Retro Achievement Mastery 112 - Soul Void Redux

My first mastery since Cohost closed, and also my first mastery in two weeks, since I went so extremely hard on UFO 50. But I’m back. It’s the spoop month, so what better month to work on some spoopy games?

Soul Void Redux is a remaster of a sort of the game Soul Void, a free homebrew horror Gameboy game by artist Kadabura. It’s a bit of a walking simulator, with only EXTREMELY light gameplay beyond walking around and talking to things. I’m talkin’ avoiding enemies that walk across the screen in simple patterns in like, 3 different screens simple. It’s not about the gameplay. To me, this game is art more than a game. It’s about the art, the style, and the emotions that it can bring out with its story and dialogue.

Soul Void is a psychological horror game. You play an unnamed character, only referred to as “Girlie” or “Outsider” by others. You have fallen to somewhere called the void, where lost souls go instead of moving on to the next part in their journey. No one knows why, but they’re stuck here, and as they last longer and longer here, their anxieties, worries, and fears begin to eat away at them, and they start to lose themselves to it. The game is about those anxieties and fears, and how they are not the end, and they don’t have to control us.

You play a character who you see very little insight into, except for a few things that show that she is mentally not okay, and is extremely depressed, anxiety ridden, and barely able to function, and yet she takes time out of her day to help others instead of herself. And that’s what you do. You travel this world, finding people in varying stages of body horror as they devolve into their base emotions and fears, and you try to help them through it. You find a being who’s created a “factory”, because if they’re not doing something or working hard, SOMETHING is wrong, and they WILL explode. Of course, that’s not true, and they know it, but it’s the only way to keep them from freaking out. You need to help them walk away.

While the game is extremely dark, as it explores and discusses the most dark things that we can do in our psychosis, it is also very optimistic and warm, in that it’s about overcoming those things, and moving past them. Helping ourselves, as well as others. It’s extremely good. And the art is FANTASTIC. I really can’t stress that enough. The art is dark but beautiful, and very interesting. It is, of course, horror. Body horror is everywhere. But it’s intriguing in its morbidity. And the music is quite good too, very dark and fitting. Almost industrtial, in parts, coming out of my gamed boy.

Soul Void is a game that kind of wears its influences on its sleeve. Literally, there is a room that is just references to games the creator likes and is influenced by. Which is cool! Does it deserve to stand alongside these greats like Off, Undertale, and Yume Niki? I mean, I thought it was extremely good, and for a free game, it’s worth your time. It’s not long, so if you’ve got an hour or two to spend, it might make you think for a bit about how you handle yourself. Also the dialogue is quite good and shockingly funny at points, for a game about suicidal anxiety ridden people.