounced off it expecting tighter action. I think that opening earns itself by the midpoint, when the stakes get darker and the story shifts into territory with genuine emotional weight. Fourattic is a small studio and the ambition here outpaces the execution in places, but the handcraft is visible throughout. Cutscenes are done in an animated style that mimics VHS-era Saturday morning cartoons, and they are charming enough that you actually want to see them. The writing has warmth without being saccharine, and the friendships between the kids feel lived-in rather than convenient. Where the game stumbles is in its second half, where combat sections stretch longer than the ideas supporting them, and a few traversal puzzles rely on trial-and-error more than logic. The mixed Steam score is honest about this. It is not a tight, well-oiled machine. It is closer to a passion project that hit most of its targets and missed a few it could not afford to. At its runtime of roughly six to eight hours, it does not overstay its welcome, and the ending lands with the kind of bittersweet note that suggests Fourattic knew exactly what kind of story they wanted to tell, even when the systems around it wobbled. If you grew up watching kids-on-bikes films and want a game that treats that aesthetic as something worth honoring rather than just monetizing, Crossing Souls delivers that feeling in a way very few games attempt. It is for patient players who respond to atmosphere, hand-drawn craft, and character-driven writing. Genre-first players looking for a tight brawler or a challenging action game will find the seams more frustrating.

Kai · Scout Team

Indie & narrative

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