Wayward Souls

I went in expecting a competent little roguelite and came out genuinely moved by a story I had no business caring about mid-permadeath loop. Wayward Souls started life on iOS in 2014, earned TouchArcade's Game of the Year, and quietly arrived on PC in 2019 with a Paladin update and extra content that makes this the definitive version. The highest compliment I can pay it: the story bits made me stop running and just read. Each of the seven classes - Warrior, Mage, Rogue, Adventurer, Spellsword, Cultist, and the unlock-gated Paladin - carries their own cutscenes and their own reason for being inside the cursed tower of Baron Amaranth. A Rogue sent for loot who finds her old partner-in-crime. An Adventurer haunted by literal shadows. A Cultist whose blind-and-fade ability set feels almost like cheating until the enemy variety forces you to use every tool you have. The lore lands because it arrives in quiet moments between rooms rather than in cutscene dumps, and the ghostly atmospheric scenes tracing the land's tragic history are legitimately captivating. Mechanically this sits somewhere between a top-down Zelda: A Link to the Past and the kind of roguelike that will kill you thirty times before you understand why you deserved it. Every room locks on entry - clear all enemies to proceed - and combat is built on basic attacks, rechargeable power attacks, and consumable items, with positioning and timing doing most of the heavy lifting. The Warrior's slow greatsword and blockable shield will carry newcomers; the Rogue's backstab-dependent, dash-reliant playstyle is the game's skill ceiling made visible. Ember Forges scatter through each run and let you reshape your weapon and gear in ways that meaningfully alter feel - a Mage who grabs ice and fire staves plays completely differently from one who doesn't. The permanent meta-progression runs on coins retained through death, spent on incremental stat upgrades per character, which some players find a little thin (raising crit chance by 3% per purchase is not quite Path of Exile), but it's enough to keep the wheel turning through early deaths. The OST by Joey Grady spans 22 tracks and deserves a mention on its own. Haunting where it needs to be, and quietly soothing in others - the kind of small-studio soundtrack that you notice is doing emotional work without drawing attention to itself. Fourteen area types across the Mines, Tower, Catacomb, Labyrinth, and Amaranth Keep each carry their own monster rosters and atmosphere, and the procedural generation keeps room layouts and enemy placement fresh across repeated runs. That said, players who have logged deep hours in Spelunky, Enter the Gungeon, or Rogue Legacy may find the variance a little narrower than those titles. This is a smaller, quieter, more handcrafted-feeling game - and in the PC version, controller support makes everything click in a way the original mobile controls never quite could. The weaknesses are real but minor. The upgrade system feels underspecified - tooltips are stingy with information and some upgrades are opaque until you die learning them. Healing is almost nonexistent mid-run, putting enormous pressure on the small floor-end recovery tick, and if you are expecting the faster kinetic pace of a modern roguelite, Wayward Souls will feel measured. But if you are someone who will defend a slow opening when the payoff justifies it, this is your game. It knows what it is: a 16-bit dungeon story about seven lost souls and the thing waiting at the top of a very dark tower. It earns its ending. Kai, Scout Team

Valve rates this game Steam Deck Playable.

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