Mixing two types of game can work out very well, as Soulcaster II proves by combining the overhead dungeon crawl of Gauntlet with a character who can’t directly fight back against the monster hordes. "How do you even play something like that," one might ask, and the answer is an interesting one: You summon various heroes to fight for you; the key to victory lies in learning their strengths and picking the right locations to use them at. Combined with a great soundtrack and convincing retro-style graphics, Soulcaster II does a lot to earn its price.
Each stage presents you with two goals: Don’t die, and kill all (or sometimes just ’most of’) the monsters in order to unlock the exit to the next stage. Since your character can’t fight, you have to pick between several heroes to do it for you; one has a lot of health and is suited to holding bottlenecks, another has a long-range bow but has to have clear firing lines to attack, and a third can throw what amount to molotov cocktails to hurt large groups of enemies but is in turn extremely easy to kill if unprotected. Which ones you need to use, and where, changes depending on the specific stage you’re on so there will always be some differences in each fight even if some general principles always apply.
You also have to gather loot found these stages, since they provide both money to use at shops as well as healing potions and scrolls that act like panic bombs in arcade-style shooters. While the scrolls and potions just help to keep you alive, shopping is a little more fun since you can visit merchants and buy upgrades for your summoned heroes. They mostly fall along typical lines of increasing attack power, speed, durability, range, and so on, though a few special upgrades can be had later on as well. This process of killing, looting, and moving onto the next level to repeat the cycle may be simple, but it’s fun; getting improved abilities serves as a way for the game to reward your efforts before presenting you with an even greater challenge.
Soulcaster 2’s presentation is also noteworthy. The visuals intentionally hail back to the NES-era, which works in the game’s favor since there are a ton of monsters on the screen in some stages and the simple graphics are both charming and help keep the action easy to follow. The music is just as noteworthy however, consisting of a mix of metal and ’deep epic’ tunes with a feel that is similar to many SNES classics; it’s good enough that the developer offers the game’s soundtrack for sale and people have been taking him up on it. The graphics and sound work together to be convincingly retro, and Soulcaster 2 is all the more charming for it.
While the game has some minor flaws, such as using an old-style password system (though it can ’quick save’ one password for ease of use) and a few stages whose major gimmicks aren’t immediately intuitive, Soulcaster 2 is on the whole a great game. It does far more right than wrong, and its $3 USD/240 Microsoft Point cost is pretty generous for how much fun you’ll have. While it could be summarized as "more of what made the original Soulcaster great, with some polish and fine tuning this time around", that’s not a bad thing; fans of the original will almost certainly enjoy this and newcomers will probably have a lot of fun too.
